5/27/07 The Catalyst

We return this morning to our study of the 5^th chapter of John’s Gospel,

and now, having spent more than a month on the first few verses of this chapter,

we are going to pick up the pace considerably

and move through the rest of the chapter today.

If you have been involved in this study during the past few weeks

you know that the chapter begins

with John’s account of Jesus’ healing of a man in Jerusalem.

He was a man who had been sick for 38 years,

a man who, left to himself,

had no hope, no future.

And certainly part of the reason why John chose to include this event

was because he wanted to offer us yet another example

of the way our God responds to us in our pain,

in our sickness,

in our helplessness.

He wanted us to see that,

just as Jesus took the initiative with this man,

just as He sought him out and reached out to him,

so our God does the same with us.

There are no conditions,

no prerequisites,

no hoops we must jump through before He notices us, or cares.

He has cared since the day of our conception and before.

And He has been seeking us out

since the day we took our first breath.

All of that and more is beautifully illustrated for us

through Jesus’ interaction with this man at the pool of Bethesda.

But that is not the only reason why John singled out this one healing

and chose to include it in his account of the life of Christ.

He also chose to include it

because this healing brought about a remarkable exchange

between Jesus and the religious rulers in Jerusalem,

an exchange in which Jesus revealed Himself, His identity, and His purpose

with a clarity that is nothing short of remarkable.

He spoke words to them

that John wanted us to hear as well.

And it is those words

that form the heart of what takes place throughout the remainder of this chapter.

Now there is a tremendous amount of material

in the remaining 38 verses of this chapter,

and if we’re not careful

it will be easy for us to get lost in all of the words.

So, just to keep our minds on track here,

I want to give you a three point outline for the rest of the chapter

so that you can better get a hold of what’s going on.

1. In verses 9-16 we have what we’re going to call The Catalyst.

2. Then, in verses 17-30 we have Jesus assuming the authority of God Himself.

3. And then, finally, in verses 31-47 we have The Five Witnesses.

And we’ll begin with The Catalyst.

You know what a catalyst is, don’t you.

It’s an agent that is used

to cause a specific, desired reaction.

And that is exactly what Jesus did with this healing

so that He could bring about a specific desired response

in the religious leadership in Jerusalem.

And keep in mind that the religious leadership in 1^st century Israel

was radically different from religious leadership in our world today.

If some event took place in our world today

that brought about a strong reaction in our religious leadership on the Kenai Peninsula,

the truth is that almost no one would notice,

and even fewer would care.

Trust me on this...I know.

But in first century Israel

religious power was ultimate power

because the Jewish religious heritage

was at the very core of every aspect of the society.

And when Jesus touched the religious leadership

at the same time He touched the most powerful social, political, and economic elements of the country.

So, let me read these verses and we’ll see what happened.

JOH 5:9-16 Now it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jews were saying to him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet." But he answered them, "He who made me well was the one who said to me, 'Take up your pallet and walk.'"

OK, before we go any farther,

that right there will give you a little insight

into the nature of religious belief and power in this society.

Here’s this fellow who has not been on his feet for 38 years,

and then all of the sudden this stranger stands before him

and with just a few words

frees him from a lifetime of misery.

And I’ll tell you - at that moment

as he was trotting down the street,

for the first time in his life carrying under his arm

that little mat that symbolized the prison he’d been in,

he was feeling really, really good.

And as he walks along he passes a group of religious leaders

and as soon as he passes they pounce.

“Hey fellow! It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry that pallet!”

And the man’s response shows the power that this religious system had over those within the Jewish society.

Remarkably, he doesn’t argue with the rule,

he doesn’t say, “Put a cork in it, fellow! I’ll carry whatever I want, whenever I want!”, as we would today.

What he does do is to appeal to what he believed must certainly be a higher authority.

"He who made me well was the one who said to me, 'Take up your pallet and walk.'"

Now, I think that’s brilliant.

I mean, surly, these guys can see the logic in that.

If someone has the power to heal a man who’s been sick for 38 years,

He must also have the authority

to grant him permission to carry his pallet on the Sabbath Day.

And the response of these religious rulers

shows us the power religion has

to blind the human mind to the truth.

They respond to what this man has just said by saying,

"Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your pallet, and walk'?"

Now, do you see anything wrong with that response?

This is like having a man come up to me all excited

and his telling me that, after his being blind for the past ten years,

last Friday a total stranger came up to him,

touched his eyes,

and restored his sight instantly, then walked away.

To which I then respond,

“FRIDAY?!! He did this on FRIDAY?!!

He’s not allowed to do that type of thing on FRIDAY!”

You see, any reasonable person who heard this man’s words

would have responded to his statement by saying,

“He healed you? This man healed you? What do you mean he healed you?

Tell me more. Where is He now? Can he heal other people? What an amazing thing!”

But once we give ourselves over to the power of religion

it blinds us and corrupts us at the deepest levels.

And it does the same thing today.

I have seen religion shatter churches,

and shred relationships all in the name of God.

I have seen a man so angry at another man who differed from him doctrinally

that his face turned bright red and his voice shook when he spoke.

I have seen it break up homes,

and drive huge wedges between husband and wife, parent and child.

Throughout history

some of the most brutal cruelty and hatred

has grown out of religious conviction.

And tragically,

more than a little of it has been done

by those who claim Christ as their leader

and wave the cross as their standard.

What I’m about to say right now could be dangerous

because it could easily be misunderstood if we do not understand the true nature of love,

but I’m going to say it anyway.

Jesus Christ did not come

in order to establish a new religion.

He came to restore us to Himself,

and then to teach us how to restore our broken relationships with one another.

He came to teach us how to love God

and how to love our fellow human beings.

JOH 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

That’s it.

That’s the heart and the purpose of the whole thing.

And if we ever get near anything that claims to be Christianity

and yet see it resulting in the destruction of relationships

it’s a lie of Satan,

another one of his slight-of-hand tricks

in which we reach out for God

and receive a fist full of religion instead.

Well, this passage goes on to tell us

how the man admitted that he didn’t know who it was that healed him,

but then Jesus found him later and introduced Himself.

The man then returned to the Jewish leaders,

excited that he could share with them the identity of this great prophet from God.

But their response was very different from his.

John says,

And for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

And I’ve called this healing The Catalyst

because this is exactly the response Jesus wanted to draw out of these men.

He wanted to reveal their hearts.

He wanted to show that their allegiance was not to the truth,

and it was certainly not to God,

it was to the religious system that gave them power, and status, and prestige in their world.

But there is more He wanted to do as well.

He wanted to provoke a confrontation with this Jewish leadership

so that He would then have an opportunity

to clearly, decisively state both who He is

and what it means to the world.

Those who heard Him speak the words that follow in the next few verses

did not accept them

and they certainly chose not to receive them as truth.

But they did understand them.

They knew exactly what Jesus was saying,

and they understood the implications.

And what we have given to us in the next 14 verses

is knowledge so remarkable,

and so crucial to every person who has ever lived

that it would be impossible to overstate its significance.

Now, I’ll read the passage for us,

and then I’ll summerize it for us in a way that I hope will help us

to better see what Jesus is really saying.

OK, in verse 16 we are told that the Jews were persecuting Jesus

because He was not playing by their rules,

He was not honoring and submitting to the religious system that gave them their power.

And in verses 17-30 Jesus responds with these words.

But He answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working." For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

And before I read on I want to be sure we understand

what’s really taking place in this exchange.

You see, prior to Jesus’ entrance into the world,

no one in the history of the nation of Israel

had ever taken it upon themselves to identify the Creator God as their Father.

There is one passage in the Psalms in which God identifies Himself as the Father of David in a special way,

and a very few references in the Prophets

in which God is identified as the Father of the Nation of Israel.

But that was nothing like what we have happening

through the words of Jesus in this 5^th chapter of John.

When Jesus said, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working." ,

He was not identifying God as the great Father of all creation,

He was claiming an intimate, personal Father-Son relationship

between Himself and God.

And it made His listeners furious

because as the literal, physical Son of God Himself

Jesus was claiming for Himself

the absolute authority to speak and act for God the Father.

And the words He speaks next just make it worse.

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. "For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.

And you do hear what He’s saying, don’t you?

Have you ever heard a person say, “My dad taught me how to do this.”?

You’ve probably said it yourself at times.

That’s what Jesus is saying about His actions on the earth at this time.

“I’m just doing the things I’ve seen Dad doing.”

And then He tosses in that remarkable statement, . "For the Father loves the Son...”.

“Oh, and by the way,

God loves Me.

He loves what I’m doing,

and He loves the way I’m doing it.

He is absolutely and completely pleased with me.”

The intimacy with which He describes His union with God

is unlike anything anyone had ever claimed before.

And still it gets worse.

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”

Now look at this!

Look at what Jesus says

about the authority given to Him by His Father God.

In verses 19-20 Jesus tells His listeners

that God has given Him the ability

to perfectly duplicate the will and works of God on the earth.

In verse 21 Jesus says that God has given Him

the authority to give life.

In verse 22 He tells us

that God has given Jesus the authority to judge the human race.

Then, in verse 23,

Jesus tells His listeners that

those who do not honor Him do not honor God.

To attack Jesus is to attack God.

For a person to claim that they are honoring God

while at the same time refusing to bow before Jesus Christ as the one and only

perfect image of God on this earth is either foolishness, stupidity, or wilful self-deception.

And then, in verses 24-27

Jesus takes this judgment thing one step farther.

He tells His listeners

that those who choose to believe Him,

those who choose to believe He is who He claims to be

and who choose to believe that He is telling us absolute truth,

those who hear His words and believe them

will bypass judgment altogether

and He will give them eternal life.

Jesus clearly, simply states

that God, His Father,

has given Jesus the authority to give eternal life to all who come to Him.

Have you ever heard people say they accept Jesus simply as a great prophet?

I’m afraid that option is not on the table, my friends.

Great prophets do not claim to be the literal Son of God.

Great prophets don’t claim

that God has granted to them

the absolute authority

to stand in judgement over the entire human race.

Great prophets do not claim

that God has granted them the right

to grant eternal life to whomever they choose.

Either He really was who He claimed to be - God in a human body,

or He was insane.

Here is a man claiming for Himself

the sole and absolute right to stand in judgement over the entire human race,

and the absolute authority

to grant eternal life to whomever He chooses.

No sane man in the history of the world

had ever made such a claim.

And, having rejected the truth of what He said,

it’s no wonder the Jewish leaders were determined to destroy Him.

But this is not where Jesus ends His comments.

Having clearly claimed His deity,

having declared Himself as the physical manifestation of God,

in verses 31-47 He then offers His listeners

five witnesses who all testify to the truth of His claims.

We won’t take the time to read the entire passage together this morning,

but I’ll point out the five

and then encourage you to read the complete passage on your own.

The first witness He mentions

is the supreme witness,

the One who possesses absolute authority - God the Father.

In John 5:31-32 He says,

"If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true. There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true.”

But He also knows that there is a problem with this Witness,

a problem that cannot be corrected in His immediate listeners.

And He states this problem in verses 37 and 38.

"And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.”

He says in effect, “God Himself is My greatest witness. But you have not and cannot hear His voice. You have closed your ears to the greatest witness I could ever offer you. And I know you cannot hear His voice because I am His voice here and now and you will not believe what I say.”

And I can’t let this pass

without pointing out the implications of Jesus’ words

for us today.

And I do hope I can say this in a way that makes it clear

because in these two verses

Jesus is giving the human race

the first great dividing line between all truth and error about God.

You see, He is telling us

that the true voice of God on this earth

will always, only point us directly to Jesus Christ.

And any voice that claims divine inspiration

and does not lead the listener to the Person of Jesus Christ is a lie,

a deception,

a deceiver of Satan himself.

Does that sound narrow?

Does it sound politically incorrect?

Does it sound judgmental?

Does it seem as if there should be many roads that lead to God,

and many voices that speak His truth,

and those who are wise will honor them all?

Welcome to the warfare.

The problem we face with our Creator God

is not that He has failed to communicate Himself and His love with absolute clarity.

He took on human flesh to do just that.

The problem is that there is a warfare raging around us,

a warfare in which the enemy skillfully creates world systems

designed to blind us to the truth.

Here’s the way it works, folks.

We are the created beings

and as such we have neither the right nor the ability to write the rules.

Only the Creator has that right.

The rules He’s written in His relationship with us

are marvelous beyond belief.

But they are not negotiable.

Paul said it best in his letter to his friend, Timothy.

1TI 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus...

When those Jewish leaders rejected Jesus

at the same time they rejected God Himself.

And it’s been that way ever since.

Well, we’re just about out of time for the morning

so rather than rush through the remaining verses in this section

I think we’ll hold off with the rest of these witnesses until next week.

But I can’t close

without taking what we see happening here

and making sure we can hear it and see it

as more than just lifeless doctrinal truth.

The center,

the heart,

the core of what Jesus was seeking to communicate in this conversation with these Jews

was the simple,

yet utterly remarkable truth

that He was...and is the perfect and only absolutely accurate image of God

the human race will ever have.

Where have you been looking for God?

Have you been looking at churches?

Haven’t found a perfect one yet, have you.

Have you been looking at those around you who claim to be Christians?

You’ve been disappointed at times, haven’t you.

We all talk beyond what we live.

And we fail one another sometimes,

and we fail ourselves on a daily basis.

Well, let me offer you an alternative.

Don’t look for God in organizations,

don’t look for Him in the people around you.

Why not go to the source.

Why not turn your eyes onto Jesus Christ.

Begin with Him.

Listen to what He’s saying to you.

And why not start right here in this passage.

JOH 5:24-25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

That’s what God is seeking to offer you.

Maybe you didn’t realize it,

but the “dead” He’s talking about in that passage is you and me.

That’s what we are when we enter this world - dead to God.

And what He wants,

what He died to offer you is life - life as you’ve never known it before,

life lived in the center of His love.

Start with Him,

and then you can begin working through all that other stuff that troubles you.

Start with the only one in history

who has claimed for Himself

both the right and the ability to give life to all who come to Him.