JOHN 5:1-16
GRACE
Life of Christ #17
Lillie Baltrip is (was) a good bus driver. In fact, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of June 17, 1988, the Houston school district nominated her for a safe-driving award. Her colleagues even trusted her to drive a busload of them to an awards ceremony for safe drivers. Unfortunately, on the way to the ceremony, Lillie turned a corner too sharply and flipped the bus over, sending herself and sixteen others to the hospital emergency room for minor injuries.
Did Lillie, accident free for a whole year, get her award anyway? No. Award committees rarely operate on the principal of grace. How fortunate we are that even when we don't maintain a spotless life-record, our final reward depends on God's grace, not on our performance! Holwick’s Illustrations citing Leadership Magazine, Winter 1990
A. W. Tozer – “Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under just disapprobation. Its use to us sinful men is to save us and make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God's kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entry 4652., Bible Illustrator 3.0
Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Greater than all my sin;
How shall my tongue describe it,
Where shall its praise begin?
Taking away my burden,
Setting my spirit free;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaching to all the lost,
By it I have been pardoned,
Saved to the uttermost,
Chains have been torn asunder,
Giving me liberty;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaching the most defiled,
By its transforming power,
Making him God’s dear child,
Purchasing peace and heaven,
For all eternity;
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful the matchless grace of
Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Wonderful grace, all sufficient for me, for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame,
O magnify the precious Name of Jesus.
Praise His Name! Haldor
Lillenas, 1918
One of the greatest words in the world today is the word “grace”.
And although you and I have heard much about grace, “God’s unmerited favor”, we should not tire of hearing about it!
We have been studying chronologically the Life of Christ together.
Last week we saw Jesus heal a leper and a paralytic who had to be carried to Jesus and let down from a roof into Jesus’ presence. Jesus first forgave the man’s sins and then healed him. We also saw Jesus call Matthew, the tax collector, as a disciple. Matthew held a big dinner for his sinful friends and Jesus was criticized for being there. Jesus’ answer is found in Luke 5:31-32 - And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. [32] I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
This week we find the Lord Jesus attending a feast in Jerusalem. We don’t know which feast it was. It doesn’t matter. It is here that Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years. The healing of this man was an act of grace. In this act of grace, we learn about the grace of God that the Lord Jesus shows to us. This morning we will see:
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
GRACE OFFERED – Vss. 6-7
GRACE APPLIED – Vss. 8-9
GRACE CAUTIOUS – Vs. 14
GRACE QUESTIONED – Vss. 10-13, 15-16
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
Vss. 1-2 – There was a gate near the temple in Jerusalem called the “Sheep Gate”. It is probably where the sheep, which were headed for sacrifice were brought into the city.
Also near that Gate was a pool, called “Bethesda”. They have found that pool and have concluded that it was actually two pools next to each other, with two porches covering each pool and another porch covering the space between the two pools.
Vs. 3 – This pool was not a pretty place. It was here that all sorts of physically hurting people gathered.
These “impotent folk” were crippled or invalids.
Some were blind, halt, or lame and some were withered, or paralyzed.
These people were all there for the same reason. They needed help. They wanted to be healed. They needed grace.
Vs. 4 – These people were there because it was believed that an angel came down occasionally and troubled the water and that the first person to get in the water would be healed.
Most of the people gathered there wouldn’t have had a chance to be the first to struggle into that pool.
Vs. 5 – One man had been paralyzed for 38 years. He had tremendous need, and by his own admission in verse 7, he had no hope of ever making it into the pool first.
Every person who ever lived, with the exception of the Lord Jesus Himself, is like these cripples, these invalids.
We are or were all spiritual invalids.
We are or were all spiritually blind, spiritually lame and spiritually paralyzed.
The Bible makes this very clear:
Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Isaiah 64:6 - But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Romans 3:10-18 - As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: [11] There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
[12] They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. [13] Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: [14] Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: [15] Their feet are swift to shed blood: [16] Destruction and misery are in their ways: [17] And the way of peace have they not known: [18] There is no fear of God before their eyes.
We have all met sick people who won’t admit that they’re sick.
We have all met sick people who won’t admit that they’re helpless.
There are also people who are spiritually sick, who have no hope because of their sin, and they won’t admit it either!
Grace was needed if the poolside people were to be healed.
Grace is needed for us to be cleansed of our sins and forgiven! If you haven’t experienced the grace, the unmerited favor, of God, you are in bad shape.
Ezekiel 18:4 - Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If you haven’t already, you need to experience God’s grace.
Christian, even though you have experienced God’s grace, you need to experience more of it. There are still things in your life that don’t belong there. You need God’s grace to deliver you from these things!
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
GRACE OFFERED – Vss. 6-7
Vs. 6 – Jesus comes along and asks a question that may appear to some to be a dumb question. “Do you want to be healed?”
“DO I WANT TO BE HEALED? WHY DO YOU THINK I’M HANGING AROUND THIS POOL WAITING FOR AN ANGEL TO DISTURB THE WATER?”
Probably not everyone around the pool wanted to be healed.
· Some would have enjoyed people being sorry for them.
· Some would have enjoyed the beggar’s income they could have as people gave to them.
· Some would not have wanted to face work and the responsibilities that health brings.
Jesus says to non-Christians today – Do you want to be healed.
And, unfortunately, most do not.
· Some enjoy their life style too much to have Jesus change it.
· Some enjoy thinking that they are good enough as they are to get to Heaven.
· Some don’t think anyone can heal them of their sins.
· Some think they are earning their own way into heaven by being good, moral, and kind.
Jesus can say to people, “Do you want to be healed?” because He has already paid the price of forgiveness.
As the sinless son of God He has already secured forgiveness for those who will accept it.
Romans 5:6-9 - For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. [8] But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 - For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; [4] And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
This is grace my friend, Jesus Christ through his unmerited favor is offering forgiveness and eternal life.
And Christian, Jesus says to you and I, “Do you want to be healed of the sinful habits that beset you?” And many of us do not.
· Although it’s wrong some of us really like the way we are living.
· Although it’s wrong we don’t want Jesus to heal us.
· Although it’s wrong we lack the faith that God can take away the bitterness, the habits, the attitudes that don’t belong in our lives.
And yet, God in his grace offers us healing, Christian.
1 Corinthians 10:13 - There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Romans 8:2-4 - For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. [3] For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: [4] That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Christian, you were saved by grace. You can have victory over sinful habits in your life by that same grace. Jesus asks, “Do you want to be healed?”
Vs. 7 – The man admitted that his case was hopeless!
That was good!
The man had come to the end of himself and realized he couldn’t be healed without help. He didn’t deserve to be healed, what Jesus said to him later was an indication that his disease was a result of his sin.
My friend in order to get into Heaven, you need to admit that you can’t do it yourself. You need to admit that you need graced.
Christian friend in order to be healed of your bad habits, you have to admit that you can’t do it yourself either. It was grace that saved you, it is grace that will give you victory.
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
GRACE OFFERED – Vss. 6-7
GRACE APPLIED – Vss. 8-9
Vss. 8-9 - How did this man receive the grace of healing?
Jesus told him to get up and walk.
The man had no ability in Himself to walk.
Jesus told him to do it, and the man believed the Lord Jesus.
The man, by faith, tried to get up and could!
The man, by faith, tried to pick up his bed and he could!
The man, by faith, tried to walk, and he could!
THAT WAS GRACE!
He believed the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus did the rest!
The grace of God was applied to His life.
Now how do we get our sins forgiven so we can go to Heaven?
Grace must be applied to our lives!
The price for salvation had already been paid by the Lord Jesus on the cross!
2 Corinthians 5:21 - For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
All we have to do is to apply His grace to our account.
Each week I receive a pay check. It does me no good unless I cash it!
Jesus offers you the gift forgiveness and eternal life, it does you no good, until you accept that gift and apply it to yourself.
John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Ephesians 2:8-9 - For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Simply trust Christ for forgiveness and eternal life and He will give it to you and give you a new life right now.
1 Corinthians 6:11 - And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
And Christian, victory over sinful habits also requires faith.
We must have faith that we’ve been crucified with Christ, and therefore no longer obligated to practice sin.
Galatians 2:20 - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
We must have faith that Christ will give us victory over sin.
Romans 6:14 - For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
God in his grace will give you eternal life.
God in His grace will give you victory.
But we must apply that grace of our lives by faith.
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
GRACE OFFERED – Vss. 6-7
GRACE APPLIED – Vss. 8-9
GRACE CAUTIOUS – Vs. 14
Vs. 14 – Later when Jesus met the healed man, Jesus told him to be cautious. Evidently the man had sin in his life, and he was told to go and sin no more, lest something worse would happen to Him.
If grace has done a work in your life you should be cautious.
We should not want to act the way we used to act before we came to know Christ as Savior.
We should want to please the Lord Jesus because we love Him.
Guys, you should behave better towards your wife than any other woman, because she, by grace, married you!
Ladies, you should behave better towards your husband than any other man, because he, by grace has married you!
Folks, we should behave better towards the Lord Jesus Christ because He gave His all for us. He showed us grace!
We should serve Him by grace!
Let’s be cautious to serve the Lord Jesus the way He deserves to be served.
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
GRACE OFFERED – Vss. 6-7
GRACE APPLIED – Vss. 8-9
GRACE CAUTIOUS – Vs. 14
GRACE QUESTIONED – Vss. 10-13, 15-16
Vss. 10-13 – In Israel the man-made rules were very strict. And according to the man-made rules, the man was breaking the Sabbath.
The man told them that the one who healed him, told him to take up his bed and walk, although he didn’t know who that man was.
Instead of being joyful over the miracle that had been performed, these people were more concerned that the Sabbath, according to their way of thinking had been broken!
Vss. 15-16 – Eventually Jesus found the man in the Temple. When the man knew who it was that had healed him, he told the authorities.
And note that the authorities sought to kill Him!
It didn’t make any sense at all.
Even today there will be those who don’t understand grace.
They will call you a religious fanatic.
They will criticize you for your faith in Christ.
They won’t like it when you start living the way you ought to live.
John 15:19 - If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
1 Corinthians 2:14 - But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
This morning we have learned about grace:
GRACE NEEDED – Vss. 1-5
GRACE OFFERED – Vss. 6-7
GRACE APPLIED – Vss. 8-9
GRACE CAUTIOUS – Vs. 14
GRACE QUESTIONED – Vss. 10-13, 15-16