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facts of the case. Many scholars, commentators, believe that this is included because so much is represented in this story. Let's see what God has for us. We're going to look at three things. First the setting, then the question, and then the responses. First the setting, now there's a in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda which has five roofed colonnades. Bethesda means house of mercy or house of grace, and the pool was by the sheep gate which would mean that was be where the sheep would enter. And there was a multitude of invalids, lame, blind, paralyzed, waiting for the water to be stirred up so they could be healed. Now a side note is there are manuscript discrepancies. Some versions say an angel would come down and stir the waters. Some manuscripts leave that out because those who leave it out say the earliest manuscripts and most of the manuscripts don't have that part of the passage. While manuscript discussions can be interesting and valuable, I don't think it changes the point of this passage. The people gathered at the pool because they believed that they could be healed by the waters. And among them there was this one man who had been an invalid for 38 years. We don't know if he was born that way, so we don't know if he's 38 years old, he's always been an invalid. Or if something happened to him at some point in his life, whether it was early or he was an adult. So we really don't know his age, we just know that for almost four decades he has been an invalid. And he has been for some time at least coming to this place, this pool called Bethesda, in order to have an opportunity he thinks to be healed. Now maybe I'm stating the obvious but Jesus went to the pool for a reason. He went to heal this man and he asked him a question, do you want to be healed? Now we have to assume that Jesus doesn't go around asking dumb questions. I mean after all this man is an invalid, he's been an invalid for almost four decades. He's by a pool which he hopes will heal him if he manages to get into the water first. So why would Jesus ask him if he wants to be healed? It's obvious he would think that he wants to be healed. He could have said of course I want to be healed, I'm not laying by the pool for my health. Oh wait, yes he is. So why would Jesus ask the question? And again I think this story is because the invalid represents us spiritually. Not that this really didn't happen, it did. Not that he wasn't really paralyzed, he was an invalid. But reliable scholars believe that the story is here for a reason and that reason is to represent us. This invalid man's inability to heal himself physically is something of a parable which represents our inability to heal ourselves spiritually. Now there's evidence throughout the scriptures for this. We don't have to go any further than the very next chapter in the gospel. Jesus says no one can come to the Father, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. So what does Jesus say? That you have to be drawn by the Father to come to Jesus to be healed, to be saved. He says that several times in John chapter 6 but there's other places as well. Paul writes in Romans chapter 8, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God's law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Paul is saying that all of us in our natural state when he says those who are in the flesh, that's all of us. That's how we're all born. We're born in the flesh. We are not spiritual in the terms of knowing God and knowing Christ by nature. So our flesh is hostile to God. Our flesh in and of itself will not submit to God's law, but then the real point of it is it says that it cannot submit to God's law. For it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. What's that saying? The natural person apart from Christ when it comes to God's law cannot submit to it. That doesn't mean that everything that a person in the flesh does is wrong. They may even do some good by comparison to others, but the truth is we cannot submit to God's law and we cannot please God in the flesh. In Ephesians 2, Paul says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins in which we formally walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air among whom we all too once lived and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest. So what that means is that we were born dead in our sin. We were born apart from God. So what happened? In Ephesians 2 it continues, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved. In other words, God has to come to us. Jesus has to come to us and save us because we can't save ourselves. This man by the pool in Bethesda, the house of grace, the house of mercy, he was hoping that he would be able to heal himself, but he couldn't. Just like we can't heal ourselves. He was born that way. We're unable to save ourselves because we're sinners. We're born that way because our first parents Adam and Eve disobeyed God. David said in Psalm 51, behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. We aren't only sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners from conception. It's part of our DNA. Now there's a couple of things that this verse from Psalm 51 informs us about. Number one is that life begins at conception. So make no mistake, abortion is the killing of a human being. Life begins at conception. I was brought forth in iniquity and sinned and my mother conceived me. But also life begins at conception and from conception we are sinful. So this isn't only a question for the invalid, it's for us too. Do you want to be healed? Why would Jesus even ask this question? Doesn't everyone want to be healed? Now one writer points out for some people in this situation, those in the near the pool, that's their community. They're there probably every day. They see some of the same people. It could be a place of familiarity. They have acquaintances, maybe even some friends. And so they have a level of comfort there and while they say they want to be healed, some of them possibly just like going there to be around other people who were like them. One commentator points out that during festivals like the one, the feast that was taking place here, being an invalid could be sort of lucrative because people would be inclined to give you money. It's sort of like the people that we sort of like, not exactly like the people that you see on the side of the road who hold up the signs and say anything helps. Now some of them I'm sure are destitute but others, it's been reported, are making a relatively decent living asking for money. So some of these people by the pool, maybe they don't really want to be healed. They just want to be there with the other people. It's similar to people who've spent much of their life in prison. They become institutionalized and while they may say they want to be free, it's scary because it's unfamiliar if you've been in prison for 20 years, it's unfamiliar to be out. They don't know anyone or they may not. They may not feel safe. A lot of times you leave, if you leave prison you have to go to something called a halfway house and be with other people who have been criminals. At least in prison they had a bed, they had three meals, and they had clean clothes and to suddenly be free can be difficult. So I think this question represents the free offer of the gospel. Do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed of your sin? Do you want to be healed of your sinfulness? I'm going to mention some possible sins, not that I think these are true of any one particular person. Do you want to be healed of your selfishness? Do you want to be healed of your legalism? Do you want to be healed of your pornography addiction? Do you want to be healed of your pettiness, your jealousy, your blaming others for your problems, whatever it might be. Do you really want to be healed? See the problem is if you want to be healed you have to be willing to forsake those things and come to Jesus. And for many people they want Jesus but they want to hold on to their sin too. I remember when I was being witnessed at Eastern Michigan University I told the lengthy part of this story before I'll tell the abbreviated version. I had come back from being out on a Thursday night and my roommates were all awake which was unusual and they were talking about the man who was our resident advisor had witnessed to them. I started asking them questions they didn't have any answers and I went and found the man, Bill Guy. He was studying in the study lounge. I went in and said tell me what you told these other guys. Well you have to understand I do now having been in the ministry for so long. It's highly unusual for somebody to come in and say tell me about the gospel but that's what I did. And he told me and then I said well can I be a Christian and I do this and I named my two favorite sins. He said no you'll have to choose between Christ and your sin. I said that I don't want it. Six months later I did want it. Six months later I gave my life to Christ. But you see if you don't want to forsake your sin you can't be saved. That doesn't mean you'll never sin again but Jesus is asking the invalid and he's asking us do you want to be healed? Let's look at the response. First to the question and then the response to the result. When he asked the man do you want to be healed he didn't answer right away. He said I have no one to put me in the pool when the water stirred up and while I'm going another steps in. He doesn't answer the question directly. And I think we can respond in this way. We have reasons that we haven't changed why we haven't given up our sin. Maybe we think they're not that bad. It's not that important. Maybe we think we're too far gone and Jesus either couldn't or wouldn't heal us. How does Jesus respond to the man's response? He heals them anyway. Get up, take up your bed and walk and at once the man was healed. Get up, take up your bed and walk. Jesus heals in different ways. Sometimes it seems instantaneous like it was here. Other times it's a process. One example is in the gospel it says they came to Bethsaida and some people brought a man who was blind to Jesus and begged him to touch him. Taking the man who was blind by the hand he brought him out to the village, out of the village and after spitting in his eyes and laying his hands on him he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said I see people for I see them like trees walking around. Then again he laid his hands on his eyes and he looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly. For some the healing is immediate. For others it takes time. If you come to Christ some of your sin might leave you immediately. Others of it might take time. For example when I first became a Christian I stopped using foul language almost immediately. Before that it was pervasive. Other sins had been removed more slowly from my life and some will not be fully removed until heaven. But for this man the healing was immediate. Jesus said take up your bed and walk and that's exactly what he did. Now how did the Jews respond? This might be a little confusing because everybody involved is a Jew. So why does John say the Jews? Well in John's gospel when he says the Jews he's referring to the religious leadership, the Pharisees, the scribes. Verse 10 so the Jews said to the man who had been healed it's 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 they asked who is the man that said to you take up your bed. Now the man who had healed him did not know who it was for Jesus had withdrawn as there was a crowd in the place. Now something interesting that Sinclair Ferguson points out in verse 10 it says the Jews said it is the Sabbath but Dr. Ferguson says that's not actually what they said. He said it went more like this they saw him and they said Sabbath like they were calling a penalty or something. They saw him carrying his bed and they said Sabbath. The other thing Dr. Ferguson said is that they must have known they must have recognized that this was the same man who had been in an invalid for nearly four decades. Four decades and yet when they saw him they didn't rejoice. Sabbath they didn't marvel. They didn't want to know how this miracle took place. Instead they said Sabbath what you're doing is not lawful having been healed after thirty year eight years he was supposed to do what wait a day then get up. Now this isn't to say that Sabbath or the Lord's Day is not important because it is but Jesus taught that the Sabbath day is for man and not man for the Sabbath. He asked the Pharisees in Mark 3 is it lawful to do good or do evil on the Sabbath before he healed. In verse 4 of Mark 3 it says he said to them is it lawful to do good or evil on the Sabbath to save life or to kill but they kept silent. When he had looked around at them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their hearts he said to the man stretch your hand forward and he healed them and the result was then that they were looking to kill him afterwards. They were looking to kill him for healing on the Sabbath. So our Westminster Catechism says that there are certain things that are lawful on the Sabbath works of necessity and mercy are allowed on the Sabbath and certainly healing an invalid for thirty eight years is a work of mercy certainly healing a man whose hand was withered is a work of mercy. Works of necessity would include things like if you are a medical professional who works at a hospital somebody has to be there on Sunday. If you're a police officer or a firefighter somebody has to be there on Sunday. Those are works of necessity that doesn't invalidate the Sabbath but Jesus is the one who explains remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. In this case Jesus is healing an invalid which is merciful but the religious leaders are more concerned with their rules and so they stop the man and demand the reason he is in violation of their Sabbath rules. See the religion they're born with is legalism. That's who they are and it's insidious because it makes the legalists seem righteous to himself and especially to other legalists but the point is if you are a legalist if you are someone who believes that your salvation you're standing with God depends on you keeping the rules and seeing to it that other people keep the rules you are not a Christian. The Christian is merciful and gracious. It doesn't mean that we don't try to follow the commands of God. We do and we repent when we don't but you see being a legalist will kill you. So the man is now healed and he sees Jesus in the temple and Jesus tells him see you are well sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you. Now this is some believe this is an indication that he is an invalid because of his sin. We don't know if that's true or Jesus is just saying don't sin. He says that often when he heals somebody but there are at least three reasons that something like this can happen to somebody. At least three reasons that you can find yourself in a terrible situation health wise or otherwise. The first is that we live in a fallen world and bad things happen. They happen to you or me or people we know and love because the world has fallen. It's not working the way it was designed to work because of sin. So accidents and sickness and things like that happen. They happen to all of us and it's not your fault. For others sometimes people harm you sometimes they do evil to you sometimes they mistreat you and you end up hurt or sick but sometimes and it might have been the case in this instance sometimes it's your own sin and because of your own sin the natural course of events lead you into a terrible situation. So what happens here? He tells the man to go and make sure he doesn't sin so that nothing worse can happen to him but then the man what does the man do? He kind of throws Jesus under the bus. He finds the Jews and tells them who it was that healed him and so then they were upset with Jesus and they went and asked him why he did it and he said I'm working as my father is working and then they wanted to kill him because he had made himself equal with God. Now as an aside here there are many people who say that Jesus never said that he was God. Well here the Jews certainly understood that Jesus did because they wanted to kill him for making himself equal with God. In chapter 8 verse 58 of John's gospel Jesus says before Abraham was I am. In John 14 he says if you've seen me you've seen the Father. Jesus did say that he was God. He did say he was God's son. He did say that he was equal with the Father which is why they wanted to kill him and it's why they did eventually kill him. But when they did kill him it was for our sake. When they did to persecute him it was for our sake. When they did beat him and jail him and crucify him it was for our sake so that we could be saved. Our healing from sin are being saved from sin as a result of Jesus being persecuted and put to death on our behalf. That's what this table means. We remember that Jesus died for us. That's what this table means. We remember that he saved us. Remember that he healed us and we look forward to the Last Supper or the Great Supper or the Marriage Supper of the Lamb talked about in Revelation. Do you want to be healed? Do you really want to forsake your sin and come to Christ? I pray that you do prepare your hearts for the table.