We had to be in the cities for a wedding. My wife was, man, I don't know if my eyes got foggy today or if there's something else. There's a lot of haze in here this morning. Wow, that's so good.
I look better with haze though. I'll tell you that right now. This thing doesn't look good. We can see me clean.
Maybe Kirby's have haze every week. A lot of that haze. Let's check it out and stop some of it. Anyway, I was going to be in the cities for a wedding.
It's actually 20 minutes south of the cities. And so my dad's 82nd birthday on Thursday. And so we went in, did the wedding rehearsal. And then came out and went to my parents in Lakeville.
They had a nice place. And it was awesome. And you have one of those moments where you wish you could just rewind and do something different. Get in the house.
We hurry. We're getting there doing cake. It's 9 o'clock at night. We're getting ready to have cake.
And hop on her run in and then get done. Get down, go to bed. And realize that some idiot in our family forgot to lock the doors of the car. That would be me.
I'm the idiot. I didn't lock it. So we walked out. My wife walked out because she's got to be at the wedding by night in the morning.
She's leaving at 8. She walks out. And our car is trashed. Someone had opened the door and trashed our car.
And so they'd rummaged through everything. The nice part about it is she had left a person there. And I put the car keys to our other car, which we have one set for in there just in the little thing, a couple hundred dollars of gift cards that we had in the center council. And it was a great day.
So let's a great day. So we walk out. She walks out. And here's what's crazy is the gift cards are still in the car.
They just take them out. They're just taking them out of their car. They're like, you're done. Those are the easiest things to have.
And they've taken her person. She had gotten a coach purse because her grandma's coach purse. She died. And she passed it on to my wife.
She had this coach person in there. And she would never be able to buy or want to buy one of those or do. And so they had taken that. And what they had done is about half a block down the thing.
They'd taken her purse and emptied it out on the ground. And then left it there. I'm like, you guys are dumb. That was a coach purse.
You guys should have taken that. That was stupid. And then they took her backpack with her. Well, they had my keys.
They took the keys. They took my computer, work computer. They took her passport. They got all this stuff.
It's super funny. And not really. And so they took it all in anyway. It was dumb.
But they didn't even take the credit cards out of the purse. I'm like, you guys. So you know how I find my iPhone? You can go in there and actually, like, if it's lost, you put something in there.
So I left it. I said, hey, if this ever gets online, I'm like, if you guys found this, you guys are idiots. You didn't take the coach purse or the gift cards. That was a mess.
And I was like, you're just dumb. I was saying, you took it. You're just idiots. You're stupid.
But we got the purse back. And it was kind of like, here, I don't want to tell you this story. It's not just telling you my life. You're like, I don't care about your life.
That much, that much, that much. You're nice and everything. But stop moving. You're not someone saying there's nothing.
There's no such thing as a bad question. It's ridiculous. There are a lot of bad questions. I'm just telling you right now.
I said, I'm working on a bad question. Yeah, but there is. I go to restaurants. And when I go to the restaurant, the server will come up, whether it's a girl or a guy, will come up and go, hey, can I get you guys in a drink?
We have Coke products, or we have Pepsi products, or whatever. We have lemonade. And then you see the whole drink menu, and get whatever you want from that. And I'll ask this question.
Hey, do you guys have water? That's a dumb question. In the US, everybody's got water. I said, I guess it's a dumb question.
And they'll look at me like, oh, no, we don't. I'm like, oh, that's too bad. I'll have to see when we get there. No, we have water.
I'm like, oh, OK. Well, I'll have water without lemon. And if you have without lemon, I'll have without lime. And they do what you guys just do.
Why? I'm like, yeah, I just put some ice in. That'd be great. And they're like, OK, you're dumb.
Then they come in, the server will come up with my wife. They'll go, hey, do you want a box for that? I'm like, no, but you'll probably wrestle you. I'm like, that was a dumb question.
Why would I want a box from my leftovers? I'm not into fighting that much, but I guess that's what you want to do. You know what dumb question? Here's the question I heard somebody say.
I'll just question. If I eat myself, would I become twice as big or disappear completely? That's weird. Why would you ever ask that question?
How about the one? How much would chug chug chug chug? I don't know. I'm not sure.
But maybe a lot. I don't know. Why are we asking now? How about this?
If you're the good, hit the good, then tell the good, I'm not the good, hit the good, see kid. If you're the good, then tell the good, then tell the good, then tell the good, then tell the good, then you can see kid. You know what I'm saying? And the question is that I'm just dumb.
Anyway, we'll move on. But Jesus is so good. We're in the middle of a serious call. The question is Jesus asked.
The question is, what's the first? It seems like that was one of the dumbest questions I've ever heard. And Jesus doesn't ask questions. If you've been around it, that much doesn't ask questions to learn something, ask questions to teach something.
He asks questions to kind of like, how many has ever been, I don't appear, we don't do this much, but you've never been fishing. Oh, there are some people that fish up here. Like we have like million lakes, right? You're like, anyway, it's like somebody goes fishing, right?
They take the lure, they throw it out in the water or into the lake and the fish comes up and nibbles it and then they just kind of slowly reel it up. And that's kind of what Jesus' question. Like we throw it out for you to just kind of take hold of and then to process through and kind of get to you the point where you're just faced with him. And that's what he's trying to do in this moment in this question that we're going to ask.
He's trying to bring you to a spot where you go, I just want to talk to you about something. I want to talk to you. I want to see what's going on. I want to just see what's happening.
I want you to learn. So he kind of does that. And I hope that today that all of us today would ask this question. It would bring us face to face with him.
We would come to a place where we would deal super honestly with some things. That's my hope. That's my question. That's my desire.
We're looking at the question or first response might be, that's a really stupid question. Maybe there's something to this. Let's look at this morning at John chapter 5. Have you got your vitals?
He's been hanging out with his disciples. He's become very popular. But it seems like the tides started to turn against him. He's been healed on the Sabbath.
The religious leaders don't like it. So this is where we go. John chapter 5 verse 1. Sometimes later Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.
There is Jerusalem near the sheep, in Aramaic is called the the theta. Which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. And a great number of disabled people used to lie. The blind, the lane, the paralyzed.
One who is there had been an invalid for 38 years. So you can see, I don't know if you're familiar at all, if you've ever been to Israel, but you can see the pool today. They've uncovered it, they've unearthed it in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was surrounded by a wall then, it's surrounded by a wall now in a lot of parts.
And there's the northeast corner of Jerusalem. It's, there's this gate called the Sheep Gate. And if you enter there, there was this pool. And it was probably like 120 or 150 feet in width and 300 feet long.
And so it's this big pool and it was a place to wash to gather about 100 yards from the temple or so. And the name Bethesda means house of mercy. And when you hear the story in a minute, you're gonna be like, that doesn't seem like a very merciful place. It's kind of crazy, but here the blind, the sick, the lame would hang by this pool and lay close to it because they thought at times the water would stir, that the angel would come down.
They'd think of the time that water would stir. Many theologians don't think that there was a difference but there was this myth, this legend, that this would happen. And if you were the first one into the pool, you'd more actually be healed. Now this man had been there for 38 years.
Think about that. It's in the pool just hoping some way they can find their way in. I don't even picture the scene with me. There are blind people begging for money.
They're sitting there begging. And all these people come out trying to get to the temple as a big festival. And there's blind people and they're probably begging for money. They're coming by the way, please help me.
There's people that can't walk. There's people probably with open sores and just trying to see if I can get into the pool. There's probably an odor. There's probably commotion.
It says there's a crowd of people. It's probably crazy around there. There's people that are just laying on matches. People that have been there for years and the noise and the stuff out of you can imagine with me, the picture.
It's probably like a hospital scene, but a very understaffed hospital. Well, there's people in need and people everywhere. And these people there for days or years, so you can imagine what was going on. Can you imagine the frustration?
You can imagine what was bothering them? What was going on and hanging on the hope that today might be their day. I guess there's a place that a lot of people would stay away from in town because they don't want to walk through that and get bothered by everybody. Can imagine this full of all different kinds of people with different physical needs and different struggles.
And this man has been there for 38 years. These pools are people maybe didn't realize back then, but some did, but the people there were fed by springs underneath. And at times they would bubble up. And that was when the legend came from it.
When it bubbled up, the first one into the pool would get healed. They really believe that was a case. And so here are people with very real needs trying to put themselves in position. If the pool would stir, they could get into the pool first.
I can imagine the frustration that would have built up over the years. I just can't get in. Can you imagine the blind person sitting by the pool and they can't see that the water is bubbling and they never get in. But yet they stand there hoping they will.
They want the paralyzed person that's laying there and they see the bubble, but they don't have enough in them to get themselves, to pull themselves into the pool. They're just laying there. Can you imagine the frustration? Can you imagine how it bothered them?
Could you imagine what was going on? Just I can imagine how the people that need it the most are the least likely to get in, especially the paralyzed or blind. And Jesus chooses to enter that gate to go to the temple to worship. By the pool where others are passing by on that Sabbath.
Jesus stops and he looks down at this man in the midst of all these other people. What does he see? Jesus sees people in pain. Jesus notices people that others might pass by.
People are coming from miles around to meet God at the temple and didn't realize that he was actually out back by the pool. So I was actually out back. See what's got to see this morning? He sees your heart, he sees your pain, he sees your struggle, he sees what's going on.
Here Jesus is walking among the blind, lame, hurting. Those who are begging. I want you to know Jesus sees you in your pain this morning. It's times it's so easy to forget how much pain there is and how many people are in pain all of the time.
We come to church, we're all dressed up. We clean up and we're looking good, but underneath there's a lot of pain, a lot of hurt, a lot of struggle. The reality is a lot of us aren't really up at the temple. We're at the pool.
We're here this morning, but we're really just into the pool. Just hoping the water will get stirred enough that we can get into the pool and be have a little bit of relief from our pain, from our struggle, from our battle. We're gonna be honest. Many of us in the room are spiritually lame, emotionally crippled.
We're blind to so many things about ourselves and the truth in our own lives. The blind going to church can't see right. Can't perceive right. They don't see God right.
They don't see scripture right. They don't have a proper Biblical worldview. So you can't respond to social issues right. Blinded by the world or the enemy.
You don't see relationships or right. You can't see it. You can see it by the way that we live, that we're somehow we're blinded by what the world is saying is right and how we're supposed to live. And we can tell because the church doesn't even honor the things of God anymore.
You don't see him as sacred. You see him as a buddy. You just hang out with him. There isn't any fear of him.
You live how you want and don't really care. You claim Christianity, but you're blind that who he really is. Did you forget that he's holy? Churches are full of people are blind.
They're full of people are lame. Someone who's lame is someone who's impaired by a weakness. An injury, trauma, something has an effect on your wellbeing. It's affecting your ability to move forward.
Your progress has been affected. You're stuck in the past. Trauma's impaired some of us mentally. That trauma is making us lame not to be able to move forward because it's controlling us.
Some of us have been lame since we were kids because something happened to us. So because someone hurt you from your past or something happened while you were growing up. Some are lame because of an adult trauma that went on in your life. Some of you have been abused and had said things said to you and you carry that trauma.
Some of you are lame because you're self-inflicted trauma. You're not moving forward as fast as it could because of trauma. Not connecting like it could because of trauma. You have poor relationships because of trauma in your past.
Poor marriages become out because of trauma. How about paralyzed? You're living but not making any progress. 10 years have gone by and you haven't made any progress.
You're still stuck in the past. Some of you are paralyzed by fear. Some are paralyzed by insecurities. You hate yourself.
Some of you are paralyzed by your comfort zone. You won't push to move forward. Some of you are paralyzed by pain. Some of you are paralyzed by disappointment.
But you know today God's in the room. He's in the room. Just like he was when he came to the pool. He's in the room today.
We come hurting from a fight from a divorce from a struggle. We come staggering or straggling in over by stress or sickness. We come to the edge of the pool wondering if God is going to show up and do anything to fix it. And here we sit.
So we all face stuff or carry a burden. And Jesus sees that pain. He knows you're hurt. He's here today walking through the aisles.
Looking at us. He's able to heal. He's able to restore. He's able to make coal.
He just wants to do it. I love that Psalm 147, he says he heals the broken heart and binds up their wounds. I know about you, but I want God to do that today. Matthew 11, 28 says, come to me all who are weary and burdened.
I will give you rest. Some of you, what you need this morning is just a little bit of rest from the pain and the hurt and the struggle. See, Jesus sees your pain. Those strongly they sit by the pool.
So he asked the question of the man who had been sitting by the pool for 38 years. What's the question? When Jesus saw him lying there and learned he had been in that condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get, well, what a dumb question. What do you think?
You think I want to get well? Doesn't it seem like a dumb question? You think I just like sitting here for 30 years? What do you think?
Really? He's been trying every day to get into the pool for 38 years and he asks him a question. He doesn't, he doesn't want to get well? He doesn't, Jesus doesn't hang out with him for a while.
He doesn't ask him how he's doing. He doesn't talk to him. He doesn't tell him his story. He simply says, do you want to get well?
It seems like such an unnecessary question. Almost mean at times. If you've ever seen someone's falling down and they're having a hard time getting up and you're just looking like, hey, you need some help. You've ever been into a pool or a lake and someone's drowning and it's like, that's too bad.
You need me? Are you good, okay? Like, you know? No, right, we go help.
What a dumb question. The kid's choking. How's that apparent? The kid was choking this week.
Can you imagine if the mom would just look at the kid go, you good? I know you just saw the bottle cap. It's stuck in your throat. You're good?
Right? The dumb question. Of course I'm not good. Of course I'm about ready to die.
So is my mom reaching around to hook the bottle cap and it pulled it out? I mean, yeah, it's such an interesting question. It's a ridiculous question or is it really? So when you realize that Jesus asked really good questions, you start to wonder, why is he really asking the question?
Is there more to it than we realize? When we ask questions, we ask them to get information. But when Jesus asks questions, he was hoping there'd be a little bit of self-examination. Hope something's going on inside.
They would ask, he wants you to think about what's going on inside. Take a good, hard look at yourself this morning. He wants you to see what he already knows. So you've got to already knows everything about you and he's wondering if you do as well.
Or if you'd be honest with yourself this morning. The question is, do you want to get, well, do you want to be healed? Or do you just want the pain to be gone? Or do you just want to be able to walk without really being well?
Do you want to get, well, do you think Jesus knows this guy's heart? Do you think this guy had found some advantage to his life as the way it was? Do you think he'd gotten used to it and was finding some sort of comfort in it? Just become familiar with the routine and become his identity.
Some of us don't know who we'd be or what we'd do if we didn't have our problem because it's become who you are. It's become your life. It's become what you're familiar with. Some people develop a codependency with their problems and with their pain.
We're okay with our bad habits and immature behavior. We don't want those messed with it because if they were, we wouldn't know what to do. We wouldn't know how to live. We wouldn't know how to walk.
We've become codependent relationship with our addictions and we've grown used to the decisions we make having a major effect not only on ourselves but on those around us. So there's so many people that love to complain about their problems all day long and to have somebody listen. It's nice to have those people around that care about you so you don't mind having problems. So I know I gotta be careful when we talk about this because there's a legitimate pain and sorrow and there's stuff that happens in life that we would give anything to be free from.
Right, there's things that matter. If we just do anything to be free, I just do anything to be healed. Do anything to have not had to deal with this. Some of us are there but some of us we would say yeah we want to be healed but the reality is when it comes along you say no I don't know if I really want to.
But we can't say that this means that all people aren't healed that way because they don't want it bad enough or they don't want to be healed. That's not what I'm saying at all. See countless other times in the scripture he was without asking the question but for some reason in this woman he asked the question, do you want to get well? So we know that this guy has a special case.
He's just gonna let this guy have the hook. So he asks do you want to get well? These guys problems have become a way of life for him. He's saying if I heal you, you've got all these friends here that this could affect.
You've been hanging with these buddies for 38 years. I healed you, you probably have to walk away from these friends. You will need to do that. Might change your friend group.
You hang out here every day this is what you do. You'll have to probably change. You'll have to get a job because you don't have to get a job. But if I heal you, you got to get a job.
You want to do that? You want to get well? Do you really want to get well? Everything you've removed.
Are you ready to do that? Do you really want to get well? Do you like this what you're doing too much? What do you really want?
What do you really want to do with this guy and for us this morning? Are you ready for the change that will need to take place or do you want to get well? Do you want to be well? Are you ready to deal with the change you like that comes when Jesus heals you?
That's what he's getting at. Other people, he didn't ask it to everybody. He asked if I heal you, there's things that are going to have to change. Do you really want him in your life and you just want the problems or feelings that go away?
So if he heals you, you'll be ready to change. It will cause you to quit complaining about your problems. Or do you like complaining about how God and others just need to keep doing a little bit more for you. Because there's a difference.
If he heals a day, are you ready to change the way that you live? See when Jesus puts it like that, it's a different question. So what does Jesus Jesus hear in the moment? Think about this, this is crazy to me.
What's he hear in the moment, John chapter five or seven? Sir, the invalid replied. I have no one to help me into the pool when the water's stirred. Well, I'm trying to get in, everyone else goes down ahead of me.
In other words, you want to get, well, I can't, I can't. I've got all these excuses of why I'm not getting better. No one will help me. It's other people's fault the way that I am.
You don't understand Jesus. I want to get in, but my buddies don't come and pick me up to get me into the pool before everybody else. It's their fault. You don't get it, do I want to get well?
I can't. There's nothing I can do about it. And some of us sit in the room and go, you want to get well? You want to get well?
You don't know what my parents did to me. You don't know what happened to me when I was again. I can't get well. I can't move past this.
I'm stuck in this. Jesus asked a yes or no question, and he gets an excuse. He says, yeah, I would do anything. God, I'll do anything.
What do I need to do? I'll do anything. No, he drops the ball. He starts to complain.
But everyone else, he makes a bunch of excuses and the answer is right there before him. He can't even see it's there. All these sees his reality was passed and present and doesn't see the potential in Jesus in his future. Isn't it easy to fall into that?
You can't see past yourself. You can't see past your own problems. It sees the solution right in front of you. Because in all reality for you, the problems are the real issue.
See, people talk to me all the time about how they want to be better. They don't like how something's going with their family relationship. They don't like how they respond to things or how they think or process or their health and how they want to be better. They just say, I can't.
I'm stuck. It's not my fault. It's my spouses. It's not my fault.
It's my kids. It's my parents. That's just how it was made. That's what I do.
Jesus really wants to know. Do you really want to get well? You sit here today with the power to heal more than just our physical needs. And once you know how serious you really are about having a part of your life.
One of our times he wants to say, hey, Kurt, come on. You really want to change. You really want to change. Really, you don't want to change.
You're just really comfortable. You like the way you are. You want to get better. You just want the pain to go away.
You want the discomfort and frustration and the emptiness and some of the feelings go away. But do you really have a desire to be new and hold? Well, do you really want to be changed completely? For many of us, that's not as big of a desire as it is to hold on to your stuff or hold on your sin or whatever else you want to hold on to.
So once you understand, there's always pain when there's change. There's no change without pain. Change hurts. That's why we don't do it.
I'm pretty convinced that people won't change until the pain of staying the way we are is greater than the pain of changing. I just kind of like it a little bit. We don't change until the pain of what you're doing is greater than the pain of what it's going to cost you to change. So you see people don't change until they get really low.
So people don't change until they get caught in a sin that they didn't know anybody. They think anyone's ever going to find out and they're like, oh, yeah, I think I should change. They like their sin or they like their struggle or they like their battle. What's it going to cost you?
Live our lives sitting on a mat by the side of the pool with all the others you want to sit and complain about why things are the way they are. Someone's like having our little group of negative people in our lives that we keep talking about everybody else and then wonder why we never get out of the funk that we're in. So he wants you this morning to see the truth about yourself and that's the key to moving forward. For him, it was you have to change your friends.
He asked this, would you do that if they were the ones constantly bringing you down? Would we ask you to let go of some habits? Would you be willing to this morning to get well? Are you really ready for that?
Do you want to get well? How about this stuff you look at online? Do you hate it? What it does even though you kind of like it?
Will you go to war to fight against it or will you just keep letting it happen in your life? So what do you want more? Your sin, your struggle, your pain, your hurt, your trauma, what do you want what God can do? Are you really ready to say, God, here it is, I'm ready to be made well today.
So what areas of your life you're willing to lay down in order to get well? So God won't take anything from you that you won't give your permission to. So if you love some of this stuff in your life more than what God, then you want God to change you. You will just have to walk around the rest of your life with that stuff, that burden.
So until the pain living in it is bringing the change will bring about if you change. So what you have is you become so comfortable with your life that it would be really hard for you to do like OVIN. So many of us in this room have things we really don't like that we keep running back to. We don't want it but we kind of like it.
I don't like that I'm addicted to that but I kind of like it. I like that I'm struggling. He says, listen, because here's the deal. I'm going to go here.
Jesus says to him, verse 8, then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. He doesn't lean down and say, oh poor thing. I know it's hard. He doesn't say, tell me about where does it hurt?
He says, get up, pick up your mat and walk. Jesus tells us to do the very thing that we feel we are unable to do. I haven't even been able to get up for 38 years. Get up.
I think about all the people that kind of just go, listen, I'm in my struggle. I'm in my battle. Listen, I can't get out of it. They keep calling me.
Quit answering the phone. Don't hang out with him anymore. Find some ways to help yourself. Stay out of the Internet.
Do something. Try to figure out how do I get help. To quit just sit on somebody else's phone. No, you don't have to answer the text.
You can block them. You don't have to go hang out with them. All those are negative. You don't have to know what's going to tell you behind you.
Come on. We can do this. And Jesus, come on. Get up.
Get up. Pick up your mat and walk. He doesn't lean down and look. He goes, get up.
But he won't go against your will. Or his will. You have to get up and move. If you want to get well, you stand up.
He didn't come over and pick him up and say, hey, why don't you get up? He says, listen. If you want to get well, stand up right now. If you want to get well, do something.
You make a decision. You do something. You don't think you can do it. You don't have to make a decision to get up or not.
That's his choice. He had to get moving. We can do this together. You and God, you can sit and complain by the pool the rest of your life.
Or you can get up and walk. What he's asking you to do is to get up and do something. He's looking for you to take some steps. So you can pray all you want.
But if you don't do the work, it's not going to happen. If your marriage is struggling, you've got to pray. But then you also have to put in the work. If you look at things you should be looking at.
You've got to put in the work. If you have some addiction that you're fighting, it's going to take some work. You can't blame everybody else. You've got to cut some ties.
You've got to change your top. You've got to go and hang around with people. All they want to do is gossip about everybody else. You've got to do something.
Jesus, he's the only man who told him to get up and walk. Let me ask you, are you going to get up and walk away from the pool? So you have to take the steps. We can do it together with him.
You think about this? He's lying on a mat next to a pool for 38 years. 1988. That'd be 38 years.
Just laying here. Kind of joining me. It's a people not really wishing I could heal, but not really not enough to move. Not enough to do anything.
He's just sitting there and he's just going for 38 years. This has become his life. Some of us, it's been our whole life. We've been laying here in the midst of our trauma, in the midst of our pain, in the midst of our struggle, in the midst of our sickness, in the midst.
And they say, do you want to get well? And they say, do you want to get up? It's going to cost you some pain. It's going to be hard.
It's going to be hard. But we can't just stay where we're at. And laying there for 30. Could you imagine sitting by the pool for 38 years?
Does he ever wonder how he ended up at the pool? Or how you ended up there? There are a lot of things in your life that could cause you to stay by the pool. But don't you think there's a moment where you'll say, I've sat by the pool long enough?
God, I'm ready. I'm ready to move past my past. When you get to the point where you say, Jesus has done more for me than the world has done to me, I'm ready to get up, ready to move forward. See what you need to understand is there is a crowd by the pool and misery loves company.
Can't lie up by the pool with all the people I love to lie in their shame and feel sorry for themselves. You can stay there in your doubt and complain because there's always a crowd of people that will do that or you can get up and say it's time God. I'm ready to move forward. I'm ready to be made well and order to get up low.
You've got to change your posture. You've got to change your perspective. It's probably going to hurt if you've been seen by the pool for a long time. But if you're ready today, he says, pick up your mat and move forward.
We need to realize that this is a world that is sick and dying and hurting and lonely. And we need to church that isn't just laying by the pool of ineffectiveness. A church that isn't sitting there in negativity or shame and fear. And I always talk about how bad the world is.
People are going to rise up and get off their mats and fix their eyes on Jesus and move forward. Look what happened next. Here's what it says and I'm almost done. And once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and walked the day on which it took place with the Sabbath.
See Jesus asked it very hard. Do you want to get well? It's a great question. Let's live like Jesus is really able to let us set us free.
And here's the last part. Just read the last couple of words that once the man was cured, he picked up his mat and he walked the day on which he just took place with the Sabbath. So the church leader said the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath, the law for busy to carry your mat. What a dumb rule.
Just many people. But he replied the man who made me well said to me pick up your mat and walked. So he asked him, who is this fellow told to pick up your mat and walk? Can you imagine?
Who is he and the man who was healed? He let no idea who it was for Jesus lived into the crowd. Can you imagine when all this thing started to walk? Can you imagine the craziness of all the other people going, Hey, he's been here all 38 years and he's walking and Jesus is going to walk and walks away.
But I love their end of the story because Jesus doesn't leave it there. He goes and finds them later on. Later Jesus found him at the temple. Instead of seeing you are well against stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.
The man who went away and told the church leaders what that was Jesus who made him well is interesting. The little letter he finds him at the temple and he says stop sinning or something worse will happen. That makes it a challenge to take the decisions we are making today seriously and walk on the door to leave some of the areas that put us around the pool in the first place behind. He says get rid of your sin because there's something worse that could happen.
Worse than being crippled for 30 years. What's that? You know what that is? It's an eternity without Jesus.
It's an eternity without him. Man, you go keep living to sin. You're going to be selling the one thing that's worse than sin years crippled for 30 years and it's an eternity with me. That's what's worse.
Eternity without me. He didn't just care about his legs. He cared about his eternity. Come on, cross this room.
Would you stand this morning? I don't know where you're at. I don't know where you're struggling. I don't know what's going on.
But I do know this. They got sin. Would you just get up? He said come on.
Do you want to get well? Do you want to get free? Do you want to have hope? Here's the deal.
Would you just get up? Do you want to sit by the pole to rest of your life and struggle and pain? Are you willing to count the cost? Come on, church.
Do you really want to get well? Do you really want to move past? Do you really want to say, okay God? This is it.
I've been able to pull for long enough. I'm tired. It's time to move forward. It's time to call.
Do you want to kill me? It's time to say God. Would you please step before you? God, it's time to say God.
Would you just show up and free me for my anxiety? From my fear? From my pain? From my trauma?
From my past? From my bad decisions? From my addiction? From whatever else?
God, in your room, you're sitting there and literally you're sick and you're not a disease or cancer or you can't move. God, do we sit here this morning, some in their chair, some at the altar? God, man, you've got free years. If it's just saying God, I want to get well.
They don't like where they're at. They don't like the struggle. They don't like the doctors' report. They don't like what's going on.
They don't like the addiction. They don't like it. They got this morning. They're in the room.
They're just saying God, you just see me in my struggle. You just see the anxiety, the controls. You can just see the fear. God, you see the sickness.
Can you see the disease? Can you see the lame? Can you see the blind? Can you see God?
I pray this morning. God, as people have come, maybe for the first time, they're saying, yeah, I want to get well. I know it may cost me something to get well, but God, I'm ready. I'm willing.
I'm able if you'll just do something in my heart. And so God, you see our heart, your heart posture today. God, as you just have you move to have you speak, to have you say something to have you speak something to our spirit. God, get up.
God, we would just say to save you, just save us today. Get up. God, your heal. Get up.
There's holness. Get up. God, we are asking God. God, do it in our situation.
Do it in our life. God, today there's some in the room. Maybe have never given their life to Jesus. You're here today.
Maybe you've never given them a chance today. And you say, you know, Krip, you're talking about it. He says, go and sin no more. And you're like, man, I'm in the middle of sin.
I'm in the middle of a mess. I don't even know what to do when you're here today. You say, don't come back. I haven't came out like to Jesus, but I want to give God a chance.
Whether it's the altar in your church, say it to me. So I pray for you. Anybody else? Anybody else?
Yeah, anybody else? Lord, I just pray. Just to die in the cross for a sin. Come on, just tell them.
Tell them you need them. Tell them to eat them. Say, if anyone calls on the name of the Lord, they'll be saved. Come on, just tell them you need them.