Another good sermon by our young Shepherd. Since Pastor Aaron has decided to preach through the bible in a year, we are in the second week of that series and this week was focused on Genesis 12:3, 17:1-8. His title for this sermon was Leadership of Our King: Promises Made, Promises Kept.
You can listen to the whole service or watch the sermon.
Last week we left off with Jesus healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda. That man was experiencing the joy of being able to walk for the first time in a very long time. He didn’t even know the name of his benefactor who had freed him from his disability. The scripture states that Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. (John 5:13) Jesus had told him to pick up his palette and walk and that was just what he was doing. If you are wondering what a palette is, Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary states that it’s a small and mean bed; a bed of straw. Probably straw in a linen covering. Could be rolled up and carried like a sleeping bag.
The joy of this man and the fact that he is carrying around a smelly bag of straw immediately catches the eyes of some Jews who stop him and tell him he can’t do that. Probably had to tell him more than once as the healed man was not paying attention to much more than walking around and feeling great, I imagine. However, it was the Sabbath and you can’t be walking around with your sleeping apparatus because it is not permitted.
It makes you wonder a bit on why they, the Jews, made a rule on not being able to carry your palette around on the Sabbath. Was there a lot of that going on and it looked unseemly to those in charge? And who were these Jews with rules anyway?
Pharisees is who they were. A small sect of rule-bound and ultra righteous, in their own mind, people that were constantly on the lookout for some infraction to correct. God gave Moses the law and you can find that in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Basically the 10 commandments that we all know and much of civil government today was used for the basis of our laws. These Pharisees added 613 commandments that included “positive commandments”, to perform an act (mitzvot aseh), and “negative commandments”, to abstain from certain acts (mitzvot lo taaseh). I would guess that carrying around your bed would be in the negative area of these extra commandments.
There were around 6000 of these Jews at the time of Jesus and although they knew the scripture, they were so sure of their interpretation of what the scripture said that anybody telling them differently would be discounted. Certainly somebody healing someone else on the Sabbath was against their rules. We see a lot of that today, laws that run counter to common sense. Of course since we live in a “Post Truth” era and nobody can agree on what common sense is, we’ve got some problems to work through. God is the same now as He was back then. And we know Him to be a rational and Loving God. Do you think that He stops working on Sunday? Or would He prevent somebody from being healed on that day? Christ told them “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” (John 5:17) Yet, these Jews did not believe it and would not permit it. The next verse in this book shows how corrupt in their hearts that they were: “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” (John 5:18)
They wanted to kill him because He broke their Sabbath laws and also because He called God his Father. We all do the same when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. (Matthew 6:9-13)
Jesus seeks to realign their coal-like hearts: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” (John 5:)
All authority has been given to the Son, and yet they wanted to kill Him. In their mind, they were the authority. Anyone claiming to have God as their Father or to be the Son of God was talking foolishness, dangerous foolishness. My question to you is, have you encountered anyone that has said God’s word is foolishness? And if you have, how did you respond to it?
We know from Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. As a Christian, you possess every spiritual resource you need to fulfill God’s will for your life, so in answer to how does a person respond to a nonbeliever? You have everything you need, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, God’s love. The people of Jesus’s time had only what scripture they had been taught, keep in mind they did not have what we have today, a complete Bible. Until the Messiah walked among them, they only had what they had been taught and Faith. These Pharisees had been taught the same things but had no faith in anyone but themselves.
Also how they chose to interpret what they had learned brings the parable of the sower into play. (Matthew 13:3-9) The deceiver is ever ready to gobble up the seeds sown of wisdom and understanding and the opening of the heart. Their seeds had been sown on to the road, or the rocky place or even into the weeds. Even today we have a hard time understanding why family or friends that had at one time been excited over God’s word, have now pulled away and refuted it all. The scripture speaks to these things, yet that book of God’s instruction and wisdom is gathering dust on a shelf, never consulted. Remember you have been made complete and lack nothing spiritually.
Jesus stated: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” He was telling the Pharisees and He is telling you now, He who believes in Him has eternal life.(John 5:24) They, the Pharisees, rejected that concept. Some of your family or friends may have also rejected what Christ has said. Christ prayed for those that wished to kill him and I think a time is coming where all that we knew and was easy, will not be so easy. Take that dusty book from the shelf and open your heart to its message.
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true. There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true. (John 5:25-31)
What did we learn from this? The Truth is the same today as it was back then. It walks among us, yet many refute it. Judge not lest you be judged. The Pharisees were judging Jesus and found him unacceptable as a Messiah. Christ told them, those that reject me, also reject the Father. (John 5:23) and for that they were willing to kill him. Take not your own counsel, (Proverbs 12:15) but that of the Lord’s. And to do that, open the book, seeking the Lord’s will in all you do. The clock’s ticking and none of us knows the span of our days. Best get busy and may the Lord Bless you and Keep you.
Yes, I know this is a day late but I was feeling a little under the weather. Did you know that all those things like colds, flu, sore throats and such still exist? Yeah, funny thing, before covid showed up, we all and that includes the medical professionals, acted with a modicum of common sense. Since 2020, most of that has gone out the window and those that endeavor to rule us have badly managed a virus that treats a certain age group poorly, but the rest of us get over it like we got over those old viruses. The question is why this virus got treated differently. It has scared us like no other virus has.
Since God is in control of all, and I do mean all, we have a book that He wrote that would give us an idea of what might be on His mind. I suggest you start at the beginning, to not miss any of the wisdom imparted to those that read it and take it to heart. As to why the whole world is freaked out over covid, try Hebrews 12:26-29. We are being shaken, plain and simple. Now go search the scriptures to find out how not to be among the shaken.
Pastor Aaron started a new preaching series and intends to preach through the Bible. I guess that means he intends to stay with us a while. This Sunday, the sermon was Fall of Man: Who’s in Charge, Genesis 3. You have two options: listen to the whole service, or watch the sermon.
Listen:
Watch:
We are starting a new chapter, John 5, today. Jesus had healed the royal official’s son and thereby delivered a potent lesson of faith to all that witnessed it. The scripture states that he and his entire household believed. (John 4:53) Households in those days, for somebody of this man’s status, could be quite large. We know he had slaves, because that is referred to in John 4:51. It is quite possible that we are talking in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 people. And we know that God quite often comes to those who would be looked at as downtrodden, servants and slaves. We saw in John 2 verse 9, the servants who had drawn the water knew that Jesus made it into wine. Now these slaves in the royal official’s household knew that this Rabbi had healed the master’s son with a word from afar. We find in Luke 5:31 “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.” You would not necessarily think of a slave being sick, unhappy but not sick.
This is where metaphors and a casual perusal of the scripture can cause us to miss the point. The sick Jesus was talking about were those whose hearts were sick with sin. In this, all of us would qualify and yet none of us are slaves. Or are we? We seem to have many masters these days, just listen to what you hear from various governors on the news to verify what I am saying. Slaves in those days lived in their master’s house and did what they were told. From what I hear from our political class, they wish to have that same power. My point is, this servant class knew what hopelessness was and there were many more of them than the owner class. These people saw what Christ had done, and that lesson went right to their heart and they shared it. Who wants to keep good news bottled up inside themselves? Slaves talked to slaves and the good news got spread around. It was slaves that handled the kids and next thing you know, the whole household has the good news. This is how God works. If you truly believe that Christ is Lord and our Saviour, and because of His sacrifice, we who believe will live forever in His Glory, why are you keeping that to yourselves?
Jesus went up to Jerusalem, for the feast of the Jews. (John 5:1) The North entrance of old Jerusalem was known as the Sheep Gate. The map gives you a good look at all the gates in the Old town of Jerusalem which is kind of a small area. There was a pool near that gate named “Bethesda,” in Aramaic. It means “House of Mercy.” This pool had five porticoes or entrances. In these porticoes lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, limping, or paralyzed. (John 5:3 )The covered colonnades would have provided shade for the disabled who gathered there, but there was another reason for the popularity of the Pool of Bethesda. Legend had it that an angel would come down into the pool and “stir up the water.” The first person into the pool after the stirring of the water “was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted” (John 5:4) You can see the pool of Bethesda is close to the Temple, so if you come to Jerusalem from the North, which Jesus had done, coming in from 
Cana of Galilee, He would have probably walked right by the pool. And we know that He did because the scripture tells us He saw a man that had been ill for 38 years, laying there. (John 5:5) Our God is a loving God. He has compassion and mercy on a people that don’t deserve it. In fact He sent His only begotten Son to die on a cross so that we who believe will live. Jesus, fully Man and fully God, (Titus 2:13-14) sees this guy and knows he has been in this condition a very long time. Our Savior has compassion on this man and asks him if he wants to get well?
Imagine you are this individual laying at the water’s edge. You’ve been sick for a very long time, and you know if you can get to the pool first after the stirring, your life will be so much better. Some man walks up to you and asks you if you want to get well. You’ve been concentrating on the pool, watching it intently and now some random stranger strides up and asks the obvious. Because He who is questioning you is healthy and standing upright on his own 2 very mobile legs, you are polite in your response to him. “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” (John 5:7)
This would be a good time to remember what Grace and Mercy are. Grace is receiving what you don’t deserve and Mercy is not receiving what you do deserve. Jesus gives Grace to this man and tells him to “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” (John 5:8) The scripture does not say if this man was a believer before his healing, hence the Grace of our Lord having compassion on this poor man who was ill for so long. The man immediately became well, picked up his palette and began to walk. Are you still imagining that you were this man? How would you feel now?
You know what’s coming next, don’t you? What day do you suppose it is? Jesus made a habit of healing people on the sabbath. For the very reason of showing the Pharisees that the sabbath was made for Man, not Man made for the sabbath. (Mark 2:27) The Pharisees had gotten that turned around badly. In their mind, it was against the law to do many things on the sabbath. (John 5:10) The scripture says that the Jews stopped this guy and indignantly asked him what he was doing. “It is a Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” The healed man had a ready answer for them. “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’” (John 5:11) I guess he figured that anybody that could heal with a word was worth listening to more than these busybody Jews with all their rules. These Jews became more indignant and demanded to know who this law breaker was. The healed man didn’t know, for Jesus has slipped into the crowd while the man was enjoying being able to walk again. (John 5:13)
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.”(John 5:14) Interesting that this man was in the temple after his healing. I would expect it of most Jews of that time period, but what of us? Where would you be found if your cancer was suddenly cured? In church praising God or at home thinking how lucky you are? Something to think about. I consider ALS a blessing given to me, for it saved my life. My eternal life. And being given this blessing, I took the warning of not slipping back into my old ways, so that nothing worse happens to me. Things could truly be worse.
The healed man now goes off and tells the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him. And it was for this reason that the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he broke their sabbath rules. (John 5:17) But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” (John 5:18)
God the Father is working, Jesus our Lord and Savior is working, what are we doing? Are you working for the Lord? That good news that you have, are you sharing it or keeping to yourself? The last bit of Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20, Jesus, just before He ascended into heaven, He gave us our marching orders. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This is our Lord, who died on a cross and was resurrected again, at the request of the Father. All this for you who believe. In the above scripture verses, did you see an exemption for old age, infirmity or whatever? I didn’t, because there is none. You are not exempt, none of us are, so let’s get busy. This may come as a shock to you, that you’ve suddenly been told that you have a job to do, as defined by Christ, instead of sitting on our tails thinking it was somebody else’s job. Where ever did you get that notion, that all this God business was somebody else’s job or there is a job at all? We all want to go to heaven, but now you are telling me we have to do something to get there? Yes, believe. Once you believe, truly believe, your life is changed and the Spirit will start working through you. This is why it is called the fruits of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23) You on your own would not do a thing. Our natural inclination would be to run from this idea. (1 Corinthians 2:14) Do you still feel like running?
Before this virus panic, you may have gone to a church that preached light stuff, Love and inclusiveness, that sort of thing. God loves you just the way you are. Yes He does, but here’s the thing. We are sinners and all prone to sin. He wants us to be Holy, like He is Holy. (1 Peter 1:16) How we do that is to obey Him and turn from sin. (Deuteronomy 6:24)The Spirit helps with this, (John 14:26) if you let Him. However, if you choose to be lazy about your salvation, maybe you’re old and lame or just too busy for God, God is going to let you just skate by in life and many people are. (2 Pet. 3:9) It is up to you to believe and be discerning (Proverbs 3:5–6) about what you do and where you go. This includes church. If all you are getting from your church is milk, you will never mature in your Faith or hear the idea that Christ wants us to share the Good News.
Find a church that preaches from the Bible, the whole Bible. Not many do anymore. If you can’ get to Church, turn on the radio. There are good preachers out there on the air waves. Stay away from TV preachers, as most of them are preaching a false gospel of prosperity. Be discerning! Read the Bible, all of it. If you’ve done those 2 things and are still mystified at all this, examine your salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12) Mostly have Faith and Trust in the Lord for all things, for no good thing comes to you that does not come from above. (James 1:17)
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)