No More Excuses
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Today we’re looking at an interesting encounter with a man that we’re only told is an invalid, that’s all we know about his past, and his future. Let’s pray and dive into John’s Gospel to learn what we can from this man’s encounter with Jesus.
[PRAYER]
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, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Now before we get started I want to point out something that you may have noticed or you may have missed it. If you’ve grown up with this account from John’s Gospel, you may feel like something missing. Let’s take a closer look at vs. 4...
In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Oh, wait a minute, it’s missing.
This is because though many old manuscripts do contain the verse, the oldest manuscripts we have do not. It was likely an addition to what John had written. Here it is in the King James
For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
But if we look at more recent translations:
ESV
NIV
NRSV
Now some people will cry out - see the Bible is “unreliable!” Actually, I believe it shows how reliable our Scriptures are. You see the more of the older manuscripts archaeologists the closer we get to what was actually written. I’m personally fascinated by these discoveries and the one that is probably most famous is that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Though these scrolls dealt with the Old Testament, they illustrate the integrity and the protection of God’s word over the centuries.
Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea Scrolls
Until 1947, the oldest complete Hebrew manuscripts we had of the Old Testament were from AD 900 on. So questions of the accuracy were always rising up. Did the text we had from that time accurately reflect what the Hebrew writers first wrote?
In March of 1947 a shepherd a Bedouin shepherd boy named Muhammad was searching for a lost goat. He tossed stone into a hole in a cliff on the west side of the Dead Sea, about eight miles south of Jericho. To his surprise he heard the sound of shattering pottery. Investigating, he discovered an amazing sight. On the floor of the cave were several large jars containing leather scrolls, wrapped in linen cloth. Because the jars were carefully sealed, the scrolls had been preserved in excellent condition for nearly 1900 years. (They were evidently placed there in A.D. 68.)
Earle, Ralph. How We Got Our Bible. Grand Rapids: Bake Book House, ©1971, p. 48-49 - as quoted by Josh McDowell in The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 78
Now, this is where this gets really exciting for me. After studying the scrolls, which have been dated to having been made about 125 BC - almost 200 years before they were placed in that cave. Here’s an example of how accurate they were:
Of the 166 words in Isaiah 3 there are only 17 letters in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word “light,” which is added in verse 11 and does not affect the meaning greatly…Thus in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission — and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage.
Burrows, as quoted by Josh McDowell in The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 78-79
When it comes down to it, we are actually more sure in what these 40 different authors wrote in this book than we are of what William Shakespeare wrote a mere 500 years ago in our own language!
Isn’t that amazing?!
This concludes our commercial supporting biblical accuracy, now back to our previously scheduled sermon...
Characters in this passage
Characters in this passage
Let’s look at the characters in this passage:
Invalid
He’s been an invalid for 38 years.
He’s been there at the pool for a long time.
He does not answer Jesus’ question in the present, but in the past.
Once healed he does as Jesus commands by taking up his bed and walking
He’s at the temple.
Jesus
Encounters the man and already knew he’d been there a long time.
Asks the man, “Do you want to be healed?”
Despite no answer but rather an excuse, Jesus heals him.
Commands the man to take up his bed and walk
It was the Sabbath
“Sin no more.”
Jews
Not specifically identified
Upset that man was carrying his bed on the Sabbath
Did not know who had healed the man
Persecuting Jesus for healing on the Sabbath
Seeking to kill him for breaking the Sabbath
What do we learn?
What do we learn?
From the invalid
Be honest - “do you want to be healed?”
No excuses
Do what Jesus asks
From Jesus
Compassion - he healed the man
Obedience to His authority
Jews
Upset about others violating the Sabbath
On Sabbath they’re seeking to kill Jesus
Do not recognize Jesus as God
Application
Application
The past two weeks we’ve learned from individuals that didn’t focus on what Jesus was asking of them. Do you?
Are you listening to what Jesus asks of you?
Are you sitting in judgment over someone else and not seeing your own sinfulness like the Jews upset that the man and Jesus were “working” on the Sabbath but not seeing their own sin of seeking to kill (much less on the same day!).