Jesus Said....

Part 4: I Take Up Your Bed And Walk

Throughout this series, we’re looking at some of the things Jesus said and find ways to apply them when appropriate to our own lives so that we can continually grow as followers of Christ. That we see miracles in our personal lives as God heals and restores relationships and yes even physical bodies, and yes, the miracle of Salvations.

(John 5:1–9) - After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 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.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.

The pool of Bethesda was an interesting place. We learn in this passage that it was near the sheep gate in Jerusalem and was divided into two parts: half the pool was used to clean sheep and the other half was for people. There was a divider in the middle of the pool, which had five colonnades or covered porches. The Bible says there was a multitude of invalids at the pool waiting and hoping for a miracle. John tells us that people waited for the moving of the water, believing an angel stirred the water and whoever went in first was healed of their infirmity. Most commentators believe that John wasn’t trying to communicate what was happening; rather, he was trying to convey a first-century superstition about the pool.

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John tells us that the multitude of people gathered around the pool had something in common—all were waiting and hoping for miraculous healing.

A certain man had been waiting for 38 years! Thirty-eight years the man in the story had been waiting. How long have you been waiting for your circumstances to change?

Most of the time it’s not our circumstances that need to change—

it’s us who need to change.

In answering Jesus, the sick man made excuses by saying, “I have no man to put me into the pool . . . another steps down before me.”

Application—What in your life have you been making excuses about? Have you decided that you are the exception to God’s power? God’s healing? God’s care and compassion?

John 5:8

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”

Jesus moves right past the man’s excuses. He doesn’t even acknowledge them.

Instead, Jesus goes straight to the solution, and in the process He asks the man to participate with

Him.

Jesus says:

Take up your bed and walk.

The thing you’ve been laying on for the last 38 years, I want you to pick it up. It’s no longer an excuse. It’s no longer a justification of your victimhood. It’s no longer the thing you use to get attention or pity.

Pick it up and carry it with you to testify to what I have done for you.

Question—What might be possible in your life if you did the same thing?

You can’t do anything to change the past, but God wants to do something in you to change your future.