Jesus Christ - Compassionate And Controversial - [John 5:1-30]

Good morning everyone. It's a beautiful morning to be out here and worship our

Lord. Yes This morning

I want to pick a passage from John chapter 5 and we are going to look at a

Certain event in the life of Jesus and the teaching that he gives Following this event but To begin with today's class is not as interactive as I would like to be because just the nature of the

Material we have here in the text but I want to begin with a Thought and to develop it further.

So I'm gonna say a word So I'm just kind of prepping you up for it And when you hear this word

I want you to be able to think of be able to tell me what's the first thought that comes into your mind?

Am I too loud? So I'm gonna say a word and you probably will have a series of thoughts that come into your mind

Just try to catch the first one that comes and I'll ask a few questions to set the stage as we get into the text so the word that I have to say is

Jesus Christ All right so How many of you?

Let me just ask questions out. What was the first thought that came into your mind when I said Jesus Christ Redemption Savior Messiah Glorified Holy Excellent.

I mean you you've seen I've heard a number of different words talking about the work of Christ about the person of Christ in terms of who he is as God and The two things that I was looking for which

I was pretty sure I wouldn't get but you you kind of gave me the terms That I could in my prerogative classify into these two groups

One of them is the deity of Christ, you know When we think of Jesus Christ, we think of him as God and some of the attributes that you provided Holy Savior all into that category and the other category that we sometimes

I think don't Spend that's much time meditating and understanding is the humanity and the

Close relationship that we have with Jesus as the man The perfect man and in today's passage we're going to see both of these aspects brought together in a in a very beautiful way because this is one of those passages where Jesus is revealed to the people of Israel as God and he begins by An act of compassion we are going to see an event in verses 1 through 15 where Jesus as a quintessential and understands the problems of man and reaches out to man in his suffering and empathizes with compassion and In verses 16 through 30, we are going to look at Jesus teaching

About who he is as God himself and we're going to look at those two aspects of this actually

John chapter 5 as a whole if I had time we would have tried to cover together, but Verses 31 to 47 talk about the testimony to Jesus Christ and Lord willing.

We will do that another day So today we're going to look at two things an event in the life of Christ where Jesus is going to heal someone and then we're going to look at the teaching that follows this healing where Jesus talks about who he is as God himself and We are going to be looking at various applications as we study and walk through these verses

But the but the big question that you want to be asking yourself is You know, do I really understand who this

Jesus Christ is? do I really understands the excellencies of this

Christ that I have been saved by and How is it to impact my life and when we do that We will realize that we will be able to speak of the excellencies of Christ With even more fervor and with even more joy

So with that, let's get straight into our text what I'll be doing is we're going to look at a few verses at a time and Study the passage and then look at what this means to us and I will give you some applications as we go along So we'll begin with John chapter 5 verses 1 to 3

After these things there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool which is called in Hebrew Bethesda having five porticoes

In these lay a multitude of those who were sick blind lame and withered

We'll stop right there. This is gives us the background of this event that we are going to study What was going on when

Jesus enters the scene? in verse 1 we read that this is a feast of the

Jews and this is actually the only feast which is not named in the Gospel of John and Looking at the various events that John covers some of the commentators think that this may be the feast of tabernacles

That Jesus is coming here to worship It's one of those three festivals that the

Jews in Israel would come down to Jerusalem to worship. So that may be the feast that John is recording for us here

And again, the main point of this thing is that Jesus used to come very frequently to Jerusalem And this is one of those feasts that he comes to Jerusalem This place the sheep gate a pool as you know in Jerusalem, this is if you look at Jerusalem Am I moving around it too much?

Probably that's why I'll try to not shake too much If you look at a map of Jerusalem this place would be in the north east side of Jerusalem just across outside the wall and this this part this pool

Bethesda in fact Early on there were people disputing this place. They read this verse and said, oh look the

Bible must be wrong You know, there's no other evidence that there was anything called Bethesda Of course Then they had the dead dead sea scrolls and they had the copper scroll that actually talks about this and of course everybody then changes their mind that the

Bible is right in this instance and Of course, we know that the Bible is inspired and this is the basis on which we believe we don't need any external things to believe what the

Bible says, but this was this is in the northeast corner of Jerusalem and What we find here is this place was

It actually it had two pools And if the pool right now in Jerusalem those of you who gone

I might have seen it it's called the pool of st. Anne and there are two pools covered with these kind of colonnades and And this is used to be a place where the invalids used to gather and it actually says here a

Multitude of invalids a lot of people who are sick and lame used to gather around this pool

Now what you see here in the background is a place of need a place where there's a lot of people there's suffering there is people who are

Sick They are gathered in this place where? They were there for a purpose.

We will see why in a few minutes, but If you let's now continue to see what Jesus does when he comes into this situation

We'll pick up with verse 5 and we'll come back to verse 4 in a minute I'll read from verse 5 to 9 a

Man was there who had been ill for 38 years When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition

He said to him do you wish to get well? The sick man answered him

Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming up Another steps down before me

Jesus said to him get up pick up your pallet and walk

Immediately the man became well and picked up his pallet and began to walk

We have one man in verse 5 if you look back at verse 3 you have a multitude of people who are sick and Jesus finds out this one person who has been sick for 38 years a very long period of time and Moved with compassion

Jesus goes down straight to that person and he asks do you want a wish to be healed?

There's something that I want us to think about here for a minute before we get into the healing itself

We all know you know, this is the time where Jesus is being revealed So the people of Israel did not really know who

Jesus was Jesus is coming into the scene He's actually going to perform a miracle and in the process reveal who he is as the

Son of God But for us looking back 2 ,000 years ago, we know Jesus was God Couldn't he have you know just by divination?

Divine fiat just healed everybody there. I mean there was a lot of people the verse says here Could he have?

Yes, he had the power to do it, but we see the purpose of God Coming down on an individual and he chooses one person in fact by the description of the person that is given here looks like this one this person was

One of those extreme cases and he has been there for a very very long time. He has he's an invalid

It doesn't really tell us what his illness was He probably was paralyzed or he couldn't use his legs

Because he goes on to say that he has difficulty getting to the pool when the water is stirred but God or Jesus here moved with compassion for one person goes down and heals him and we see the purpose of God in Reaching out to the person that he chooses to heal

And Jesus approaches this person in fact in most of the events that you will see in John you will see and Through the

Gospels you will see Jesus approaching the people that he wants to heal and there are a few instances where it is

The other way around but for the most part Jesus approaches the person that he's going to heal and he asks him a question now

To us it may sound a little odd, you know, Jesus is asking him. Do you want to get well? Can you think of any reason why the person may say no?

We have to go back into their culture to kind of realize what actually is going on here So this man has been ill for 38 years.

And in fact, even in in in India you have The circumstance I'm sure in a smaller scale we will find this around in the

US also where? Especially in this culture you had people who were

Sick and unable to work and people who were poor and it was the responsibility of the rest of the people to you know

Give arms and give them money while they were in there in their illness

So to this man, it is quite possible, you know having been 38 years not having worked receiving the arms that he had this could have been a

Pretty comfortable What do they call return on investment? you know you you're really not doing any work and you probably are able to support yourself with the arms that you have and So there might be this

Situation where you are actually Pretty comfortable even though you know to the rest of the world

It may look like this is this is something that needs to be taken care of but Jesus comes down He asks him.

Do you want to get well and The man's response is actually quite ambiguous. He doesn't say yes

He doesn't say no, but he tells something that he used to do and that takes us back to verse 4

What he says is he is trying to get into the pool that's this pool around which all the invalids lay and while he's trying to get into it someone else gets before him and What he's essentially saying is there was this

Thought or this understanding that The waters when they stirred and that's where we go back to verse 4

When the waters are stirred there is something that an angel or somebody is doing which water some healing

Capacity and so if he were to somehow get into that pool at that time when it when it is stirred before Anybody else does so the first person who gets into this pool would get healed

So he tells you know, this is what I've tried but it's never worked because I'm I'm not able to walk fast enough

And actually right here. We'll take a moment to examine verse 4 most of your verses

Most of your Bible should have that either some of your Bibles won't have verse 4 and Others might have it within brackets and you will see for example in my verse it says early manuscripts do not contain the remainder of verse 3 nor verse 4 and Just a aside here to understand how our

Bible comes to us We have our English text and as many of you know, this comes from The New Testament was written in which language

Greek and as many of you will also know we don't have one Greek text that was written

By the original authors which are translated into this English version

So what we have are many manuscripts in the in the of the originals that were written at the end the first century ad and Those copies of those originals are what we have and so there are

Quite a large volume of manuscripts. In fact more manuscripts than any other ancient

Historical document that has ever been written both for the Old and the New Testament but specifically to the

New Testament we have categories of Manuscripts. So some of these manuscripts are much closer to the original autographs that were written so they are more reliable in terms of their

Copying of the original text into this autographs I'm sorry into these manuscripts and then over time you have more copies of these made and those are further removed in time and Also as the word spread in distance from where it was originally written

So what happens is in this particular verse? you see you don't see this verse in many of those manuscripts the early manuscripts that are very close to the original autograph and As time goes on you see some of the copies that are made they have this verse inserted and the general understanding especially on this verse is that People wanted to explain verse 7 where you have or verse yes

Verse 7 where the invalid is saying something and the general understanding of that period was verse 4

So one of the copies could have inserted this to explain why we have verse 7

So just a little aside to understand why sometimes you have verses like this which are missing

In the or not recorded in English or marked as not present in the early manuscripts so anyway, so the he he was thinking of the the thought process of that time and that was his understanding to receive healing and in fact and one other thing

I want to say is We don't take out verse 4 because that seems like a silly superstition, you know

It's not because oh that can't have been an angel, you know stirring the water and therefore somebody gets well

So we decide that couldn't be part of the Bible. No, no, no. No, that's not what we do. The Bible says

The whale swallowed Jonah We believe the whale swallowed Jonah and I think there was some other preacher who said if the

Bible says the man swallowed the whale We will believe that the man swallowed the whale. We are not here to pass judgment on the text

We take the text and we believe it But in this particular case, this is one of those things and the and the process that is used is called

Textual criticism, which is to look at the various manuscripts and understand which are the original and which were added on later

Okay, so here we come to Jesus now, so he sees the man he has compassion on him He approaches him asks him this question and although the man's

Response is ambiguous Jesus now Shows his power and in verse 8 he says three things get up take up your bed and walk

This man obviously was an invalid Incapable of getting up and that's and actually in the original you have here and I and even in the

English it is a command Jesus says get up. It's a it's an imperative It's a and when the

Son of God speaks you either This is no longer a question of option and when Jesus says get up we will find that the man actually gets healed and gets up and then there are two other things that I said one is you know, take up your bed and walk and If you think about it 38 years man has laid here in this one spot

He has been supported by this back Bed. In fact, this is not like a big bed that we think of it's more like a straw

Mat that you can roll and carry it's very light and And then he walks it's not just you know

Psychological emotional thing that just happened for a minute and then he falls back He here is able to take the thing that used to support him for 38 years carry it and walk from there

It's a healing and in fact in verse 9 we are told that the man was healed and he took up his bed and he walked

The first time I talked to someone who was a Liberal I was really really surprised how they try to interpret this verse

Can you can you just imagine what a liberal would say that Jesus did here that?

That's exactly right. I mean, that's you know, they have to come up They have to take the supernatural out and how do you do it?

so one way would be oh the guy was faking it and Jesus said get up and he said oh my my

Cover is up and I need to get up Otherwise, you know, he's going to expose me But that's not true in verse 9 the

Bible clearly says this man was healed He had a sickness and that sickness is no more

This is not psychological. This is not some gimmick But this is a full and complete healing of a man

Invalid for 38 years at that moment where Jesus says this And at the end of verse 9 we have something a little ominous marked out and it says that day was the

Sabbath and We'll start to find out why that causes problems later on So here versus 5 to 9

We've seen the event which Jesus in his compassion and his power heals a man who has been sick for 38 years

Now, let's read verses 10 through 13 Look at the consequences of this healing

So the Jews were saying to the man Permissible for you to carry your pallet

But he answered them he who made me well was the one who said to me pick up your pallet and walk

They asked him who is the man who said to you pick up your pallet and walk? But the man who was healed did not know who it was

But Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place First who are these

Jews that was? 10 talks about the

Pharisees If you think about the context everybody here is a Jew if you think of it ethnically

But John when he writes this text, especially when he uses the term the Jews and in context you can very clearly see that these are the authorities or in this particular case most likely

Pharisees who are Trying to keep the law or observe what needs to be done properly

So here when it says Jews, it's talking about the Jewish authorities that are That are trying to Establish order in this place now.

It's very interesting If you look back at verse 10 He says it says here that Jews were saying to the man who was cured and then it is a

Sabbath It's not permissible for you to carry a pallet so there are two things they observe one is the healing and the other thing is the carrying and It seems very strange that there is nothing recorded about what they thought of this man 38 years invalid who is now doing something that it's humanly impossible to do but they observe something else which seems in our mind, you know, so what you know and But but you will we will begin to see why they have that problem

And you know, they're sometimes blind to the things that are happening but they zoom in on things that to us makes no sense now

It says that it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet Can anybody guess where they are coming up coming from this not permissible to carry your pallet it is work

Work in the Sabbath. Yes So just Expand this out for me, you know, so what is the implication?

What is the Old Testament talk about? Yeah, and you you probably are thinking of Exodus 20 the

Ten Commandments Okay. Yes, that's right right you have instances in the

Old Testament where a person who was doing a task And disobeying the

Sabbath was actually killed and do you find this in I don't remember the reference but in Moses time, yes

But here there is very specifically the Jews Zoom in on this one particular event and they actually have a law that they think that this man has broken and Just just an aside, but I want us to make sure we understand this because this will help us

Understand the rest of the verses from 16 to 45 basically, what we have is there was a

Command to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy in the sense that you know This day was supposed to be different than the rest of the days you needed to you had six days to work and on the seventh day you were supposed to treat the day as Separate or different or holy to the

Lord But what had happened was through the Old Testament history You see how things were done where the people obeyed where the people disobeyed and and There are well, let me let me come back and after the

Old Testament was finished You had the people continuing to refine the scope of this law.

What does it mean not to work on the Sabbath? so these

These people are the Jewish leaders. They came up with 39 different categories of which you need to Be careful about not breaking this law and Some of it was well intentioned because if you think about the end of the

Old Testament These people are scattered everywhere else. It's not like in the Mosaic time where everybody was under in Israel under Israeli Authority and you had to know how to deal with you know

When you are in an occupied land and you were maybe forced to work seven days a week and things like that So they came up with these laws but what happened was this one of these 39 categories was carrying things during the

Sabbath and They probably used a couple of verses from the Old Testament one from Jeremiah and more likely the one from Nehemiah Any of you remember the story in Nehemiah where people were carrying things.

They were not supposed to That's that's exactly right.

He here was Nehemiah He was bringing the people I mean rebuilding the walls and bringing the consecrating the people to the

Lord Taking away the pagan practices that were there and Bringing back tithes and the

Sabbath and these people from the outside They were bringing things in and they would carry things in their donkeys and try to sell their stuff during the

Sabbath They were actually doing business and Nehemiah pretty much drew the line and said, you know, you do this once more time you're going to be in trouble and So principles there was do not work and what?

Actually the the This is called the oral law that the Jewish people developed over time was okay

Let me take that principle and then make it a lot more tighter so, you know people who don't understand the principles can just kind of Check off this list and then be sure that they have not violated

God's law. And what is that called in modern? Christian Legalism, thank you

And sadly, you know when people forget the precepts and principles of God and rather make a checklist of things to follow it

Slides down into legalism and people think that by doing certain work or in this case not doing certain work

They can keep God happy and you know, they wouldn't get killed And in this case is a classic example where this man who has been lying in this place 38 years taking a mat which on which he's been lying and then free now to go back and The interpretation of that law becomes as simple as okay, you carried something are our oral law prohibits that particular act of carrying it's not that he was doing any work with that carrying that was going on and Therefore you are in big trouble.

And so they they zoom in on him Exactly And that's precisely the point and this for us and we'll do we'll draw this application out a little bit more when we

Look at what this how we ought to live in light of what happened then but here is a very clear miraculous act of God and here was

Burden that people had the Jewish authorities had built upon the people and they would rather pick on this man

Who is doing something that he could not have otherwise done But let's continue down this passage.

So these men come and ask him. Why are you doing it? And This man and some of the commentators are a little more

Some are more charitable than others to this man and One of the common thread seems to be that And actually if you look at John 5 and compare it with John 9

You will get to see the difference in this man's response as compared to the blind man who gets healed in John 9

Here is a man and actually we Lord willing. We'll look at that one other day You may want to go back and read

John 9 to get the difference of the contrast with what John 5 this invalid does He he gets healed

Obviously he is probably you know Cannot believe what's happening to him.

But when they ask him, why are you doing this? he says, you know the man who healed me told me to do it and so they asked him who is this man who told you to do it and He doesn't even know who it was that has healed him

And obviously by this man getting up and walking there's a big crowd that's gathering you know what's going on around this guy and Jesus has slipped away in the in the process and again if you contrast this with John 9

You will see that that man knows exactly he doesn't know all about Jesus, but he can clearly say that what he did is

Supernatural and he would lift this man up higher than these people who are questioning him

But but in this particular case again, this man goes away A he does not know who

Jesus is and B. He does not even want to think about Why he is doing this act he just kind of just shifts the blame from himself to Jesus Now, let's read verses 14 and 15 afterward

Again, there's no indication of how long this was after the healing afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him behold you have become well

Do not sin anymore so that nothing worse happens to you The man went away and told the

Jews that it was Jesus who made him well As I said again in verse 14 it says afterward it doesn't specify the period of time

It could have been right after or it could have been a little while longer some of the people who are more charitable to this man think that you know, he may be going to the temple in order to given offering because of the healing that he has received and Others think you know, the pool is very close to the temple it's right just on the northern side of the temple and he's just walking around in the area when

Jesus comes and finds him and He says something very interesting here.

He says see you are well, you know, this is a healing that has been done and he is No longer an invalid and then he says sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you

And there is a connection here that Jesus makes that I think is interesting for us to get a good handle on before we move on the and the connection is between His illness and sin

What does the Bible say about sin and illness? Are they are they connected?

Are they disconnected? Are they? They are both.

In fact, if you look at John 9 Jesus very clearly says the

I'm referring to John 9 so much. I'll very quickly tell you what happens there Jesus and his disciples walking down They see this man who is blind and then the disciples ask him

Lord who sinned this man or his parents that this man was born blind because you know, he couldn't have done anything sinful

Before he was born that he became blind because he was born blind and then Jesus makes it very clear, you know

That is not the point. This man has trial Problem a sickness in his life so that the glory of God may be revealed through him and Jesus goes on to heal the man and the man

I Just get goosebumps thinking of him. He goes on to glorify God in a supernatural

Miracle that has happened in his life against all odds here are the whole, you know

Jewish authority lined up against him and he is willing to stand up for Jesus and ultimately we find that this man healed

Bows his knee to Jesus Christ But here Jesus and if you just read the verse you just cannot

Walk away from the implication the closeness between sin and Suffering in a general sense.

We all know that is true if Adam had not fallen The world would be a much better place

We would not have to deal with the kind of suffering and and sin and and the sickness and trials that we are going through at this time

And there is a general consequence to sin which all of us are very well familiar with and there is also sometimes a

Consequence to actions that are made, you know You do certain things you are going to reap certain things as a result and in this particular case and and for us, you know without going too deep into this

Subject as believers. It's not a bad thing to ask the question when you go through a trial when you go through a suffering you know, the

Bible says that the Lord chastises his own and Chastisement is not giving a candy, you know

Chastisement means that something is painful and it could be in different forms and it is always wise for us as believers to stop

Think what is happening? Is this something that you know, the Lord is teaching me through that?

I need to correct my iPhone or is this one of God's sovereign trials that he brings there is no connection to what

I have done, I need to be trusting him and walk through this and So I think it was

CS Lewis who said, you know pain is God's Loud speaker in our ears or something along those lines, you know when

God speaks through pain we really rarely can miss what he says and so there is a lesson there about sin and suffering and obviously the implication that Jesus makes here is between sin and Something worse and as you will look at the rest of the passage he is actually going to talk about Salvation because if you are not it's fine to be healed physically, but if you're not

Covered for your sins you are going to face a more serious consequence when you die and you have to face the judge

Which is Jesus Christ himself and in verse 15 we read the man went away and told the

Jews It was Jesus who had healed him very interesting We don't hear a response back to Jesus what this man says, but we are told what he does

Do you think he was witnessing to the authorities about the power and the majesty of Jesus? That's actually a very good point because the the stop sinning is is a it's a continuous present it's something that this man has been involved in that it seems

Jesus actually narrows in on a Specific thing that he is talking about and that may well be true that you know

He is just upset with what Jesus is doing and he's a Oh Who are you to judge me?

I'm gonna get you in trouble that could be the case But the implication of what Jesus says there is much broader and he will draw that out in one of the teaching that comes.

Yes that's an

In this particular case there is not Sufficient evidence to know that this man was saved but his purpose

I would totally agree with you every time He doesn't heal people just I mean there is a compassion.

There is a the heart of God as he weeps over the sin of the people and the suffering that the people have and he heals with the

Purpose that they would you receive the eternal joys not just the temporal joys but in this particular passage, it is kind of hard to infer that it actually did happen and It's possible that this man was sticking around and listening to what

Jesus teaches later on as he talks to the Jewish Authorities and may well have come to faith in Christ, but yes

Lewis that is a good example of you know, large healing and even

Yes, right

Yes. Yeah, and one other example.

Yes Karen That's exactly what I was thinking too Mm -hmm.

Yeah, so I mean I don't think this Clear example that everyone got healed but that might have been the case in this case

We don't know because the the text leaves it Especially when it talks about authority if you look at the earlier and the later half when the

Jewish authorities Confront him this man is not even registering what has happened in his life and who it is.

He has met He just says well this man told me to do it and therefore I've done it And then when Jesus comes and confronts him with his sin, he says well, you know end of the day who's going to kill me

It's not Jesus. It's these Jewish authorities They are the ones who have the power to you know, kick me out And so he says well, here's the guy that you're looking for.

You know, it's not me. So It looks like someone who has still not processed what has actually gone on in his life.

And he's just yes you know, that's that's a very

Possible explanation because you know most of us going through suffering, you know over a long period of time Can very easily get into that attitude where you know?

You know, why me God you are unjust or you know, I'm so you know

I have a situation which you know God is not in control of or something along those lines and especially when

Jesus talks to this man He is talking about something specific. He's not just talking about something general. He's saying stop sinning.

He's doing something here that You know Jesus with this divine knowledge and with his divine authority

Talks to him and you know, obviously he cannot hide from and you're right I don't think it's talking about something in general, but something what is actually going on in his life right now

Yes, and that's very true because I think

I will need to move on but I would just to wrap up this there is a Specific thing that he sees here because when the man is confronted by Jesus He knows what

Jesus is talking about and in in a sense, you know being in a Jewish culture He probably should have understood the the implications of this sin

And when Jesus talks about something worse coming to happen to you he is talking about the sin nature and you know, you really cannot escape from the consequences of The sin that is in you and you need to have that dealt with otherwise

Your consequences are going to be worse than just sitting in one place for 38 years Yeah, please

Okay, so let's kind of wrap up I I think we'll probably do the teaching on Jesus another day but Let's look at some applications here in terms of what?

We ought to do in response to what Jesus has done here now the first thing is and this is something that comes up over and over again, and I Really don't have time to deal with this in extensive

You know what? I'll skip that. We'll do this the next time. Let's look at the second thing I have which is the compassion so we looked at Jesus moved with compassion for a person in a suffering and a person in need goes down and heals him and Jesus omnisciently probably knows whether this man is going to get healed or not if he's not

God, you know still has his purpose in reaching down and touching this man in need and You know and there in in a way

The we are called to do something similar in our lives in terms of the compassion that we have for the people around us

Can you think of some? Bible verses that actually call Christians to have that kind of Compassion toward people in need that's a that's a great passage actually what

Dallas just said was Philippians 2 where the Christ's humility and actually if you think about this whole passage that should what should grip your mind here is

Jesus a full and complete a man who was also God who if he chose to like I said, he could have just Waved his hand and healed everybody else, but here he comes down Participates in the suffering that is going around around him with compassion moves and heals and Such should be our

Thought also, you know No matter where we are in station in our life that our heart should be moved for the people around us who are in Suffering and we need to do that with humility realizing that you know

God is the one who has given us whatever we have and we need to move with compassion towards those who don't

Charlie That's exact and those are imperative so there

James comes around and says well, you know If you believe Jesus and you believe that there is a

God and you don't live a life that Shows its compassion to the people around you. You are really fooling yourself great verse

Yes and That actually talks about the love that the believers have for one another and actually that's where I was going with this and we'll probably conclude with that There are many verses that talk about the love and compassion that we ought to have for fellow believers the one that really really struck me when

I studied it was 1 John 3 16 and 17 and It talks about actually let me just read that.

I know we are getting late, but we'll finish with just this application 1 John 3 16 says we know

This that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren and He there he gives the general picture, you know, that should be our attitude similar to Philippians 2

We should be willing to give our lives That's the extent to which we would go but most of us won't be called to do that when you look at verse 17

Whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him How does the love of God abide in him and that I think gets to the heart of the matter, which is?

and actually closes his heart and I think the word that use that is like stomach or Splegna it it's visceral it is, you know

You look at somebody who is a brother or sister in Christ in need and you're you just don't your stomach doesn't tighten

You just don't think you know What can I do to help my brother or sister in need? There is a problem and it says the problem is with the love of God in our hearts if God's love has transformed us has

Changed us inside out and he over and above that has blessed us with the things in this world

And we look at a brother or sister in Christ and our heart just doesn't Break a heart just doesn't you know get gripped the it shows that there is a more serious problem that we need to deal with in our heart and Just so what does that mean, you know when we think brothers and sisters in Christ I normally think of my brothers and sisters in Australia and Africa where you know, yeah

You know, I'll really pray hard on my knees for them. No, no. No, that's not what this is talking about This is talking about here, you know where you are

This is about your local body when you look at your brothers and sisters in Christ here You should be part of and that's what a body in Christ mean that's what a church a family of God means where we are in each other's lives and we can make and Show compassion in the lives of those around us and be the instrument of God in their particular

Circumstance and in fact one thing that I think we really struggle with and I struggle with this You know,

I see problems around me all the time and After a time, I just kind of get immune to problems.

It's you know, that's that's life Everybody has problems and you know, we just kind of move on we'll figure out what?

they'll find out what they need to do and I'll if I don't but I'll pray for them and In fact, if you look at this particular instance

This pool had multitudes of people all having sickness and many of them, you know may actually be there

Faking things or you know doing things just because they're getting the money there and don't really want even more out of that circumstance but Jesus here comes down with compassion and deals with this person and You know our love for God should be moved with the same kind of compassion for the people.

I really feel bad we didn't get through the rest of the passage because The event by itself doesn't convey as much as you understand who it is that did this event and if I would encourage all of you

When you go back to read John 5 1 16 through actually the rest of the passage or at least till 30 to look at who this

Jesus is and what he did and who he is and when we are gripped with the person and the power of Christ and his actions that is a model for us and The rest of the

Bible that talks about how we ought to show our compassion We would realize What a

Christian ought to be in his walk with the Lord and especially as he walks towards his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Any questions before we close?

Let's pray dear God our Heavenly Father. We thank you for Coming down to earth 2 ,000 years ago living a life that you did not have to Living a life and dying on the cross on our behalf that we may be

Restored into fellowship with you and that we may experience the love that you have for us and Lord Be able to live out that life of love here on earth that we may be

Witnesses to you in our words and in our deeds Lord even as we

Worship the rest of this morning. We just pray for your spirit to be with us a lot as we Read the scripture as we sing songs and as we hear your message

May your spirit work in us convict us changes that O Lord we would