By Recognizing the Deity of Christ

If you have your Bible, turn in John Chapter 5 this morning

Late in my seminary career I developed a problem with my heart…One night I was working on Faith West…the building project was sort of my final project…and I started to experience this strange sensation in my heart…

I could literally feel my heart skipping a beat. I would feel it going normally…then a sensation…we found a stethoscope to listen to and sure enough lub-dub…lub dub..and then a pause…I would feel this sensation followed by what I perceived as a skipping of a beat for what seemed like an eternity (in reality about one second) and then a jolt and my heart started back up.

Needless to say, we were a bit concerned…

Shana was pregnant with our fist Son Winston…and so all these thoughts flooded my mind…well…I guess I’m dying.

We deceived I should go to urgent care…and when they asked what is going on….I just told them…I think my heart is stopping…the lady behind the urgent care asked…why I was there…why didn’t I go to the ER…you could see the panic in her face and hear it in her voice.

She asked if I wanted to be taken by ambulance…I was like, “Well, I drove over here…I can drive over there.”

For me going to the ER was like…I’m literally dying right now this moment and was only for the worst case situations…and so this kind lady and the doctor on call actually refused to admit me…they told me I needed to go to the ER…so I did…in my mind this was getting pretty serious

So, we drove to the ER and told them and the admitted me…well, as you can probably guess…I wasn’t dying…the ran a barrage of tests and said that my heart was not stopping it was palpating….It wasn’t that my heart was stopping, there was an extra beat in there…and what was bizarre, at least from what I am told by Doctors…is that I could sense this coming on. I could predict with almost 100% accuracy…this is about to happen…

The next few days and weeks saw me visiting a number of doctors and submitting to a variety of tests until I landed with a cardiologist that I thought had the solution. We had to pick a course of care…so we went with him.

I’ll never forget one of the first questioned he asked me….are you under a lot of stress…are you anxious about anything…

I scoffed at the question…I was a certified Biblical counselor…I almost have my M.Div.…I’m about to be a pastor….I’m not fearful…I’m not worried…I’m the guy who helps people with anxiety and fear…, so I told him absolutely not.

Did I have a lot on my plate: overseeing construction of Faith West, finishing up my M.Div. trying to plan for the start up of all the ministries here…sure…but in no way was I stressed…working all those late nights, getting up early…reading my Bible and answering emails before 7am…well that had nothing to do with it.

So, the good doctor put me through a variety tests and then drugs to see if we could get my heart under control…I’ll never forget one of the pills…he said, “Now this one is going to be so effective, if you met a bear in the woods…your heart is going to do nothing…”

OK, sign me up! My pulse would drop to a resting rate of 38 when I was on those meds and I remember being in Sam’s club doing some shopping and I could feel the effects of that low pulse….I was certain I was going to pass out in the check out lane.

There was mounting discouragement…when are we going to get this fixed…I got stuff to do…mind you…we’ve only been working on this for a few weeks…patience is not always my greatest virtue.

The good doctor was committed to solving this issue…he even gave me his cell phone number to call… And so we worked through various solutions…that eventually lead to me going in for a heat ablation. His new theory was that if he could go in and zap my heart in one little spot… that would solve the problem…

We went into surgery…and remember Shana is like 8 months pregnant at this point…and as I came out of surgery the doctor shared the bad news….well…we were hoping for it to be just on one spot…but its not there…surgery is not going to fix this heart of yours….They had put me under and the flooded my heart with adrenaline in hops of seeing one section of the heat that might need attention…well that didn’t work.

There was only one conclusion…you don’t have a broken physical heart…you have anxiety…your spiritual heart is the problem…and that spiritual problem is messing with your physical heart…

We had seen all sorts of doctors, heard all sorts of theories…we had worked through all kinds of treatments…and it all came back to that….I was anxious.

Looking back…it seems pretty obvious…my pride didn’t like admitting it…but it was true

Now, I can look back and see it as a gift of God…God literally was like…well, this guy just doesn’t get it…he is that proud…I’m going to have to get his attention though his physical heart…and in the days, months, and even until today…if I feel my heart palpitating…the first thing I ask myself is…what am I anxious about?

In our passage this morning we are going to hear about a man who had been crippled for 38 years…a good number of people in this room are not even that old…and he had the firm belief that if he could just get into this certain pool at a certain time…that he would be healed.

If he could just get in there at the right time…his problem would be solved…he was focused on the physical need that he had…and we will see Jesus is interested in something far more important than that…

As we consider Enjoying Life in His Name and continue our study in the Gospel of John we will be enjoying life in His name…. by Recognizing the Deity of Christ

[Read John 5]

With our time this morning, let’s look at 3 ways we recognize Christ’s Deity

The first way is we recognize his deity is to…

Recognize His authority over diagnosis (5:1-9)

We live in a world that is full of interpretation…we are always diagnosis what the problem is…what is the solution, what should be done.

None of us in this room are able to escape the grasp of doing this activity. We all must constantly evaluate life and then make decisions based on that….so lets’ consider

The diagnosis of the people

John 5:3 ^{- 3}In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;

What did they believe?

Man if I can just get down into those waters….that will provide all the healing for me. You see this pool here has special powers and special abilities.

Now you will notice in your text this conversation about an angle coming and stirring up the water.

You have to ask did John actually believe this? Did John think there were two options? Jesus or the pool?

I tend to think that John is providing this information for context for the readers. The story does not make sense without that important background information. You will notice those brackets around the text in your Bible. What that means is scholars are not even sure if John wrote those words or if they were added by a person who was coping the Bible in the early days of the church, and he provided that information for context.

Now our goal is not to figure out who wrote those words, but to point out that there was this overriding belief….if I can get in the pool at the right time…whoever you are…you are going to be healed.

And apparently that man was not alone in his belief…the text says there were multitudes…just get that picture in your mind. All these sick and crippled persons…persons who were blind, crippled….all suffering…all looking for hope…all looking to be cured…the place is packed with the hurting

And then Jesus comes along and asks…Do you want to be healed.

The diagnosis of the man

John 5:7 ⁷The 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.”

Who knows what was going through the mans heart, but it is clear he is trying to justify himself to Jesus. You can almost here the man thinking, “Dude, I’m trying to be healed…I’m doing my best…but I just can’t do it.”

In fact, it may have been such a busy scene, the man may have been so desperate, that he didn’t even bother to look at Jesus. We can say that because after he is healed, he doesn’t know who did it. It is only after Jesus finds him in the temple that the man can identify that it is Jesus.

So the man believes firmly….If I can just get in there, I’ll be good. But I have no one to help me…every time I start heading into the waters…someone else beats me to it.

Now, we don’t know how long he had been at this….but we know he had been sick for 38 years…in a culture that didn’t have a long life-expectancy, that is quite some time.

You have to believe that this man was not in a good place emotionally and spiritually…years and years of suffering, time and time again he got beaten to getting in the water…just when a cure seamed to be in his hands….just in his grasp…snatched away just like that.

In many ways I think we all in someway can relate to that.

How many times have you chased after something that you thought was going to bring you the healing, the joy, the satisfaction that you desired…only to have that solution evaporate right in front of you?

Maybe you thought some new item you would purchase would bring you joy. The world said, “This will bring your happiness, this will bring you all that you need.” So, but this new truck, buy this vacation with all expenses paid…look here, it will solve.

Maybe you have even done something like that in a medical sense. You have chased after cure after cure for the perfect diet, the perfect meal supplement, and you are just chasing the dream of happiness.

Or maybe it is in your relationships….the world says that you will find real contentment when you stand up for yourself, or when you make sure you have lots of “me” time

Thing about it even from a mental health perspective for a moment…the world has crafted hundreds and hundreds of ways to diagnose and categorize what the Bible calls sin. It offers a solution that comes in the form of a pill…and generally that provides relief for a period of time…but one day it falls apart.

When I say that, I am not minimizing any suffering or pain…but what I am saying is…the world has a way of thinking about problems…it has a way of offering solutions…it says, “Just get in this pool…you will be healed…”

But, in the midst of all these competing diagnosis….we see Jesus’ view is very different…

The diagnosis of Jesus

Jesus doesn’t think that the problem is that this man needs to get in the pool, he doesn’t think that his issues is that others get in front of him at the last moment….Jesus knows that what he needs is to be healed by him…

So Jesus says,

John 5:8–9 (NASB95) Jesus *said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.

Just like that….38 years of sickness…of pain, of waiting….and he is healed…

Now we don’t know all the details about what happened, but you have to love the fact that the man just does what he is told…he is healed and he obeys’ s Christ right away.

The text tells us Jesus did this on the Sabbath, and we will get to that more in a moment, but the man hears the words of Christ and obeys…

In all the commotion, Jesus slips away and the man (and others) are left wondering who did this great thing…later the text tells us…

John 5:14- ¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” ¹⁵The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

Jesus sees the man who is suffering and what is he most concerned about? He is most concerned that the man would live a holy and righteousness life. Jesus meets this very real need that the man has, but points him to the greater need that he has…to live a holy life before God.

Now, that does not mean that the man was sick because he was a sinner…meaning, I don’t want us to equate him being sick with being this great sinner…the Bible tells us that we can’t always make that connection.

But we need to see that Jesus comes…he shows his power over sickness…to point that man, and us….to our greater need that needs to be solved…the problem of sin.

It’s a natural time for us all to consider what have we done about the problem of sin? And what have we done with Jesus being Lord over all…and we will talk more about that here in a moment.

But for those who are not Christians….those who have not trusted in Christ’s work on the cross to solve the problem of sin before a holy God….this passage reminds us that you might have all sorts of problems in your life right now.

You might be suffering from a medical problem that is causing you pain and suffering. You might have emotional scares that need healed…you might have any number of problems…and this text is showing you that…you might have problems here on earth…but your greater problem is yet to come…

Your greater problem is that you have sin…and that this is far more important than any issue that you experience in your body

You also have a sympathetic savior who cares about these earthly problems….that doesn’t mean that if you come to Christ your life is going to be solved. That doesn’t mean that if you turn to Jesus you will be healed physically…but it does mean that you have a Savior who loves you and is ready…today…to solve your greatest need

And part of the reason that God may have allowed you to suffering in your body is that you would be drawn to him. Right? Jesus uses this man’s infirmities to lead to a divine interaction.

So, you might be suffering and thinking that your life is unfair…it is unjust that you have to suffer this way…that your life has to be this hard…you might be like the man looking for relief in all the wrong places…and this beautiful text shows us that Jesus will meet you where you are at…and he will solve your greatest problem…sin. And that he is planning to use all that suffering that you are going through to draw you to Him!

You might have all sorts of questions and concerns…great! Come talk to us. I know that the pastors here at Faith Church would love the chance to hear your story…to hear what is going on….and talk with you about this greater problem…the problem of sin.

Now I want to pivot in a different direction for those who have accepted Christ.

The world had its definition of the problem and the solution…and then Christ offers his own…Let me ask you how often are you influenced by the world interpretation? By the worlds diagnosis?

When the world calls something good, or cultured, or entertaining, or whatever….do you think that Jesus would agree with that conclusion?

How hard do you work at interpreting the world through the lens of Scripture? How much time and energy do you devote to asking, ‘What does Jesus think about this?’

And when you discover Jesus’ thoughts on a particular issue by digging into the word…does that get to do the decision making?

One of the saddest things for me as a pastor is when I sit down with a person or a couple, they are facing some big life choice or decision…they want to know what God’s word has to say….and when you begin to open up God’s word…and it is usually when the decision is hard…that choice get’s rejected.

You can see it in their eyes that they don’t want their idol to be lost…they are too fearful to do what God calls them to do….they are not sure how things will pan out…so best to stay the current course that they are one.

Brothers and Sisters, can I encourage you to remember that when Jesus diagnoses the situation…we need to stick with that diagnosis. We need to trust in what he says…no matter what…and we can do that because at least in our text we are going to see that First

Now, as we consider the deity of Christ…we also must

Recognize His authority over the sabbath (5:10-17)

And later His authority with the Father (5:18-24)

But let’s stick with his authority over the sabbath first

The text goes out of its way to tell us time and time again that Jesus kept doing these things on the sabbath. That is no accident.

It wasn’t like Jesus was super busy Monday through Saturday and then Sunday came along and he was like, “OK, now I have some time to get around to healing everyone.”

Christ was purposely doing all this work on the sabbath. So, we need to understand why he is doing that…but in order for us to know why….

It is helpful for us to first consider…

The Purpose of the Sabbath

Exodus 20:8–11 - ⁸ “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹ “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

Think back to a time when most people were working in agriculture. You had your plot of land, you have your livestock and there was a definite correlation between how much work you put out to how much you reaped. The more you work, the safer and better off you will be.

In essence, in an agrarian economy…what did you end up putting most of your trust in…how much you can work…and that hasn’t changed much today.

Now, we are not worried about starving like they did…but how many of us put our hope in working lots of hours for security and building up what we want? How many of us have been tempted to never stop working in order to get something that we want?

I am sure that many of us in the room have felt that tension…keep working….keep building…keep going…and one day you will have all that you need to feel safe and secure.

So, God instituted the Sabbath…this was a time for God’s people to rest from their labor and participate in active faith in God. Instead of working that one day…you would volitionally take time to trust in God. You would cease from your labor.

When you think about the sabbath…the first thing you should think about is an active expression of Faith…a trust in God.

In the ANE this would have been a radical concept. You might get to rest at some point, but the idea that you would take 1 in 7 days to rest, to worship your God…to purposely not work was a strange idea for sure

And during this day when you ceased from your labor…you were to spend time worshiping God.

In our text then, we see that….

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath

The Jewish authorities in our text are all wound up because Jesus is working, in their view on the Sabbath…and you definitely can’t do that.

In order to understand the Jews anger, you have to have a bit of history for the Jewish nation. Right not the Jews are living under the Roman occupation.

Many of the Jews believed that they were being punished for the sinful lifestyle that the nation had lived. The people were not following God’s law, and thus they were being punished.

Their nation was occupied territory because, in their mind, for the people refusing to obey God’s law…so what are the leaders really interested in…they want the people to obey God’s law

So they spent all sort of time and energy not only policing the people but also crafting all these various rules and regulation…and when you read some of these rules that the Jews instituted, it’s a bit overwhelming…here are the 39 things you can do on Sabbath…here are the 10,000 things you can’t do.

But not only in our gospel, but the other gospels…we see Jesus showing his divinity by intentionally doing things on the Sabbath…consider this passage form Mark..

Mark 2:23–28 - ²³ And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; ²⁶ how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” ²⁷ Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Now, if God instituted the Sabbath…does God get to write the rules of the Sabbath?

That was a good time for a yes…and what Jesus is trying to demonstrate by his work on the sabbath is that he is divine…here is how he says it in our text…

The Lord is always working (v17)

Let’s not skip over the very important point for us to remember as well…

Have you ever just wondered…where is God? How can all these bad things be happening to me?

It is easy for us to think that God is not working…for some of you it isn’t hard to imagine the suffering that the man experienced for 38 years…It can be easy to ask where God is

But Jesus reminds us the God the Father and God the Son are always working…and that they are not bound by any rules.

John 5:17 - ¹⁷ But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”

Let me ask you…when the Bible says that God rested form his labor…does that mean that God packed up and stopped working?

If that is true…well then the universe would have stopped existing… So, in a very real sense, God did not stop working. The rains still come, people are born, people die, etc. God was still very active, even on the Sabbath.

So, when Jesus explains why he is working, he says, “Look, God is working…my Father is working…” and sense he is working…I am working too…

By Jesus saying this…the text makes clear what the implication of that is in case we missed it…by saying this he says, “I’m God.”

Don’t ever believe anyone that says, “Jesus never said he was God.” Look right here….he is saying the Father and I are one….I’m divine…and for us…we must

John 4:34 - ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.

Recognize His authority with the Father (5:18-24)

This is…

The reason for seeking to kill Jesus (v18)

John 5:18 - ¹⁸ 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.

OK, we just went from the crazy guy who may or may not be healing people…to someone who is claiming to be God…No longer is Jesus just breaking the Sabbath, which was a big deal...now he is claiming equality with God!

Consider the anger that they had when he made that claim…consider outraged they would have been at Jesus claiming to be God.

For them this is too much. They can’t have this crazy guy going around…claiming to be God…he has got to Go!

For them it didn’t matter that Jesus was healing…it didn’t matter that he clearly could point to how the Scriptures were pointing to him…this guy claims to be equal with God….so he needs to go…

From the very onset of the book of John we see that there is a conspiracy to get ride of Jesus…he has to go.

For us, then we get to see…

The relationship of the Father and Son (v19-20)

Here, Jesus takes his claim of deity and expands on what it means….

John 5:19–23 - ¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ “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. ²¹ “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. ²² “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, ²³ 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.

Let’s break this all down for a moment, because there is a lot here.

The Son can do nothing of Himself…but just what He sees the father doing...the Son does what the father does….

• So, in essence, you want to blame me for healing on the Sabbath…you want to be made that I’m doing what I’m doing…then you have a problem with the Father.

Then he says, look, we have a relationship that you don’t even understand….we have a relationship that transcends anything that you have….

The Father Loves the son…they have a perfect relationship defined by Love.

Yes, God loves all of his creation…God loves all his Children…but the Love that the Father and the Son has is unique, it is special…it is unlike anything else…which leads to

The Father shows the Son all things He is doing

You might think you know what the will of the Father is…but you don’t know like the Father knows…

Think of this almost in a human term for a moment…the relationship between a parent and a child is different, it is unique…and Christ is saying…anything that I do comes from my special and unique relationship I have with the Father

In fact, this relationship is so special and so unique that…

The Father has given all judgment to the Son…

That does not mean that God has just checked out…but who is the agent of Judgment…who is the special person that God has entrusted Judgment to? Jesus

And he does that because Jesus is the one that perfectly knows the will of his Father….Jesus is the one that is in a special relationship of love with the Father that transcends anything that we know here on earth.

This leads to the conclusion that….

The Father and the Son are to be honored together, you cannot honor one without the other….

Jesus says if you want to honor God the Father, you have to honor the Son…because we are equal…we are in such a relationship that you can’t have one without the other….

Can you just sense the anger building in the Jews heart…can you sense why they are so mad?

Jesus is claiming to be equal with God…he is saying Judgment is his….he is the Lord of the Sabbath…God loves Jesus unlike anything else…

In fact…Jesus has

The power over life and death (v21-24)

John 5:24 ²⁴ “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.

Jesus could not be any more clear about who he is….he is the one who comes from the Father to offer life…and the way that a person gets eternal life is believing in Jesus and following Him.

No supersaturation is able to do with Christ claims to do.

I saw a great meme on Facebook this week….all other religions claim…this is the way….only Jesus says, “I am the way.” And he is telling the crowds here in this narrative that there is no other way but him.

So, let me ask you….have you done what Jesus says? Have you believed his word and the one who sent Jesus? Have you come into eternal life? Today is a great day to do that!

If you have come into salvation….are you living it out each and every day?

Are you looking to Christ daily? Do you see the love that exists between the Father and the Son and are you entering into that love? Are you living out the call for holiness that is placed on us? Today is a good day to ask yourself…what if anything do I need to do to change….