3/11/07 Troubled Waters Pt. 1

JOH 5:1-18 After these things 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 porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, And a certain man was there, who had been thirty-eight years in his sickness. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, "Do you wish to get 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, "Arise, take up your pallet, and walk." And immediately the man became well, and took up his pallet and began to walk.

Our study of the Gospel of John

      brings us this morning to the 5^th chapter of the book,

            and it brings us, too, to a passage that brings up all sorts of questions.

Some of them we’ll find answers to,

      and some of them we will not.

And before we get into the passage,

      I want to share with you once again

            the one attitude I’ve brought to Bible study

                  that has accomplished more in my life

                        and ultimately brought me more freedom,

                              and more growth

                                    than all the classes I’ve ever taken

                                          and all the books I’ve ever read.

It’s not complicated,

      but it does involve an active choosing process

            every time I read the Word.

And let me preface this by stating the obvious.

Every time we read a passage from Scripture,

      any passage from Scripture,

            we will find in that passage some things we simply don’t understand.

When I was a young Christian

      I foolishly believed that this was a difficulty that would correct itself over time.

I assumed that the more I learned,

      and the more I studied,

            the more I would accumulate answers that would ultimately lead me to the place

                  where, when I read,

                        I would understand nearly everything.

The truth is, in one sense exactly the opposite has happened.

The more I’ve learned,

      the more I’ve discovered how much more there is to learn.

It’s not that the answers I’ve found don’t satisfy.

They do,

      but at the same time

            the older I get the more I realize how little I really understand.

There are a number of reasons why we don’t understand some of the things we find in Scripture.

Some of the reasons are obvious.

Sometimes we are not seeing a statement or a passage in context.

We don’t understand why it was written,

      or who it was written to,

            or what the author was seeking to accomplish with it.

Let me give you just one example of what I mean.

Take these verses from the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans,

      a book that the author himself described as the good news of God.

Listen to this.

ROM 2:5-12 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law...

Now, if that’s the good news,

      I really don’t want to hear the bad news!

You know what that passage says, don’t you?

It says that if I had lived a perfect life God would gladly have accepted me on the basis of that life,

      but if I’ve done evil there is tribulation and distress waiting for me.

And folks, this is going to come as a shock to some of you, I know,

      but I’ve done evil.

I’ve done lots of evil in my nearly 60 years

      and if I pull that passage out of context

            there is simply no hope.

But when we look at Paul’s letter as a whole

      and understand what he’s doing and why he’s doing it,

            all of the sudden it makes sense.

Paul wrote the letter

      as his open explanation to the world

            of who Christ is, what He was doing, and why we need Him.

And Paul’s first step in that process

      is to attack and destroy the great lie of the human race,

            the belief that I’m at least as good as the next guy

                  and probably better than most,

                        and because of that I really don’t have much to worry about when it comes to God.

And so Paul takes the first two and a half chapters of his letter

      to show us what we really look like without Christ.

And with perfect,

      terrifying logic he brings us to the place

            where we are forced to face the truth.

ROM 3:10-20 "There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving," "The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes."

       Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

In other words,

      if you are relying on your performance in any way,

            at any time,

                  in order to give you a basis for standing before God,

you have no hope.

You can’t get there that way.

But then we read the next words Paul writes,

      the words that change everything forever.

ROM 3:21-24 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested,... even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; ... being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus...

And right there, folks,

      is where the Hallelujah Chorus starts,

            and the true sunrise of God pours over the human spirit.

That’s the good news of God.

By the way, you know where Paul learned that approach, don’t you -

      that approach in which he begins by destroying our hiding places

            and creating within us

                  a desperate longing for some other way, some other answer?

He learned it from the Master Himself.

I had a great question come up after our time together last week

      dealing with this same issue.

If you were here last week

      you’ll remember that we were talking about Jesus’ relationship with His disciples,

            and about the overwhelming kindness, and compassion, and forgiveness, and endless grace

                  that He brought to each of those relationships.

And we saw that it was those very qualities

      that made it so hard for His followers

            to recognize who He really was - God in human form.

What they were experiencing in their life with Him

      was so radically different from the concept of God that they held in their minds

            that they simply couldn’t put the two together.

But then the person asked me

      why Jesus’ teaching seemed to be so different at times

            from what we see Him living out in His relationships with those around Him.

When it came to His relationships

      He was the most approachable person who has ever been on this earth.

Everyone He met felt absolutely comfortable

      just barging into His life,

            without facade,

                  with complete freedom to just be themselves.

Last Sunday night my phone rang at about midnight.

It was a young friend of mine

      who’d had some exciting events take place in his life

            and he just wanted to share them with me right then.

When I got off the phone

      I came away thinking I must be doing something right

            to have created a friendship in which my friend had that kind of freedom in his relationship with me.

And that’s who Jesus was to every person He met.

And yet,

      when we come to Jesus’ teaching

            we find some of the most terrifying words in the entire Bible.

MAT 5:20-22, 27-32, 38-41,48 "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, 'Empty head,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery'; but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. ...You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two. Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

And that’s just a sampling of some of the things He said.

So why was there such an apparent gulf

      between what He taught

            and what He lived out in His relationships?

It’s because He was seeking to accomplish two distinctly different things.

With His real life relationships

      He was literally illustrating for us

            the way our God seeks to relate to each of us.

He takes us just exactly where we are,

      as we are,

            and then He seeks to communicate His love to us right there,

                  knowing that if we can hear it,

                        and receive it,

                              it will alter our lives profoundly forever.

But with His teaching He was seeking to do something very different.

He was, in fact, doing exactly the same thing that Paul does in the first two chapters of Romans.

He was seeking to create within all those who are trusting in their performance

      as their basis for their relationship with God,

seeking to create within them

      a desperate, terrifying sense of helplessness.

And remember who He was talking to.

He was talking to the nation of Israel,

      the one nation in the world

            who knew they had been given a special revelation of God.

They were a people

      who saw themselves as far above the rest of the world,

            a people who saw themselves as so holy,

                  so righteous in comparison to the rest of the world

                        that they literally would have to cleanse themselves

                              whenever they were required to have contact with non-Jews

                                    so that none of the contamination of the corrupt Gentiles would remain on them.

This was a people who, on the basis of their performance,

      saw themselves as truly deserving of the blessings of God.

Their entire religious system at the time Jesus appeared on the scene

      was one devoted to the careful defining and refining of the moral law of God.

And the basis of their hope of God’s acceptance and approval

      was that they, more than all others, performed well in the sight of God.

And when Christ appeared,

      coming to offer Himself as the only way back to God,

            He knew that the first thing He had to do

                  was to destroy Israel’s self-righteous trust in their performance.

And so He took the law to lengths and depths they had never seen before,

      forcing them to look not just at the external facade,

            but at the motives behind their actions.

And His goal was simple -

      to bring His hearers to the place where they would cry out,

            “If this is really the way it is, then what hope is there for anyone?

                  What hope is there for me?”

And at that point

      He could then point to Himself and say,

JOH 14:6 ... "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

LUK 22:20 And "This ...is ... the new covenant in My blood.

But my point here is simply

      that we often fail to understand a passage

            because we don’t understand it’s context

                  and don’t understand what the author is seeking to accomplish with it.

In the same way sometimes we fail to understand a passage

      because our minds have been so blinded to the truth through religion

            that we simply cannot see it.

None of us begin our interaction with Scripture with a blank page.

We all bring our own personal highly refined religious belief system to what we read

      and we then mentally filter through what we see,

            accepting those things that seem to fit with our assumptions and beliefs

                  and simply not seeing those things that do not.

And this filtering system is truly remarkable in it’s ability to literally blind us to the words we read.

I’d read the fifth chapter of Romans countless times

      over a number of years

            before I suddenly, finally saw the words in Romans 5:20.

ROM 5:20 And the Law came in that the transgression might increase...

God gave the written moral law,

      the Ten Commandments,

            not to keep us from sin,

                  but rather to push us into it.

Now, why didn’t I see that earlier?

Because it went directly against all of the assumptions

      and all of the beliefs given to me by my past religious training.

But once I saw it,

      that entire section of the book opened up to me.

I saw that the law could never bring about true change in our lives

      because it triggers within us

            that rebellious spirit that drives us into disobedience.

And I saw that God gave us the law initially

      to do just exactly that,

            to drive us into sin

                  so that we would then be forced to see ourselves honestly,

so that we would be forced to see our own heart rebellion against our God.

The Law is God’s great school master,

      teaching each of us our urgent need for Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we don’t understand a passage of Scripture correctly

      simply because we’re not yet ready to understand the truth it’s communicating.

Sometimes there are other things we must learn first.

I can remember the jolt it was to me

      when I came to that passage in the first chapter of Peter’s second letter

            and saw him laying out for us

                  the foundation that must exist within our lives

                        before we can really express true love to another person.

At the time I was still living in the illusion that love was an emotion,

      just something we felt for another person,

            not something we could chose to build into our lives.

And then I read that passage in Second Peter 1:5-7

      where Peter tells us that there are six prerequisites to love,

            six qualities that must be present within our lives at some level

                  before we can even begin to express true love.

Moral excellence,

      knowledge,

            self-control,

                  perseverance,

                        Godliness,

                              and brotherly kindness...

And there are many times when we don’t understand something God has said

      because there is some other truth or principle we must learn first.

But my point with all of this,

      and the thing I set out to share with you

            is an approach I’ve taken to Bible Study for many years now,

                  an attitude that has had a greater positive impact on my own growth

                        than anything else I’ve ever learned.

Every time I read a passage of Scripture

      I see within that passage

            both things I understand

                  and things I do not.

And when that happens

      I simply choose to accept and act on what I do understand,

            and then set the stuff I don’t understand aside.

And you may think that’s not such a big deal,

      but I need to warn you that this is really a strategic warfare strategy.

You see, the knowledge we gain through Scripture,

      the truths we learn about our God,

            and about ourselves,

                  and about our world

are tools with which the Spirit of God then literally rebuilds our lives.

It’s more than just facts.

The facts help,

      but most of all it’s attitudes and life principles.

These are the key ingredients

      in that process that Paul talks about in Romans chapter 12

            when he says to us,

ROM 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Do you realize what a tremendous statement of hope that is?

Do you see the power of those words?

He tells us

      that our lives can be “transformed”,

that we are not forever destined to be locked into the same destructive patterns of life

      that have dominated us in the past.

I don’t know what you’re wrestling with.

I don’t know what sin patterns have imbedded themselves into your life.

But I do know

      that you are not destined to live in slavery to them forever.

Through the renewal process that God seeks to bring about in our lives

      we can be transformed into people we have never been before

            and could never have been without his work within our lives.

And a key part of that process

      is what Paul calls “the renewing of our minds”,

            our learning to think, to reason differently than we ever have before.

And a vital ingredient in that whole process

      is the input given to us by God through His Word.

And a strategic tactic

      used by Satan to prevent that transformation process from taking place in our lives

            is his efforts to undermine our confidence in what we read.

And there are times when he does that

      by pointing out to us

            questions for which we currently have no answers

                  in the passages we read.

And then he uses those unanswered questions

      as his “proofs” that what God says cannot really be trusted.

And please understand that I am certainly not saying we shouldn’t ask the questions.

But I am saying that when we can’t easily find the answers,

      if we choose to take what we do understand

            and then build upon it,

the unanswered questions will not hinder our growth at all.

And we got into all of that

      because we are heading into a passage in John

            that will most certainly raise some questions as we study it.

Some of them we’ll be able to find answers for,

      and some of them we probably won’t.

But if we stay with what we do understand

      we’re going to find more than enough to feed our spirits.

But having taken so long to say all of that,

      we’ll now wait until next week

            before we get into the passage.