INTRODUCTION

Welcome again as we continue the series we’ve been looking at for the last two weeks on the miracles of Jesus Christ during His first coming.We live in a world, a culture, that is always looking for the quick fix - “send it our way!”. How many of you know someone that is always hopping onto the latest “get rich quick” scheme? They are always looking for a financial miracle. Raise your hand if you know somebody like that! How many of you know someone that is always trying the latest diet pill, miracle diet system or latest exercise machine? How many of you know somebody that’s looking for a weight loss miracle. Raise you hand? Exactly. We all do. Why don’t you point at them? I’m just kidding - don’t point at them!

The thing is, we live in a culture where we are always looking for the miraculous - the quick fix - something that will cure our problems and do so fast!

I want to tell you a story today about a guy who was searching for a miracle. He was like many of us, but this guy searched for a particular miracle for 38 years! Talk about persistence! If you have your Bibles, turn with me to John 5 and we’ll look at this story together - but let’s pray first.

PRAY

John 5. It says,

1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. [which are like porches surrounding this pool] 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie–the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 4 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
John 5:1-5 (NIV)

Here’s the story. Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem, and He walks into this area called Bethesada. He’s walking in and He sees these two pools, and he sees these big porticos or porches that are covered, and He sees hundreds, maybe even thousands of handicapped people that are laying around these porches, all just stairing at the waters of Bethesada. People who had traveled miles, and miles, and miles, just to be able to lay around the porches of this pool. Well, the reason why they did so, is because there was an urban legend back in that day that says periodically, an angel would fly over these pools, begin to stir the water, and then the waters would become an instrument of miraculous healing. The first handicapped person to get in the waters after the angel stirred them, would receive instant miraculous healing. And so, that’s why people traveled from all over just to sit there because of the chance that maybe, just maybe they’d get the miracle that they’d always dreamed of having. And the Bible then introduces the star character. John records that there was a man who had been handicapped for 38 years, who was laying around the pool.

Now, I understand a little bit about what it’s like to have a physical handicap. Being hearing impaired since I was four has brought several unique challenges to my life. I’m grateful for the blessing of technology in hearing aids that allows me to hear much better than I would otherwise, however there are still times where I wish for a miracle myself. I’d love to be able to hear naturally again. So I understand a little bit about being handicapped.

The reality is however, that everybody in the world is handicapped in one way or another. The only difference is that you can see some people’s handicaps but some people have the ability to disguise theirs.

If you’re taking notes this morning, here’s my first question, “What is your handicap?”

What is your handicap?

What is it? Is your handicap that you are spiritually blind? Blinded to the things of God? He’s drawing you, but you are just not seeing it? Maybe you don’t realize that God has created you with massive gifts and purpose, and you are living below the level He has called you to live at. There are others of you here that are just struggling with sin in your lives and you are blinded to the fact that it is not only destroying your life, but it is destroying those people that are around you and love you, and care about you. Maybe your handicap is that you are spiritually lame. Maybe at some point in your past you were abused sexually, verbally, physically, or mentally. Or you’ve been cheated on. You’re hurting, Your heart is broken. You’re not happy any more. Maybe your are here today and you are spiritually paralysed. You are looking back on the first half of your life, and you are saying, “Man, isn’t there something more to life?” Maybe you feel like you are stuck. Some of you may feel like you are in reverse! There’s others of you that are just going through spiritual apathy - you haven’t felt a fresh touch from God for months. Or maybe you are struggling with an addiction, and it has paralysed you. Everything revolves around that.

The people sitting around the pool of Bethesada that day, they not only were physically handicapped, but there were many of them just like you and I that were spiritually handicapped, and they were struggling, and they were just waiting for healing in their life. So in walks Jesus - and He sees the pool, and He sees the handicapped people, and He walks straight over to this guy who had struggled with his handicap for 38 years. What does He say to him?

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
John 5:6 (NIV)

Say it again with me? What question did Jesus ask? “Do you want to get well?”

Do you want to get well?

That’s the question. Do you want to get well! I’m reading this and thinking to myself, “Jesus, come on! This guys been struggling with this for 38 years. He hasn’t been able to get a regular job. He hasn’t been able to take care of himself. He’s had people waiting on him hand and foot.” Then it hit me, that’s why Jesus is asking him, because this man’s grown comfortable with his handicap.

So, just like Jesus approached this guy at the pool in Bethseda, I believe Jesus is approaching many of you today. Wherever it is that you are sitting, He is asking you the same question: “Do you want to get well?” or, have you grown comfortable with your handicap? Have you grown comfortable with being spiritually apathetic? Have you grown comfortable with the control in your life? With the negativity? Have you grown comfortable with a sub-par marriage? Have the things that once broke your heart and broke the heart of God ceased to phase you?

Maybe there’s some of you sitting here today, and you are thinking, “Hey, you know what Darren? I’m just going to be honest, the answer to this question, ‘Do you want to get well?’ is no. I know what God requires. I know He requires 100%, but right now in the place that I’m living, I’m willing to give Him about 50%. And there’s others of you that are just absolutely afraid that you will never, ever be able to change, you have struggled with this thing for so stinking long.

Let me share some scripture with you,

He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”
Exodus 15:26 (NIV)

This word “heal” is Jehovah Rapha, which means, the Lord our healer. It means that Jesus is the spiritual surgeon of the soul. With grace and mercy, love and compassion, Jesus looks down into your handicap, and He can bring healing like nothing else. Doctor Phil can’t heal you. Oprah can’t heal you. Money can’t heal you. Relationships can’t heal you. Your addictions can’t heal you. The only one who can heal you is the Spiritual Surgeons of the soul. All you have to do is turn everything over to Him. Allow Him to do the miraculous!

Our God is a big God. Really, in light of immensity of the universe and the wonders of what He created - its very hard for the human mind to even comprehend just how big and how powerful He is. It is impossible for us to accurately describe His full capabilities and immensity! In C.S. Lewis’ book “Prince Caspian” (part of the Chronicles of Narnia series). One of the children comes upon Aslan, the Christ-figure of the Narnia stories, after a prolonged absence. “Aslan, you’re bigger”, she says. “That’s because you’re older, little one”, answered he. “Not because you are?” “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

How true it is, as C.S. Lewis describes it - that the more we understand and the more we learn about God how much we ultimately realize that there’s more to discover!

If you are taking notes, my next question for you is, “How big is your God?” how big is God to you?

How big is your God?

Jesus walks up to this guy and says, “Do you want to get well?” What does this man say in return? The creator of the universe is in front of Him. This is His chance to experience healing.

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
John 5:7 (NIV)

You can almost hear the crackling and whining in his voce as he is saying it. Life is all about him. He had struggled with his handicap for so long, everything revolves around him and the handicap in his life. Kind of like the lyrics to a song I read recently:

I want to talk about me. I want to talk about I. I want to talk about number one, oh me, oh my. What do I think, what I like, what I want, and what I see…

And it goes on…while reading this story - did you notice all the personal pronouns in the guy’s response to Jesus? It’s my sickness. It’s my healing. I need to get well. Nobody’s going to help me. Nobody will help me get down into the water. This guy’s handicap had gotten so big that he couldn’t see that Jesus was standing right in front of him!

6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. 7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. 9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
Psalms 33:6-9 (NIV)

I cannot do a very good job explaining how big God is. There’s no words that can adequately describe that, but if you look at this verse, it simply says that God used His breath and spoke things into existence. God didn’t need a “How to Create the Universe” manual that you order off the celestial internet. He didn’t need a template. He just spoke and it was. He spoke and the heavens were made, and the earth was made - the animals, the exotic animals and sea life. Everything from the antelope to the puffer fish and sea squirt. God created the biggest dinosaur and the smallest amoeba.

You know God is big when even the smallest parts of His creation give evidence to the incredible design in their makeup. Take the monarch butterfly for instance. An electronic design expert responsible for designing parts in sophisticated electronic gadgetry, including navigation equipment for various space and defence projects certainly understood the phenomenal level of technology in the circuits that guided men to the moon. Jules Porier, the expert, says this,

However, the navigation equipment packed into the brain of the monarch butterfly shows, through the incredible feats of migration performed by that creature, that there is a far greater level of technology involved. And it is all packed into a brain no bigger than a pinhead!
(quoted from “The Magnificent Migrating Monarch” by Jules Porier - http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/763)

The monarch butterfly is about 4 cm (1.5 inches) long and weighs half a gram. Each one of its four wings has about 1.4 million scales. Every scale is filled with air to provide buoyancy and make it easier to fly. This incredible living flying machine can “perform a migration flight of thousands of kilometres, navigating unerringly to reach a place it has never seen. For instance, some monarchs fly from Nova Scotia, Canada to the mountains west of Mexico City, some 5,000 kilometres (3,000 miles) in all. Not just to the very same place to which their forefathers migrated, but each one often to the very same tree!.

“Monarch butterflies can fly in still air at a spped of around 50 kilometres (30 miles) per hou, and considerably faster with a tail wind. They usually fly close to the ground, but have been found as high as 3,500 metres (12,000 feet). They have been known to fly more than 600 kilometres (375 miles) over water non-stop in 16 hours. Their 5,000 kilometre migration takes them eight to ten weeks, traveling only in daylight. …[they] can be taken hundreds of kilometres off course and still find their way to their destination. How do they perform this amazing feat? To this day, no scientist knows for certain…”

Simply, God’s incredible design extends to even the smallest of creatures! He is a big God.

God is in control. He owns everything. He is the star of the show. He is CEO, and you and I don’t’ own anything at all. It is all His. The Bible even tells us that He knows exactly how many hairs we have on our head, or that we used to have on our head, or that we have on our chin. He doesn’t worry. He is self-existent. He is all-powerful. There’s nothing that He cannot do. He is the creator of everything, and the sustainer of everything, and it is that God that lives deep inside of who we are, and can help us overcome our problems.

Yet, some say, “I want to talk about me. I want to talk about I. I want to talk about number one. Oh me, oh my, but Darren, you don’t know how bad my pain is. You don’t know how bad my handicap is.” How big is your God? “You don’t know about my past, Darren!” How big is your God? “You don’t know how long I have been struggling with this addiction.” How big is your God? God is bigger than all of your problems. God is bigger than anything you can throw at Him.

If you are taking notes, my next question for you is, “What is God telling you to do?”

What is God telling you to do?

Jesus looks at this guy after he whines about His problem, then Jesus said to Him, say it with me, “Get up!”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
John 5:8 (NIV)

There is an exclamation point here. Verse 9 says,

At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked…John 5:9 (NIV)

Jesus didn’t ask him, probably because He didn’t want to hear another excuse. Jesus simply told the man, “Get up!” and because this guy obeyed what God was asking him to do, he experienced the miraculous. He was healed and was able to walk. He was able to run. He was able to swim. He was able to climb, all because he obeyed what God was asking him to do.

Listen to me carefully, obedience precedes the miraculous. Repeat it with me, obedience precedes the miraculous, but so many of us aren’t interested in the obedience thing. We are just interested in the “obedience” of God to our requests, “Just take this thing away from me. God, I have this party coming up in two months, I need you to take six inches off right here….God, would you put $2,000 in my account? God, would you just take this addiction away from me?” But, the common theme that we see spread throughout scripture is that obedience precedes the miraculous.

God told Moses, take off your sandals - because Moses took of His sandals, he led the children of Israel out of slavery. God told Noah, “Go build yourself an ark,” and he did it, even though everybody was making fun of him and saying “This is the craziest thing you have done.” - because He obeyed, we are sitting in this room today. He told Naaman, “Go dip seven times.” Naaman was a leper - his skin was falling off. He obeyed; he was healed. Jesus told Peter, “Come to me on the water.” Peter obeyed. The miraculous happened. He walked on the water. He told the blind man, “Go wash the mud off” Because he obeyed, he was able to see.

Our obedience precedes the miraculous. What is God telling you to do?

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:27 (NIV)

We have to become people that are intently listening to the voice of God. What is He saying to you? What is He asking you to do? Forget about what you think He’s asking other people to do…what is He asking you to do? Follow Him, no matter how hard, no matter how tough. Follow Him where He is asking you to go, and you will see the miraculous in your life.

Let’s take this one step further - not just what is God asking you to do but instead what is God telling you to do? Is He telling you to get rid of your internet connection because of your addiction to pornography? Is He telling you to go to someone and ask for forgiveness, or to give forgiveness? Is He telling some of you to push that extra plate of food away because enough is enough? Is he telling you to tithe? Is He telling you to tear up your credit cards? Is He telling you to walk away from your addiction? Is He telling you to walk in and to ask your boss for a promotion? Is He telling you to get up early in the morning and finally spend some time with Him? Is He telling you to volunteer someplace? Is He telling you to spend more time with your kid? Is He telling you to invest in your marriage and be authentic and real and absolutely truthful?

If you do what God is telling you to do, you are going to see the miraculous absolutely explode in your life!

CONCLUSION

In a series called, “miracles”, some of you come to hear some cool miracle stories. Others of you come because you are in desperate need of a miracle in your own life. You’re struggling with a handicap in your life. Maybe you’ve been struggling for years. Maybe you’re ready to walk away from it. I want to know that Jesus can change you. Jesus can change you. Jesus can change you. You have to remind yourself, in the midst of your struggle that God is bigger than your problem. He’s the creator. He’s big - if he cares enough to design the butterfly to be able to navigate 5,000 miles to a place it’s never been you can be sure that He loves you, and He cares about you. You have to be obedient and do what He’s telling you to do - simply because He knows what needs to be done! No more choices; no more options. Simply say, “Yes, God, no matter what it is, I will follow You. Wherever it is, I will be obedient,” and it is then that you are going to see the miraculous begin to explode in your life. Do you really, do you really want to get well? Because, Jesus can heal you, no matter what you are dealing with.