458. Walking in the Word, Strength Through Grace

Are you weary? Walking hopelessly through the mundane? Jesus has so much more for you and is calling you to get up and walk in obedience. Pick up your mat and let God, in His grace, supply the strength you need every step of the way. (John 5:1-15)

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Thanks for listening to the Women World Leaders’ podcast! This is our Wednesday edition, Walking in the Word, where we take time out of our busy week to sink into God’s Word and ask Him to reveal His truth and teaching to us. My name is Julie Jenkins. I’m the teaching and curriculum leader for Women World Leaders, and I am pleased to be your host. We are currently walking through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together as we study the life of Jesus Christ.

If you are enjoying our study, I’d like to ask you to take a moment to share it with someone else. My reasoning is simple. See…this podcast was started because a friend came to me in need of Biblical teaching. She is a nurse, and her team of associates had been gathering at lunch and listening to a limited Easter teaching. When they completed the series, she reached out to me looking for a podcast to empower them to stand strong together during the height of the covid pandemic. After searching and praying for an appropriate podcast for her, God spoke to me that He was calling Women World Leaders to begin this podcast series, and I thought, if He is calling, there must be a need. So we are asking you now, to help us fill that need. For us, it isn’t about download numbers, but about reaching those whom God intends to reach. Will you pray and ask Him who in your life would benefit from a weekly bible teaching that they can access anywhere at any time? And then will you share it with them? Your outreach will likely have a ripple effect that will extend further than you can now imagine. Sometimes we just have to respond obediently, even if we don’t fully understand.

That thought leads us into our teaching today as we study John’s account of the healing of the disabled man at the pool of Bethesda from John 5:1-15. Before we begin, let’s pray…

Dear Most Holy God, I thank you for each person who is listening, wherever they may be. Lord, I don’t know how you drew each individual to this podcast today, nor do I know what they are going through. But you do. You see each listener individually and there is something that you have called them to hear today. God, may the words that come from my mouth not be my words, but yours. Allow this teaching to come from you alone. We give you this time and ask you to infiltrate our thoughts, Holy Spirit, as we read and study your Word. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

John 5 from the New Living Translation begins…

5 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days

We have seen Jesus heal many people as we have been walking through the gospels. We have seen Him step out time and again, but today we see Him intentionally step into the territory of the Jewish religious leaders whom He knew would seek His death. He traveled straight into Jerusalem. Scripture says He traveled there for a Jewish festival, although we don’t know which one. And it appears that He was alone as He visited the Temple area.

Verse 2 continues…

2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda,[a] with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.[b] 

The Sheep Gate was not an obscure name of an entry into the temple, it was the actual opening in the Temple wall through which the sacrificial sheep were brought. From the Sheep Gate, the sheep would have been taken directly to the pool that John mentions, where they would have been washed before being taken into the sanctuary.

Heading through the Sheep Gate, you could walk down a pathway to the pool of Bethesda, a set of twin pools that has now been identified by archeologists and is currently known as the pool of St. Anne. These twin pools were surrounded by four colonnades with an additional colonnade going between the two halves of the pool. I am far from being an expert in architecture, so to get a picture in my mind, I had to look up what a colonnade is. So now I can report that the pool was surrounded by an open hallway made of large columns and covered by a roof. This is where the sick people would lay…under the colonnade that both surrounded the pool and cut through the middle, separating the two parts of the pool. Many translations say that those who lay there were disabled, using the generic term for those who were too weak to help themselves. John further describes them as the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. This must not have been a pretty sight…it was probably actually quite heart-wrenching, pathetic, or even disgusting – depending on your outlook. Perhaps needless to say, this was an area that the upper class and those considering themselves purified for worship, would avoid.

But not Jesus. He walked right down the colonnade, among those who were hurting. Those who couldn’t see. Those who couldn’t walk. And those who, in fact, couldn’t move. He walked among those who were there because they didn’t know what else to do or where else to go.

There was a superstition surrounding this pool that said that when the angels randomly caused the water to stir, the next person into the water would be cured. But in reality, the people were hopeless. The blind – they would not have been able to see the water stirring. The lame could see the water stirring, but they couldn’t get to it. And the paralyzed, they were unable to move altogether. And the Jewish officials surely looked down on the gathering as the belief of the powers of the water mirrored the belief bestowed upon many of the healing shrines and pagan cults of the area. It was an area full of disgrace.

Those who gathered where the animals were cleansed were unable to get help themselves – and yet they waited.

And their waiting was not in vain. Not because of the stirring of the water, but because Jesus, God in the flesh, stepped in among them.

John narrows down our vision from a crowd of people to a single man who lay on his mat without a purpose, no different than the others. Verse 5…

5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years.

We don’t know anything about this man except that he had been afflicted for 38 years. That is nearly as long the average life expectancy at the time! And he had given up. He may have been lying beside a pool that was said to have healing powers, but it was a formality.

Verse 6…

 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”

I can understand the man’s state of hopelessness. He had been living with a debilitating illness for 38 years and was lying, day in and day out, among others who had no hope. We tend to get acclimated to where we are and to accept the situation we are in after a period of time. While that is a normal human defense mechanism, if you are stuck in a situation that feels hopeless, I want you to know that our God is a God of hope and renewal and restoration. God wants to light a fire in your soul and remind you that with Him, nothing is impossible. You may feel that you have nothing left to give and absolutely no way to make your bad situation better. And do know what? You may be right! You may have no power AT ALL to walk out of the situation you are in. But what God wants you to know is that you don’t need to rely on YOUR power or on YOUR plan. We were not created to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, to use an American colloquialism. We were created to trust Jesus. We don’t know if this disabled man was blind or lame or paralyzed … or all three. What we do know is that he was beyond hope. And as Jesus, the Son of God, walked beside his mat, the man couldn’t see Jesus for who He was, he couldn’t walk to Jesus, and he couldn’t even reach out to him…and he didn’t have to. Because JESUS spoke into the life of the man and healed Him with His word … without even a drop of the stirring water hitting his skin.

Verse 8…

8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!

THAT is how God works!

Remember our previous teachings on God’s sovereignty? Jesus’ power is above nature, demons, illness, and even death. But there is so much more. Jesus’ power is personal and will reach into your soul giving you hope where there is no hope, peace where there is despair, and salvation where there is sin. Nothing we can do in our lives can wipe the mud from our eyes so that we can see. Nothing we can do can empower our legs to run the race that God has for us. We can do nothing to move from a paralyzed life to one full of movement and purpose for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But with a single word, Jesus, who walks among our sick mats strewn about, can raise us to a life that we can only imagine. We need only believe and obey.

Continuing in verse 9…

But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”

11 But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

12 “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.

13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.

The man picked up his mat and walked without even realizing who had healed him. And he walked into a controversy…and all he knew to do was to say what had happened. And wait. And Jesus confirmed that He would not leave him alone in his newfound healing. Jesus was there. Jesus guided the newly healed man into his next steps. Jesus first healed the man, and then he walked with him. This man who had just a short time ago been without hope and without anyone to help him, through no action of his own, now had Jesus beside him.

If you are listening to this, you need to know that JESUS is walking beside your mat. He is calling your name. Telling you to get up – He has a mission for you. You can trust His power, His strength, His love, guidance, and protection. You are His. And He will never leave you alone.

It was the Sabbath…which turned the religious leaders against Jesus and against the man who was now carrying his mat. Jesus knew it would. Jesus knew the tide was turning against him, but that didn’t stop Him from loving and caring for the man on the mat. We don’t know what happened to that man, but I’d like to think that he became a stalwart follower of Jesus Christ. I’d like to think that he used the power in His legs to run after Jesus and the strength in his muscles to go wherever He was called to share the good news.

And I’d like to think that I, too, will harness that power that Jesus infuses into my own cells daily to share who He is. I pray you will, too. Let’s get up and walk together in obedience. Wherever God calls.

Dear Most Holy God…I simply can’t thank you enough for rescuing ME from beside the pool…for giving me eyes to see, feet to walk, and muscles to respond to your call. For infusing me with your power and strength to walk through this life. God, I confess there are days I am weary. There are days when I come up with excuses. Thank you for never giving up on me, and for never leaving my side. Thank you for calling to me and for commanding me to get up. Thank you giving your life for my weakness – that I may run in your presence forever. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.