There’s so much unrest in the world, and so much confusion, but John 5 will help you find your rest in Jesus.
We’ll see a man who’s unable to help himself, helped by Jesus in a way he wasn’t expecting. We’ll also see how a skewed understanding of religious rules can actually take you away from peace and rest with God. Because it’s when you understand that Jesus is God the eternal Son that you can begin to find your rest in Jesus, peace with God.
Some of the truths that come out in John’s gospel are actually uncomfortable. So much so that by the end of chapter 6 we’ll see some of Jesus’ disciples drifting away. It’s too hard.
Will you listen to Jesus, and hear what he has to say?
These notes accompany a sermon on YouTube delivered at Bromborough Evangelical Church in July 2024. You can find more in the series in our sermon index.
Only Jesus can save you (1-9)
Read John 5:1-5.
It’s a pretty depressing and hopeless scene. No health service of any kind – just a vague hope that you might be able to get into the healing water at Bethesda.
Your English translation might have an extra v4. It was almost certainly not in the original text, and added later for clarification. It says that the water in the pool would stir and only the first person into it would be healed.
The man there that day had been disabled for 38 years. Whatever his disability, he was unable to get himself into the water faster than anyone else. He was desperately in need of help, because he couldn’t help himself. At such times, people will cling to all sorts of random hopes and superstitions.
The problem for you is that the Bible says that’s your natural spiritual condition. Naturally, we’re all “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) – and dead people don’t heal themselves. Trying harder, getting religion, doing good things for charity or for anyone – none of those things brings spiritual life.
And then Jesus entered: Read John 5:6.
What’s interesting about that is that there were “a large number of the disabled” there, but Jesus only spoke to that one man.
Why is that?
God’s sovereign choice
Why do some people become Christians and others don’t, even when they’ve heard the same message? It seems reasonable to assume that Jesus had compassion on that man for his 38-year disability. But what about the others? He had compassion on them, didn’t he?
Two things need saying, both of which are hard to hear:
- First, Jesus didn’t go to that man or heal him in response to a prayer, or the man’s faith: Jesus chose to heal him as a sign for you, recorded here in John’s gospel. Get that? The man’s healing was for you, not him.
- Second, God himself makes choices: “I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Exodus 33:19). Does that include you? Well, he’s brought you here. God has brought you to this time and place, in his grace. That is very good news for you, because others have been passed over.
Jesus’ dealings with that man went beyond physical healing: Read John 5:6-9, 14.
That last comment is especially telling. The Bible draws a clear line between sin (in general) in the world and its polluting effects: injustice, sickness, death. Sometimes, there’s a specific link between certain specific sin and specific sickness or death (Ananias & Sapphira in Acts 5, abuse of the Lord’s Table in 1 Cor 11:30). Other times, people experience sickness not as punishment for their sin (Job, a blind man in John 9:1-3).
From Jesus’ words in John 5, it would seem that the man’s 38 years of disability were a result of his sin.
So it’s remarkable that Jesus should say, “Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
A worse outcome?
What could be worse than what he’d had? The answer is uncomfortable: An eternity in hell, punishment for sin. Because all sins do draw specific punishment from our holy God of justice.
The question is, who will be punished for your sins? And the answer is: Either you, or you can go to God for forgiveness of sin. In which case, Jesus is counted as taking the punishment you deserve. When we talk about faith in Christ, it’s faith in him dying to take the punishment of your sin. And he will.
Jesus healed that man. After 38 years, the man could immediately stand up. Fully healed, and able to pick up his mat and walk. In saying, “Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you,” there’s a suggestion of divine forgiveness.
But more, there’s a call to repentance. Your sins draw the judgment of God. Jesus comes to you today – as real as he was to that man – and he offers you life, hope, forgiveness of sin.
Repent of your sin, ask for his forgiveness, and live!
Only Jesus can give you rest (10-16)
As is often the case, onlookers preferred to find fault with Jesus rather than be utterly amazed at what he’d done and said. Read John 5:10-16.
Why were they so bothered about the Sabbath law? For that, we need to think a bit about what the Sabbath was.
It’s part of the Creation account in Genesis 1-2. Genesis 2:3 says, “God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.”
It’s not that God got tired. Rather, he was giving a model for all humanity that it’s simply good to rest from work. When he called the nation of Israel together in Exodus, he gave the 10 Commandments: The 4th of them is to keep the Sabbath holy (set aside for God). No-one was to do any regular work.
The Sabbath: A Gift from God
The Sabbath was a gift from God. It functioned in two ways:
- First, it was time to refrain from work so that people could gather to God to spend time with him. The temple was the place of worship, and the Sabbath was the time of worship (a “time-temple”).
- Second, the break from work was an astonishing gift to a nation released from 7-days-a-week slavery. Those Israelites knew that Sabbath rest was a good thing! It was rest for everyone in the community. There’s a strong ethical message in the Sabbath law to protect the lower working classes from abuse.
And the Sabbath was actually a sign of God’s covenant. To keep the Sabbath holy was a symbol of a believer’s grateful worship of God – a happy acceptance of his good rule for life. And a key signal of the community aspect of being one of God’s people, gathering to him for worship and praise.
So to abuse the Sabbath was a rejection of God’s goodness. It was a refusal to worship, saying you prefer to spend time doing other things, rather than giving thanks to God.
Obviously, then, keeping the Sabbath was a response to God. It certainly wasn’t a ticket to heaven, or even a badge of holiness. That kind of thinking led people to come up with new, tighter restrictions – like not carrying your mat on the Sabbath! Those laws then became a diversion away from God.
The Sabbath points to rest in Christ
But if the Sabbath was part of God’s creation – a good model for all humanity… And if it was meant to be a ‘time temple’ – a time for you to be with God in the company of his people… Then what rest does the Sabbath point to? Hebrews 4:9 says, “a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people” – and that rest is only found in Christ.
To come to Jesus is to find eternal rest for your soul. Jesus specifically invites you to go to him to find that rest. Find your rest in Jesus.
Rest is obviously a settled thing.
- It’s not drive-thru, not microwaveable.
- It’s time that you set aside in a taste of eternity.
- Your relationship with God won’t flourish as long as you snatch a moment here and there.
- He calls you to rest, to stop, to find a ‘time temple’ of solace with him. It’s for your good.
Gathered worship is part of that. Church services are a gift, part of your time-temple, a time with God.
It’s not meant to be a burden. He commands you to sing because it will do you good. He commands you praise him because you will enjoy God all the more. And he calls you Sunday-by-Sunday to gathered worship, gathered to Christ.
Only Jesus can save you. And only Jesus can give you rest.
Find your rest in Jesus:
Come to God in Christ (17-18)
Jesus has stoked the discussion about the Sabbath on purpose.
He will now reveal truth about himself that no-one was expecting to hear: They were shocked and outraged. Read John 5:17-18.
God rested from his works of creation and, it seems, still rests and invites you to enter into that rest. And yet, God obviously still continues to work; he’s active.
- God sustains the universe.
- He works to bring about his plans and purposes.
- Today, he has heard our prayers and is working them into his sovereign purposes.
- He gives life and takes it away.
- He acts in judgment, and he pours out grace.
- Because love is always active, God is always busy loving.
The Jews Jesus spoke to understood all this. They were used to discussing the complexities of Sabbath rest and yet still doing God’s works.
But Jesus took it much, much further than anyone had before:
- “My Father is still working, and I am working also.”
- As if to say, “as God is above and outside the Sabbath laws, so am I in exactly the same way.”
- As believers were to keep the Sabbath day holy (devoted to God), everything Jesus did was holy and devoted to God – because he was God (is God).
They got it loud and clear. He was claiming equality with God.
But there is only one God, so they considered his words deeply blasphemous – for which the penalty was death.
God revealed in Christ
But what Jesus was actually doing was revealing something of the nature of God to them:
- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
- Jesus wasn’t claiming to be another God, or an alternative to the God of the Old Testament.
- He is the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.
- The ancient Nicene Creed describes Jesus as “consubstantial with the Father”
– that is, of the same eternal divine nature as the Father - The 1669 Baptist confession has it:
“In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided… all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God.”
– a sort of “infinity + infinity + infinity = infinity.”
But if you bring all this together, what do you get?
That man Jesus was God the Son made flesh, made human. He came to seek and to save the lost, the hopeless. He calls whoever he chooses, and he’s brought you here. Jesus, Son of God, calls you to rest in him.
Turn from your sin, cry out to him for forgiveness, and he will give you rest for your soul. So take that rest, and learn to rest in him.
Spend time with him; enter into his presence.
Don’t throw the gift of church or Sundays back in his face by choosing your own entertainment.
Only Jesus can save you. Only Jesus can give you rest. Come to God in Christ, and do it today.