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We're reading John chapter 5 verses 1 to 30. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for 1 of the Jewish festivals. Now, there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gates, a pool which an aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by 5 covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.

1 who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and learned as he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well, sir, the invalid replied, I have no 1 to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down the head of me. Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured, He picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, It is a Sabbath, the law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, the man who made me well said to me, pick up your mat and walk So they asked him, who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk? The man who was healed had no idea who it was for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.

The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense, Jesus said to them, my father is always at his work to this very day and I too am working. For this reason, they tried all the more to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus gave them this answer. Very truly, I tell you. The son can do nothing by himself He can only do what he sees his father doing, because whatever the father does, the son also does. For the father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes.

And he will show him even greater works than these. So that you will be amazed. For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life even so, the son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the father judges no 1 but has entrusted all judgment to the son, that all may honor the son just as they honor the father. Whoever does not honor the son does does not honor the father who sent him.

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly, I tell you. A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live. For as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the son of man.

Do not be amazed at this for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out Those who have done what is good will rise to live and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned By myself, I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. Now, Peter's gonna come and explain those amazing words to us. Well, just to say, the reason we're doing John 5, it's a it's a 1 off I'm up in contagious. It's called Scono, which means Scotland and the North.

But it's in a place called Barnard Castle. We can get your eyes tested, apparently for nothing. So that that's where I'm going. And I've got a preach up there, and this is a passage I haven't preached on for years and years and years, and so I thought I'd better try and write a new talk. So this experiment, we'll just see how it goes.

I doubt if I'll completely preach like I would a contagious. Normally, that's quite long. So we're trying to be a shorter possible, but let's let's pray. Father help us now. So we look at this this unbelievably wonderful passage about the lord Jesus Christ.

Father by your spirit, please speak into our lives. These truths that we may be doers of what we hear in Jesus' name, Now now, I mean, we all know that people just get offended very, very quickly these days. You hardly have to say anything and someone's offended. And then they won't listen to you or they won't sit reasonably to argue through issues. We're canceled.

We're shouted at. We're not listened to it. It's it's it's very it's it's just the way it is. And then people will stick to their belief systems without any they don't want anyone to disagree with them. If anyone disagrees with them, then than they're offended.

Now in this chapter, we probably Jesus is at his most offensive, I think. I mean, really, is quite offensive, and people are offended. So actually, there is nothing new in people being canceled and offended. By someone else because they're really offended. If you go back to John chapter 1, you've got this wonderful prologue and it's it's really an introduction to the whole of John's gospel, all the themes in it.

And 1 of the 1 of the sentences says that he, it's Jesus, came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Jesus came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Now in 1 sense, that sentence in the prologue is the text over this whole chapter because that's what's going on here. The religious leaders will not receive Jesus they are offended by him. And from this point on, John in you know, John chapter 5 really is gonna cost Jesus his life.

From this point on, he's a Sabbath breaker. He's a friend of sinners. And even worse, he's claiming to be equal with God. He's a blasphemer. They are deeply, deeply offended at him.

But does Jesus stop? Does Jesus say, well, hold it. It's just trying to be a bit more reasonable here. Let me let me just use slightly vague language. No.

He just uses more straight language and more straight language. It's unrelenting in this chapter. I mean, right to the end where he says you don't even understand Moses. If you understood Moses, you would understand me. It it's deeply offensive and it all starts with this scene of a man that no 1 helps and then actually in offensive action.

So that's the first thing, the scene. Look at verse 1. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for 1 of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate, a pool which in Aramec is called Beceda, and which is surrounded by 5 covered colonnades. Here, a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.

So you got this picture of this pool. And all these needy, pain painful people in pain around this pool. Verse 5, 1 of those who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time. He asked him, do you wanna get well?

So here's a man picked out out of all these people around this pool, and he's in a hopeless condition. He's weak. He can't help himself. And then this question comes, do you wanna get well? I mean, it really is a strange question.

Jesus is always asking this of people that are ill or blind or lame or haven't got any arms or something. Do you do you wanna get well? I mean, 38 years I've been sick Yeah. That's literally a lifetime. A lifetime.

He hasn't really got much time left in the average lifespan in those days. So the question sounds absurd, doesn't it? But, you know, people get used to their condition. People sort of quite like their condition. If he's gonna be healed, he wouldn't have to beg anymore.

Suddenly, a lifetime, he's gonna have to go and get a job. You know, so he's identifying perhaps as an invalid. He want he wants to be that. That's his identity. And so maybe he doesn't want to.

But he answers first 7 sir, the invalid replied, I have no 1 to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I'm trying to get in, someone else goes in ahead of me. Now you'll you'll see that verse 4 is is missing in the bible. It's probably at the bottom of your bible because that verse really wasn't in the original, but it is an explanation a a a a thing that explains what's going on. And and almost definitely is is is what was going on around the pool.

This idea that an angel came into the pool and it was a healing angel. And if you jumped in first, wee, you get healed. It's a lot of nonsense, it's a lot of superstition, it probably bubbled up from some stream underneath that bubbled up every now and then. But you see the point. And just get the name of this place.

The name of this place is Beth Sader, which which is a me name really because it means House of Grace House of grace or house of outpouring. And so you've got this curious blend of sort of hebrew religion and Greek superstition going along. And and this superstition sort of around this life giving pool Yeah. They all these desperately sick people who are sort of there in this pathetic invalid race when the water bubbled up. That's what that's what sort of going on here.

House of grace. I mean, really? Verse 7, I have no 1 to help me. They're very sad words. 38 years in invalid and no 1 to help him.

And a man of that condition really had had nothing to offer society. He was just a beggar. Get the picture of this place, sitting among the lame, the blind, the paralyzed, waiting for some kind of sick invalid race when the water bubbles up. And when the water bubbles up, and people thought it was an angel in it, a healing angel, it wouldn't be grace, would it? It wouldn't be like the British queuing system.

It wouldn't be, oh, who's next? It wouldn't be oh, you've been here 38 years. Well, I've only been here 37 years. So why don't you go for It's no grace involved here, isn't it? I mean, it would be people it's not after you.

The angel was supposed come, the bubbling water, and you've got this sort of race of people climbing over each other, pushing everybody out of the way, And then when you think about it, it's the person who least needs to be healed that would get in first, isn't it? So it's not grace at all. It's basically the survival of the fittest, isn't it? Going on here. Then Jesus said to him, get up.

Pick up your mat and walk. But once the man was cured, He picked up his mat and walked. Jesus mends this man with the power of his word. He doesn't offer to help him. He doesn't say, oh, you know, I'll I'll I'll tell you what, we'll wait for the water to bubble and I'll get you in first.

Yeah? Let's go let's go and stand near the edge, and I'll just give you a quick push. There's no help here. There's healing. He heals the man.

It's totally different. But look what he does. Get up. Well, I can't. Get up well, in 38 years not being able to get up.

So it's a stupid request, isn't it? Get up, he says. But that's the difference, isn't it, with Jesus? Because along with the command of Jesus, comes the power to obey the command. That's grace.

That's grace. Jesus never asks us, and this is worth underlining in our own minds. He never asks us to do something that he doesn't give us the power to do. That's really worth underlining today. Along with his command are the power to obey, and that's the mystery of God's grace.

Jesus is this voice of life, the power to live his commands 38 years paralyzed. Jesus speaks and then we're told, at once the man was cured, at once. Now, how could this be a story that offends anyone? We love this and we this is lovely. This is Jesus, isn't it?

This is classic, wonderful Jesus. Comes along, sees a bloke, heals him. It's wonderful. Yeah? How could anyone be offended at that?

But this is how John turns the story. Look at verse 9. Just see the turning here. At once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and walked. Lovely.

If we finish there, what a story? Jesus, power of God, into a man's life. This is terrific, isn't it? At once the man was cured, he picked up his man and walked, done deal. Then you've got this ominous next line, the day on which this took place was a sabbath.

And it's like, you know, verse 10. And so The Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, it is the sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat. Immediately, we got conflict. From this lovely story, there's a fight going on.

Yeah? Notice. There's no joy, is there? There's no like, wow. What's this?

38 years, you haven't walked and you're walking. I mean, goodness, meat. Now, you should be carrying the mat but, wow. This is amazing. There's no humble inquiry.

How does this happen? What's going on? There's no sort of power. Perhaps we've got God wrong. Perhaps we're interpreting the law of God a little bit wrong.

There's no humbling quest. No Even Jesus, look, help us to understand how we do put these 2 things together. We know the substance is a very important thing. But, I mean, you've done this amazing thing. So how do we put these You've got this legalism to a system of belief that cripples their minds.

As this man is cured, their hearts are crippled by a system that will not allow them to see that Jesus is who he is. That's what's going on. Jesus is the real house of grace here. And grace always challenges legalistic righteousness. Grace always challenges.

That's why people hate grace. And we were seeing last week last Sunday morning about Cain and Abel. And 1 of the things that I didn't have time to go on to, but he's but Cain is a works based religious man. Yeah? And why does he kill Abel?

Well, if you take workspace religion to its extreme, you'll get the terrorist. You have to kill Abel because he's about grace. It's about what God's done for me. That means that my good works are nothing. You're telling me that my good works mean nothing to God?

How dare you? You're telling me that just sinners can be forgiven. People like this 38 years sitting around those sort of people when I've been going to the sav following the Sabbath all my life. Grace always challenges the self help systems, whether they're religious or non religious. So the way John tells his story, there's this major religious system is challenged and offended verse 9 at once the man was cured.

He picked up his mat and walked, the day on which he this took place was the sabbath. Go back to the prologue, those first 18 verses of John's gospel which introduced the themes. Remember I read, he came it's verses 11 to 13 if you want it. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Now listen.

Listen. They didn't receive him. Yet, to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. He's the giver of the right to become children of god. And then just to spell it out, the difference between grace and a legalistic righteousness, children born not of natural descent.

So nothing to do with your, in their case, Jewish history. You're not born. It's nothing to do with your family background. Not of natural descent. They're just to rub it in a bit more.

Nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God. Grace is all about him giving you the right, bringing you into the family of God and only the son can do that. But you see, grace is offensive to people. But hold it, this story can offend us. That if we're offended yet.

I'm trying to get you. We'll get there hopefully. But this story will offend us because this helpless man is a picture of our spiritual condition. Look at verse 14. See what happens with this man.

Later, Jesus found him at the temple, that's the man he healed, at the temple and said to him, see. You are well again. That's alright. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. Gosh, that's pretty straight, isn't it?

That's fairly offensive, actually. Something worse. Are you actually serious Jesus? Something worse would I mean, how can you stomach that? How could this bloke stomach that?

Something worth 38 years. I've been suffering and you're talking about something worse happening to me. What could be worse than that? Who's the most long term sufferer that you know? Something worse is gonna happen to you.

Someone who suffers perhaps physical or even mental or even sort of chronic fatigue. People that are really suffering mentally, physically, They're in dis something worse will happen to you. It's just extraordinary. Shortly I've suffered enough. Shortly, I've paid my dues if that's what you're meant to do.

Shortly, I've done my time Something better should happen to me. Not something worse. Something worse. So Jesus comes to this man and he says, I dealt with your physical condition. But there is something much worse, and you need to deal with it.

And that is your spiritual health. You have spiritual problem. If you carry on sinning, you'll go to hell. Your 38 years of suffering will mean nothing when you spend eternity away from the living God. Now just remember Jesus has every right to say this because he's the 1 he's the only 1 that showed this man compassion for 38 years.

So he does have the right to say this. Yeah? He's not some brute that's just shouting his mouth off and doesn't care about this bloke. He clearly cares about this bloke, and he's cared about him physically, but he's saying, hey, that there's more than physical. You gotta think there's something worse.

It's not just your physical. It's not just sorting out your body. There's something worse. This is these are words of love. Now, why does this offend us?

Well, we're not round a pool. We're not sitting around with the physically blind and lame and paralyzed people, but we do sit around swimming pools, don't we? And Jacuzzis and wait for them to bubble up, or you sit in the swimming pool and wait for some bubbles to happen. That's funny. But they're normally usually not healing bubbles, are they?

So on holiday in in crete, every day, I sat around and put and I watched people. I just people watched. There's the 3 German girls there, sorting out their bikinis there, very interesting. There were mound that would tell you everything. I can't tell you everything I thought.

There's you know, I I identified people around there. That that girl reminds me of yep. And then he reminds me of there and then and so I knew all these people, I just people watched. They're just sitting around a pool. Yeah?

Spiritually though, we're dead. People would get up and jump in cool and have a swim and cool off and put their their sun lotion on and listen to their music and eat their pizzas. But spiritually, we're dead. Spirit, we're dead. Just turn over to Ephesians chapter 2.

It's very helpful for looking at what we're really like. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 to 5, and Paul is writing to Christians to tell him what they were. So if you're not trusting in Jesus, this this is actually what you are. Fhesians chapter 2 verses 1 to 5, it says, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. In which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world, and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air.

The spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us, also lived among them at 1 time gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving wrath, but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. Go to verse 12.

Remember that at that at that time, you were separated from Christ excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenant of the promise without hope and without God in the world. Why is this picture of this man around the pool offensive? It's because it's you, spiritually. You're an invalid. You're disabled.

You're you're helpless. You got some vague hope in some superstitious thing that might bubble up and help you. Or even if I could just get fit physically or become the physical thing that I want to be. If I could just be this physically, then it would be sorted out. And you may spend 38 years trying trying trying these things.

Working it out, self help, self discovery, You have it in you, believe in yourself. But none of it works before God. You may have a healthier body. You may have a body that you like, but you're dead in your sin. Before God.

Am I speaking to anyone here tonight? You may not be 38 years old. You may be 18. You may be 28, 48, 68. Your condition is helpless.

You know you're trapped, don't you? Stuck in your emotions, your depressions, all of the things that take you over lust controls you. Jesus came to this man and said, do you want to get well? Or do you wanna get well? I wanna say that the words of Jesus still can transform you I wonder if we've lost a bit of this.

The words of Jesus can change you. Wonder if we've lost this. I wonder if we just sort of add Jesus on to our counselors and all these other words that come around. The words of Jesus came to his life. And he said, get up and he was given the power to follow and do what Jesus wanted.

Just look at chapter 5 of John. Verse 24 and 25. We'll probably get to that a little later in a minute. But just look at them for now. Very truly, I tell you whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Very truly, I tell you a time is coming and has now come. When the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear it will live. That's the power of the word of Jesus. That you can know in your life. This story gets even more challenging though.

We've not done with him yet, and I doubt if I'll get through my other point, so I might just finish here. A contagious, I'll go on. This story gets even more challenging. So look at verse 14 again. Later, Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see, you are well again.

Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. Then look at this verse 15. The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. Now this is disturbing. This is really disturbing.

Because the Greek word translated their the man went away, is better translated, went after. The man went after the Jewish leaders. And that phrase went after is normally used in the context of being a disciple of. So this heavy suggestion here is that he'd been healed by Jesus and he went after being a disciple of the Jewish leaders that were so offended at Jesus doing what he did for him. That's extraordinary, isn't it?

That's an extraordinary thing. He came to that which was his own, but his own would not receive him. If if that's true, it's extraordinary. This man, the only the only love it seemed that he had in his life was Jesus. For 38 years, no 1 had bothered to help him.

They just dumped him in this sort of invalid you know surrounding a a pool to this ugly race to get into the water. These religious leaders couldn't care a damn for him. He was an insignificant nothing He couldn't even do the religious systems that they were demanding. He failed, failed, failed, Legism was a killer when you think about it, for him and legalism is a killer. It's it's like carbon monoxide.

It's it's colorless and odorless and tasteless, but it has the power to lull you into a deep sleep. And it seems to have come over him. This man is walking only because of the grace and power of Jesus and he's using his new gift to walk away from Jesus. We were seeing this morning about a man who was walking with God. This man has been given the grace and the power in this life to walk and he's walking from Jesus.

That is an extraordinary thing. And yet you if you're a church leader and you've been around church for some time, you see this so often. The blessings, Jesus brings. These kids that we'll have in Scotland, they'll be brought up in Scottish churches, They'll know the gospel they know about Jesus. Some of them are actually doing very well in the education area because they've had the discipline of Christian parents.

They've known what it is to stick at things and pass exams and They've known answers to prayer and they've tasted things of God and their life is much more secure perhaps because their parents have stayed together because they've work through things because they love Christ and they followed Christ. These young people will be blessed and so are you. You've been blessed, haven't you? By Jesus. You've been blessed by Jesus.

But spiritually, you're dead and you won't walk towards him. You take his gifts of life. And you go into some kind of legalism that will prove yourself, to so that you are better than others. It's an extraordinary thing. And it's from this point that Jesus makes more and more offensive claims.

If they're not true, then He needs executing. If they're true, then we're crazy not to listen to them. Now it's we've got communion and it's getting late, and I'm not sure if I'll take you through these things, but he claims all kinds of things. Let's let's just show you 6 claims. I'll just read them.

In verses 19 and 20, he's equal with God. What a claim? In verses 21 and 26, he is, in fact, the life giver. In verses 22 to 23 is the final judge. In verse 24, he will determine your eternity.

In verses 25 to 29, he raises the dead to life by his word. In verse 30, he's always doing the will of God, and all of that is framed in this relationship of Father son. He is the son of the father. In an utterly different way that we're sons of God. He creates the universe.

He does exactly what the father does. He does the same as the father, says the same as the father, so that he could say later on in John, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. He is the son, the exact representation of God on earth in human form. He is this 1. Your condemnation, you either go to heaven or hell because he says so.

That's his job. What God does, he does. God creates, he creates. God is the lord of the Sabbath. He's the lord of the Sabbath.

God says, He says. There's this relationship of Father's son, and it's a relationship of love. A love relationship. Your eternity is dependent on who. God, Your eternity is dependent on who.

Jesus. And if you don't honor the son as you honor or God, the father, you don't honor the father. You have to honor Jesus. And to honor Jesus is to pick up your mat and walk toward him and live for him. Your very life depends on it.

And he goes through 1 offensive claim after the other and they're all offended. Just look at 1, 1, it's just extraordinary versus 39 to 40. You study the script us diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. There's loads of people like that in churches. They know the bible.

They say, why does the church do this? They're always grumbling on. They've always got better ideas. But these are the very scriptures that testify about me. They don't have a love for Jesus these people, then this sentence.

It's extraordinary offensive. If it isn't true. Yet, you refuse to come to me to have life. You refuse to come to me to have life. You will die in your sin, he says on another occasion.

So why this unbelief? Why are they so offended? Well, they're trapped in their system without willing to be thinking about it. But there's 1 big thing Jesus does say. For the reason why they won't believe.

He came to his own, but his own would not receive him. Why? Look at verse 43. I have come in my father's name, and you do not accept me. But if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.

Listen. How can you believe since you accept glory from 1 another, but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God. That's the big reason why you won't believe. Peer pressure. Everybody else around you, the idea that you'll have to stick out if you follow Jesus.

The idea that you may be rejected from the culture, the system, you may be cancelled if you follow Jesus. It was irresistible for him Jesus made the invalid walk, but he wanted recognition with the system. And that's 1 of the big reasons why people don't come to Christ. That's the big reason why lots of people don't. It's not not intellectual.

It's not that you don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. It's that you don't put your faith in that. You don't want to come out of hiding, and you're ashamed. And if you're ashamed of him, he'll be ashamed of you on that day. So there's something of chapter 5, a quick introduction to chapter 5.

There is so much in that. And we've preached sermons on that. I think there's probably 3 sermons on that. You can go back and listen to it. But are you offended by Jesus who says that your eternity is dependent on him your response to him.

Will you honor Jesus in your life, then you honor the father. Will you dishonor him? Your dishonor the father.