Audio MP3 Jeremiah 17:7-8; John 5:1-10, 14
Text: Jeremiah 17:7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. 8 They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Main Idea: Plant yourself by the stream of living water, where your roots can pull from its life-giving flow.
Recap: Last week we talked about the rise of the selfie-culture. We said Selfies tend to show to others what we wish our life to be, but what our lives have not yet become. In order for us to develop a spiritually mature and full life, there are three other selfies we need to develop. That is what we are exploring in recent weeks – the original selifies: Self-awareness, self-responsibility and self-advocacy. Last week, we talked about the importance of self-awareness in the Christian life. We compared the life of self-awareness to the subtle, lovely beauty of the perfectly-delivered curve ball, as opposed to a life of relentless, out-of-control, unaware fastballs, one after the other.
Introduction: This week, let’s spend some time discussing another original selfie, self-responsibility. I originally was going to name this self-reliance, but that term is misleading. Ultimately, we are reliant upon the grace of God. As the saying goes, but for the grace of God go I. John Wesley said, “For there is nothing we are, or have, or do, which can deserve the least thing at God’s hand.” Everything comes by God’s grace, so we are reliant upon God for all things. But, we still are responsible for what we choose. Randy Maddox teaches that God’s grace is “responsible grace.” Through God’s grace, healing and wholeness is made available to us, and within that grace is the power to respond to God’s grace. But….and this is a big but….Empowered with this ability to respond or not, we ultimately made the decision of whether we will
Lame Man Healed in Bethesda: In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters a sick and diseased man lying some distant from the pool at Bethesda, which was known for its healing powers. The belief was that occasionally an angel would swoop down and stir the waters, and the first person to enter the waters as they were stirred would be healed. First come first served! The man had been sick for thirty eight years. Being the compassionate Son of Man, what do you think Jesus did? You would think he would pick him up and take him to the pool, keep everyone back and lower the man into the healing waters. But, Jesus doesn’t do that. He approaches the man and ask him, “Do you want to be made well?”
Are you tired of being a victim? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Or are you secretly wishing to stay in your condition, because victimhood has its rewards if you play it right. You can gain pity from others. You can assume an indignant self-righteousness over your oppressor. You can wrap your identity around your victimhood. We see that in the political sphere, there is political advantage to claiming victimhood. Frankly, some people relish in playing the victim.
Jesus wants to know are you in your mind and heart a victim, or are you one who overcomes? Jesus doesn’t ask what happened, who injured him, how he contracted his infirmity, or how horrible his life must be. He asks, are you ready to be made well?
Enslaved to your story? Does the victim near the pool, say “Yes! I want to well again!”? No, his tells his victim story. “The sick man answered 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). Now there is a time and place to tell our story, how we’ve been hurt, and so on. But, here’s a little free advice. When the Great Physician asks, “Do you want to be made well?” the proper answer is “Yes!” Instead, the man at the pool is still dwelling in his victimhood, on his unjust past, on what could have been rather than what could be. He is enslaved by his story.
You and I have a story, and there are elements of that story that can bind us…if we let them. It might be a bad decision for which you are reaping a harvest. Maybe it’s a poor health decision you made through your life that has resulted in sickness or disease today. Maybe it’s a bad relationship decision that is still costing you, such as a divorce. It could be a multitude of things. We all have actions or words from our past that can bind us and keep us a free and open future…if we let them.
And whether or not we stay bound to our past decisions or have a future that is free and full of promise depends on how we answer Jesus when he asks you, “Do you want to be made well?” When he does that, stop reliving your story. Stop living in that past. Stop making excuses. And just say, “Yes!” Change your mind. Change your world.
YOU, pick up your mat and walk: So that is why we can talk about self-responsibility as a virtue, a characteristic of the strong and vibrant disciple of Jesus. Jesus can heal and renew your life, but he always waits for you to respond to his grace. He will not force you to move beyond your victimhood, but he will show you the way. He does not pick up the lame men, but instead says, “Pick up your mat and walk!”
That is what Jesus said to the man. He does not carry him to the pool. He says rather tersely and seemingly callously says to the infirm man, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. Jesus does not say, “Let me carry your cross.” He says, in effect, “Get up, follow me, and I will lead you to living waters. He will lead you to the waters at Bethsaida.
Do you see the lesson here? If you want to be made whole in life, if you want to dance again in life, you…YOU…must believe and respond by taking on a mind that agrees to pull yourself out the mess in which you find yourself. It is amazing how much you open yourself to the healing, restoring powers of Christ when you start pulling yourself up. The very act of pulling yourself up, the very movement toward recovery opens your life for the life-giving waters of the Divine to pour into your life. And when that happens, your story is primed for a change, a new beginning, a new day.
Remain planted by living waters: And once we make the decision to pull ourselves up, open ourselves to God’s power and engage a new beginning, we must daily keep ourselves planted like a tree by the streams of living water. A few weeks ago, Michelle and I were walking through the neighborhood and I told her that I was going to make an effort to start thinking more positively, less judgmentally and with a resolve that God has already done a good thing. Just a few days ago we were walking in the neighborhood, and I, unaware of what I was doing, was on a negativity tangent. The sky was falling. I was frustrated. I was casting blame. I was expressing little hope for a situation in our life. And she rebuked me lovingly with these biting words. “So much for positive thinking.” It is so easy to plant ourselves away from the stream of living water, in the land of the naysayers, the downers, the dark cloud, half-empty camp.
Jesus warned us against this tendency. The story in John 5 ends with Jesus running into the man he had healed earlier in the day in Bethsaida. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
As Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). We must always remained rooted in the good soil fed by the living water of Christ. It is easy to return to a victimhood mentality. It is easy to fall back into the old story, the old you, the you that was sick and tired. In the old you, there was no faith, no hope, no love. Who wants to go there?
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