A MAN IN NEED
There were very many people camped out around the pool of Bethesda near the sheep gate in Jerusalem but they had two things in common. They had a great need and they were hoping for a miracle here at Bethesda – the place of mercy!
v.3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralysed.
Many people with different kinds of need – all hoping for a miracle.
BLIND, LAME, PARALYSED (powerless) WITHERED, poor and beggars
Some people here this morning may have different kinds of need. Some may be sick in body and in need of God’s healing touch. Some may be spiritually blind, struggling even to see God, and need their eyes opening. Some may be lame, crippled by circumstances in their lives they can’t change. Some may feel paralysed and powerless, struggling with life. Some may be weighed down with guilt and in need of God’s forgiveness.
Why were they there?
FOOTNOTE – and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.
So many people pinning their hopes on the faint possibility of a miracle.
So many things people today pin their hopes on:
Medicine, science, technology
Money – winning the lottery
Hard work – for human success
– to please God – trying to earn their way into heaven
“Fate”, astrology, magic
All these are false hopes – our hope should be in God alone!
Of all the people there around the pool of Bethesda, Jesus chose just one man to speak to. Jesus went to that one man when he learned that he had been lying there for thirty eight years – since six or seven years before Jesus was born! Stuck beside that pool for 38 years! That reminds us that God knows us and cares for every single one of us as individuals. He sees our individual needs, our situations, our problems. Whatever your problem here this morning, Jesus knows it and Jesus can help!

A CRUCIAL QUESTION
v.6 Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
You might think this is a silly question. Of course the man wants to get well. But in reality many people with problems have got used to living with their problems – they don’t want God to help them, especially if life would be different if He did!

Do we REALLY want God to solve our problem, to rescue us from our crisis, to give us healing in body, mind or spirit?
Some people can actually become resigned to what they see as “their lot in life”.
In the Peanuts comic strip, we find Snoopy thinking to himself:

“Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. There’s so little hope for advancement.”

Here is a man whose condition is hopeless – no hope for advancement – he could be forgiven for giving up any hope that life will ever get any better. And some people, and I am one of them, are temperamentally negative. Like gloomy Eeyore in the stories of Winnie the Pooh, or Puddleglum the Marshwiggle in the Narnia stories, or like Marvin the permanently depressed paranoid android in the Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy.
“What’s up?” asked Ford. “I don’t know,” said Marvin, “I’ve never been there.”
“Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I’m standing?”
We can be stuck in our rut – trapped in our problem – think there is no way out.
7 “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.”
The man was still relying on friends “I have no-one to help me”, relying on his own efforts, “while I am trying to get in”. So many people rely on other people, on friends and family, on “the state” or even “the church”. Jesus wants to lift the man out of that trap of relying on himself or other people. Jesus wants the man to rely on the only person we can totally absolutely rely on – to rely on God!

A STEP OF FAITH
Jesus doesn’t give the man what he asks for. He doesn’t help the man get into the pool – he gives him a completely different solution to his problem!
v.8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
An impossible instruction!! If the man was able to get up he would have done so before. Not only was he paralysed. Through years of immobility his muscles would have withered away. There is NO WAY that man can obey Jesus – no way humanly speaking anyway.
But the man obeys! He doesn’t say “but the waters aren’t moving”. He isn’t pinning his hopes on some remote possibility of a miracle – he pins his hopes on Jesus. He doesn’t say “I have nobody to help me.” He isn’t relying on friends any more – he is relying on Jesus. He doesn’t say either, “I can’t do that, I’m paralysed.” He simply obeys!
That is an example of true faith – unquestioning obedience! Taking Jesus at his word. Faith for a miracle – faith for the impossible!
George Mueller: Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.
So often we limit ourselves to what we know we can do in our own human strength.
F. B. Meyer “We never test the resources of God until we attempt the impossible.”
But so often our thinking is limited by what we think COULD happen.
Clement of Alexandria said, “Faith is a voluntary anticipation.” Faith means looking beyond the possible and anticipating the impossible. Jesus gave this paralysed man an impossible command. And he obeyed! He literally stepped out in faith.
When did you last step out in faith? When did you last attempt something which was humanly impossible? We could be talking about stepping out into a situation for which you are just not equipped, humanly speaking. Where you feel totally out of your depth. Stepping out to talk to other people about Jesus – you feel you couldn’t possibly do it – but you step out in faith and God works a miracle. Or taking on a new area of Christian service. Maybe it’s an even bigger step than that. Going for a new job. Or even giving up job and home and security to serve God in a new work in a new place, maybe even in a new country – answering God’s call to full time service as a missionary. Or maybe God is just calling you to a little step of faith. Getting up 10 minutes earlier so that you can begin the day properly with Him in prayer. Offering to help a neighbour. When did you last step out in faith? Go out on a limb for God?
In our evening sermons we are thinking about the story of Gideon, that great hero of faith. God changed him from super-chicken into a mighty man of valour. All it took was Gideon obeying God’s call and stepping out in faith. Last Sunday evening we quoted from William Carey founder of BMS (1761–1834). His most famous saying was this. “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.”
Remember our friend the African Impala. The impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see. With faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life which fear traps us inside. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus – but to trust and obey.
This paralysed man obeyed Jesus – and we see

A MIRACLE OF GRACE
v.9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The man’s faith and obedience received their reward. God worked a miracle! And God still works such miracles today!
When we lived in Tunbridge Wells we knew a remarkable woman called Jennifer Rees-Larcombe. The daughter of evangelist Tom Rees, Jennifer suffered from viral encephalitis and had been confined to a wheelchair since 1982 with paralysis and constant pain. On four occasions she had been so seriously ill she almost died. Jenny was a Bible teacher and speaker and had a ministry encouraging other people with disabilities. Then in 1990 she was speaking at a meeting and a brand new Christian suggested they should pray that Jenny should be healed. They did and she was! After 8 years in a wheelchair Jennifer Rees-Larcombe was miraculously healed. She continues her very fruitful ministry in teaching, prayer, counselling and healing through her charity, “Beauty from Ashes” You can read her story in her book, Unexpected Healing

Miracles of grace. Mercy is escaping the punishment we deserve. Grace is receiving God’s blessings we can never deserve.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
The healing came first – the command to repent came afterwards! That’s grace! He blesses us and that inspires us to change our lives. We don’t change our lives first to earn God’s blessings. God forgives our sins, he gives us the free gift of eternal life, and that’s what motivates us to turn away from our sins and live a new life.
So this story encourages us to step out in faith in prayer. Sometimes God will work a miracle! Sometimes we pray and God gives healing. But then sometimes we are not healed. Sometimes instead God gives grace to cope with the problem!
One of the people who works with Jenny Rees Larcombe is the singer Marilyn Baker, who also used to teach at the school where I taught in Watford. Marilyn has a wonderful ministry in music even though she is blind – and God has never healed her of that blindness. Sometimes it is God’s will that we should endure in His strength.
2 Corinthians 12:7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Sometimes we are afraid to ask for a miracle because we are afraid we will be disappointed. Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” Sometimes we don’t ask because we are afraid that we will be disappointed, that we won’t receive. But if we don’t ask because we are afraid we might not receive, then we will never receive. If we don’t seek because we are afraid that we might not find, then we will never find. If we don’t knock because we are afraid the door might not be opened, then the door will never be opened.
Remember those words of George Mueller: Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends. Remember the words of George Carey. “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.” Trust and obey.
When did you last step out in faith in prayer? Praying for something impossible, praying for a miracle, praying for healing? When did you last go out on a limb for God in prayer? The story of the paralysed man at the pool of Bethesda encourages us to bring our own needs and the needs of our families and friends to God. The paralysed man inspires us to step out in faith and obedience. Jesus looks at us crippled by the problems of life, crippled by circumstance, crippled by sin. And Jesus asks us the same simple question he asked of that paralysed man by the pool ” Do you want to get well?”