Participants: Don Pate
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000024
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00:29 Hello, my friend, and welcome.
00:31 Welcome to a time of spending a few minutes with Jesus 00:34 and what better time could we invest ourselves in, 00:39 than spending time with Jesus. 00:41 I'm so glad that you've joined me. 00:42 I'm Don Pate from "Between the Lines" 00:45 and it's my sincere privilege to be granted this opportunity 00:48 to take you into the word, 00:51 to spend a few minutes with Jesus. 00:53 I invite you to pray with me. 00:55 Father, thank you so much for the rich experiences 01:00 that we find in the life and ministry of Christ. 01:04 How He was born and He lived a life 01:07 and such a life for us, and then died and rose again. 01:12 And we pray now that is 01:13 we go back into the experiences of His life 01:18 that they would become real and vibrant 01:21 that the ministry of the gospels 01:24 would be energized in our lives today. 01:28 This is our prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen. 01:34 I don't know if some of the gospel stories 01:37 to you seem old, old for two reasons. 01:42 Number one, old 01:43 because it was couple of thousand years ago, old. 01:48 It is really is distant from our experience. 01:51 This is not contemporary, man. 01:54 And some times we tent to look at the biblical stories, 01:57 the stories of all of the Old and the New Testament 02:00 but primarily we're dealing with the gospels here. 02:04 The events of the ministry of Jesus 02:05 and we tent to, you know, 02:07 categorized them back off into the dusty past, 02:11 the dim past. 02:12 And we look at them we say, well that sweet, 02:15 that's nice and I appreciate Jesus. 02:18 But we have a hard time bringing these events 02:21 forward into the present reality of the grind 02:25 and the challenge of your life today. 02:27 I don't know if you have that problem. 02:29 Many, many people do. 02:30 But some people also then, categorize the stories 02:34 as being sort of they mentally block it, 02:36 that the stories are old in that, 02:39 "Huh, you know, I've heard that one before. 02:41 And I've heard that one before." 02:43 And ever since I've heard that one before 02:45 and so we tend to-- sometimes it considered them old 02:48 because they've lost their power, 02:50 they've lost their-- because we've heard it 02:52 so many times before. 02:53 There's the great old gospel hymn 02:55 "Tell me the old, old story. 02:58 Tell me the old, old--" 03:00 and sometimes it just becomes old, old story. 03:05 Well, I have a passion for my life 03:09 and it's a little selfish, I confess, yes, 03:12 it's a privilege for me to be able to do it 03:14 for my congregation, for me to do it 03:16 through the ministry "Between the Lines" 03:17 everyday around the world. 03:18 But a lot of it is-- I'm sorry it's selfish. 03:21 It is precious to me personally to go back 03:25 into the gospel events and find someway to have them 03:31 move forward to become a present living 03:36 vibrant breathing experience that I can grapple with 03:41 and I can put myself in sort of on the side of the story 03:43 and stand there and almost feel like I'm there. 03:46 Like I'm in the sandals of the crowd, 03:48 observing Jesus and that's a passion with me. 03:52 And I hope that you have the same desire 03:56 that Jesus-- that you could 03:58 almost feel Him breathe with you. 04:02 It isn't that a precious thought? 04:04 Well, let's spend time in the text, 04:05 just a few minute with Jesus 04:07 and see if can have that happen for us today. 04:10 I'd invite you to take your Bibles 04:11 and turn to the Gospel of John. 04:14 Now, John of course wrote his gospel by his own admission. 04:19 Now he can freely confesses it. 04:21 He wrote his gospel for intention, 04:23 there was a certain reason. 04:24 He says, at the beginning of the book 04:26 and the end the book both he says, 04:28 "look there are some stories you haven't heard about Jesus 04:31 and I want to fill in the gaps." 04:33 That Matthew, you know, 04:35 he said some great things about Jesus. 04:38 Told you some wonderful stories 04:40 and Mark also gave a little bit of an angle 04:42 that Matthew had not given you. 04:43 And Luke, he brought something to the table 04:46 that the other two did not. 04:47 But still there's more for you to know 04:51 and so John decidedly after the other gospels were written 04:54 came in to sort of filling the blanks 04:56 and put some pieces into the puzzle 04:58 that we haven't seen upto this point. 05:02 As a result the gospel of John for several reasons 05:05 is incredibly precious to most Christians. 05:08 One is it is so simple, it is so simple. 05:12 If you know much about the language Hebrew or Greek. 05:15 You know that whenever you teach somebody 05:18 German or Portuguese or something, 05:20 you always start with the very elementary 05:22 basics of the language. 05:24 In English we have a sort of colloquial Dick and Jane, 05:28 the Dick and Jane books. 05:29 Those first little grammar school 05:32 elementary readers that--well, it was Dick and Jane, you know, 05:35 and there is with in the text of the Bible itself. 05:39 There are some books that are Dick and Jane, 05:42 as far as the language goes in the Old Testament, 05:45 predominantly when you read the Old Testament. 05:48 If you were to do it in the original language 05:50 in the Hebrew, you would find that 05:52 most often when you take Hebrew 05:53 one of the first books they're going to have you wrestle with 05:55 and translate is the little book of Ruth, 06:00 because Ruth is just Dick and Jane. 06:02 It's very simple language 06:04 were as then you get into the more complex language 06:07 later on as you become more adapt in Hebrew. 06:10 You get into issues of Isaiah. 06:12 You get into the problematic passage 06:14 of the story of Jonah Chapter 3 and Chapter 2 06:19 especially even more than three. 06:21 There are some very difficult Hebrew there. 06:23 So you move as you become more experience. 06:26 Well, in the New Testament you have the same thing in Greek. 06:29 In the New Testament, you have difficult passages 06:32 of well, you know, who? Paul. 06:34 Our friend, Paul, very challenging language 06:38 in many, many places, 06:40 but you're not gonna get that from John. 06:42 John is Dick and Jane Greek. 06:45 And it even comes out in the translations that way. 06:49 It is so simple and therefore many of us 06:52 it is so heart warming because of the lack of complexity 06:57 of the Book of John, 06:59 and the writings of John later on, of course in 1, 2, 3 John. 07:02 Now when you get to Revelation 07:03 that--that's a whole different story, 07:05 because of the package of what Revelation represents. 07:09 But in the language the Gospel of John is your-- 07:12 It's your elementary school reader 07:14 of the Bible text of the New Testament. 07:19 One thing that happens though, 07:21 because it's so simple is John doesn't loose 07:24 a whole lot of sleep over chronology. 07:26 If you want to find out, Jesus did this then He did this, 07:31 then he did this, then he did this, 07:33 then he did this, probably go to the gospel of Mark. 07:37 Mark, it seems to be the most chronological 07:40 and will keep you some what in order of event. 07:44 Matthew isn't quite as concerned. 07:46 Luke is decidedly less concerned. 07:48 And John doesn't even know what the word means. 07:50 You know, it just, it doesn't matter to him, 07:52 but he admits that. 07:53 He says, look, I'm not here to put this 07:55 all in perfect order for you. 07:56 I'm here to just randomly throw some stories 07:58 at you that you haven't heard otherwise. 08:01 In John, we find a story 08:04 that is uniquely decidedly John chapter 5. 08:09 A story about a man at the pool of Bethesda. 08:14 Let's begin in the text. 08:15 John Chapter 5 verse 1. 08:17 After this sometime after the-- 08:20 what I was just telling you about, 08:21 John seems to say, you know, 08:23 that sometimes later down the line. 08:25 "There was a feast of the Jews, 08:28 and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." 08:29 It was one of the pilgrimage festivals. 08:31 You probably know that there were three pilgrimage festivals 08:35 that were three times of the year 08:36 that Jews were expected to come--the faithful, 08:41 the observant, we're expected to come to Jerusalem 08:44 to participate in the ritual. 08:46 To draw near, the central core of Judaism, the temple. 08:53 And as a result Jesus faithfully 08:56 went to the pilgrimage festivals. 08:58 Hey, He was supposed to and it was important to him. 09:01 And so Jesus went up to Jerusalem and in Jerusalem, 09:04 verse 2 of John Chapter 5. 09:07 "In Jerusalem there is, by the sheep market" 09:10 now that's terribly important, by the sheep market, 09:14 "there is a pool which in the Hebrew tongue 09:17 was called Bethesda," having five porches, 09:20 house of the five, five porches, by the sheep market. 09:25 And there was a great multitude, verse 3-- 09:27 there were a whole lot of people around there 09:29 and you probably know why. 09:31 It's a famous story, because--verse 4 says, 09:34 there was this legend, superstition, some expectation. 09:38 There was this legend that an angel would come 09:41 and stir the waters and that if you're the first one 09:44 into the water that you would be miraculously healed. 09:47 Now, where'd they come up with that, who knows? 09:49 You know, it did, somebody one day accidentally, 09:53 you know, they were healed by some 09:55 and somebody said it was an angel and some, you know. 09:57 Who know how the legend evolved. 10:00 But the truth is that this was a known rumor 10:04 related to the pool, "That an angel would go down 10:07 at a certain season" verse 4, 10:09 "and into the pool and would troubled the waters," 10:11 stirred up, troubled the water, "and whoever was the first" 10:15 after the troubling of the water, 10:17 whoever got into the water first will be cured. 10:22 He stepped in, he was made 10:23 a whole of whatever disease he had. 10:26 Now, now comes the focus of the story, 10:30 the central character. 10:32 "A certain man was there" verse 5, 10:35 "a certain man was there 10:36 who had an infirmity 38 years," 38 years. 10:44 In our culture today, in our world today 10:46 that sort of half a lifetime. 10:50 In the Roman world, 10:52 it was a lot more than half a life time. 10:54 You may not know that in the Roman Empire 10:56 the average lifespan apparently was 44. 11:01 This man's a senior citizen in his world. 11:06 Thirty eight years by the side of the pool. 11:11 And you have to know after 38 years this man, 11:16 he's figure this thing out. 11:18 There is no miracle of angel. 11:21 So why would he stay? Well, think about it. 11:25 It's already expressed in the story, 11:27 number one that it's close to the temple. 11:32 The man is staying in some proximity to the temple. 11:34 Is that because he fully believes 11:36 that if I just stay near the temple 11:38 some day God is gonna heal me? May be, 11:43 but it's also not a bad place to hit people up, 11:47 if you want them to be generous. 11:51 If somebody is coming, you know, into the church 11:55 and they want to impress God, 11:58 they certainly don't want to reject 12:00 one of God's little children, 12:01 just outside the door of the church. 12:05 If you want to impress God you, you know, 12:06 dig a little deeper and right there at the house, 12:10 at the door of the house. 12:12 There's some logic to this that why people who were beggars, 12:16 the broken would gather near the temple. 12:19 I'm not so convinced that it was because they felt 12:21 some aura of the temple would meet their need. 12:24 It was a whole lot more--the people 12:26 were coming into the temple, who had to impress God, 12:29 would meet their need. 12:31 He remained, he'd been there for 38 years, 38 long years. 12:39 Now do you remembe what I already shared with you. 12:41 I wanted you to remember from verse 2, 12:45 it was by the sheep market. 12:49 That's terribly important in the story. 12:53 The sheep gate in the Jerusalem temple was on the North side. 13:00 The pool of Bethesda was on the North side. 13:04 If some guilty sinner came from up in the Galilee 13:09 to come to make sacrifice at the temple, 13:12 you know, very few of them would come dragging a lamb along. 13:17 Very few of them would bring their sacrifice with them 13:20 and it's a whole lot easier just to come to Jerusalem 13:23 to get to Jerusalem and purchase it there. 13:26 That was pretty inconvenient, you know, 13:27 if you're potter you don't have a lot of lambs, 13:29 you're not a Sheppard in any way. 13:30 If you're a scribe you don't own lambs. 13:33 I mean, there had to be a place where a person could go 13:36 to have access to purchase the sacrifice. 13:40 But you know from the gospel stories 13:42 two events on the front of the ministry of Jesus 13:45 and the back of the ministry of Jesus. 13:47 Jesus said, this is corrupt, 13:49 that even the process of the purchase 13:52 of the sacrificial animals was just vicious, 13:57 in devastating the people, it was a rip off. 14:01 Now what appears to have happened 14:04 was that they would hit people coming and going, 14:06 if we use that sort of vernacular 14:08 that idiomatic expression got him coming and going. 14:10 Some poor sinner would come to the temple 14:12 without a sacrifice knowing that he needed to approach God 14:15 to make sacrifice that was the law. 14:17 He would come to the sheep gate, 14:19 to the sheep market region and he would, 14:22 you know, negotiate. 14:23 Now, let's take it even little farther. 14:25 Suppose you did have somebody who had his own lamb. 14:28 This is apparently, according to history 14:30 this is apparently what happened. 14:32 He would bring his little lamb, 14:33 he'd come up to the gate of the temple ready to go 14:36 and sacrifice with this little lamb 14:38 and a priest might step forward and say, 14:39 oh, well, it's nice to have you here today, 14:41 it's wonderful to have you here today, 14:42 are you here to sacrifice? 14:43 And the poor penitent would say, "oh yes I am." 14:47 Oh, I see you brought a lamb. "Yes, I did." 14:50 Has your lamb been inspected? Is it fit? 14:53 Is it kosher? Is it approved? 14:56 "Well, it looks like a good lamb to me, I don't know." 14:59 And so the priest might reach down 15:01 and start groping around on the lamb. 15:04 Now you remember it was to be a lamb 15:06 in order for sacrifice to be appropriate, 15:08 it was to be an animal with out blemish. 15:11 Now the mission that defines that to be 15:14 without permanent deformity apparently 15:17 it wasn't that the lamb couldn't have a little scratch 15:19 or a little dirt smudge on his nose. 15:22 But it could have no permanent deformity 15:25 that was the definition of without blemish. 15:29 So the priest potentially could reach around 15:31 and grope around on the lamb and say, 15:32 "oh, my, feel this" 15:35 and the sinner the poor little penitent could reach down 15:37 and feel on his lamb and there would a little bump there on it. 15:40 "Oh, I didn't know that was there." 15:41 vNow of course it could have been any thing, could be spleen. 15:44 I mean how many people know how to feel the spleen on a lamb? 15:51 "I'm sorry you have a permanent deformity here. 15:55 You're not gonna be able to sacrifice this lamb." 15:57 "Oh, I came all the way down from the Galilee, 15:59 you know, what do you expect me to do?" 16:02 "Well, we happened have some over here for sale." 16:06 "Oh, what am I gonna do with my lamb?" 16:08 "Look, let me give you a--half a shekel for your little lamb 16:12 and you know we'll sell it in the market place. 16:15 And at least in won't be a complete waste." 16:18 And so potentially the priest then would, 16:20 you know, give him a half a shekel 16:21 and the man would go over to the market place over here 16:24 where they would be selling lambs. 16:25 He'd walk up and say, "you know, I brought a lamb 16:27 but it wasn't good enough so I need a kosher lamb, 16:28 I need a lamb that's better lamb that's acceptable." 16:31 And the man behind the counter would say, 16:32 "more than happy to sell you one, 16:34 it will cost you two shekels." 16:37 "Two shekels excuse me. I only got a half a shekel for-- 16:40 "No, well, of course you had a defective lamb, 16:42 you don't expect a kosher fit lamb 16:45 to be the same price as a defective lamb." 16:48 Oh, wow, now of course you know what 16:50 then potentially the first priest would do. 16:52 He would take that little lamb that they gotten 16:54 for half a shekel move around 16:55 and sell it to somebody else for two shekels. 16:59 The priest then would say, 17:01 "okay, two shekels for a fit lamb right here, 17:04 certified, guaranteed." 17:07 The little man would pull out 17:08 and lay two shekels on the counter 17:10 the priest would back off and say, "Excuse me, 17:12 can I ask you a question? 17:13 Do you have any idea where those coins have been?" 17:18 I mean, who of us any of us, who of us could ever know 17:21 where the money that we have in our pockets, where it's been. 17:25 "Can you guarantee that this is not been touched 17:27 by the hand of a Roman?" "Oh, no." 17:30 "In that case I can't accept it." 17:32 "Oh, what am I gonna do?" 17:33 "Well, you have to use temple coinage. 17:36 Go up to the money exchange." 17:38 The man would take his two little shekels 17:39 lay it down at the temple coinage bureau 17:43 and say, "here I need two shekels 17:44 so I can go buy a lamb over here. 17:46 And they would say, but the exchange rate here 17:47 is four to two or whatever. 17:50 They got them coming and going and if you're 38 years 17:53 by the side of the sheep gate 17:54 you have seen this corrupt system 17:56 over and over and over and again. 17:58 This man 38 years has watched. 18:02 the corruption of the temple class, the priestly class. 18:05 Not all the priests, some of them are very sincere 18:08 but there was enough corruption for Jesus 18:10 to call the place a den of thieves. 18:13 This man has observed this for 38 years. 18:19 And after 38 years I think if I had been him 18:22 I might have figured some of this out. 18:26 And imagine, imagine what might go on in this man's heart 18:34 as he observes the ones who are the select, 18:37 the chosen, the holy, the priests, 18:39 who are--they're the, they're the criminal element 18:43 and sincere people coming and getting ripped off everyday 18:49 and yet you just because you happened to be broken, 18:52 you're not allowed to go in, 18:53 you're not even allowed in the door. 18:56 If I would've been this man 18:58 I would have had a number of reasons 19:00 to have some sense of resentment toward heaven. 19:06 I mean really, and as he was laying there 19:11 one day, verse 6, "Jesus saw him lie and knew" 19:19 Jesus knew what was under the, the background, 19:21 you know, in the background of this story. 19:23 Jesus knew this man's biography, he knew the life history, 19:27 he knew what brought the man to that point. 19:31 "Jesus knew he'd been there a long time in that case. 19:37 And he asked a question." 19:39 One of the most astounding questions in all the Bible? 19:42 I love the questions of the Bible. 19:44 In fact the questions in the Book of Genesis 19:47 are some of the best. 19:48 They're questions in the first four chapters of Genesis. 19:51 You get some questions 19:53 that are eternal questions to the end of time. 19:56 God has great questions in the scripture, 19:58 incredible questions. 20:01 And Jesus asked one here that, when I was younger 20:04 I used to like that's pretty dumb, 20:07 what kind of questions that? 20:09 Jesus verse 6, "Said onto him, 20:13 wilt thou be made whole?" 20:19 You know, the youth today often when something 20:22 is just so outlanders they go, "Oh! Well, dud! 20:27 That sort of sarcastic-- how can you be so silly, 20:30 Wilt thou be made-- I used to think 20:35 what a preposterous question that is for Jesus to ask. 20:39 If I would have been that man laying there 20:40 by the side of the pool I might have thought, 20:42 "yeah and I wish that the pool would, 20:44 you know, turn into, you know, wine 20:47 and I wish Herod's is dancing girls would come by 20:50 and I wish it would rain, you know, cherries I," you know. 20:55 What kind of a question is that? "Wilt thou be made whole?" 21:02 I never understood that question until I was in Berkeley. 21:04 I was doing my graduate studies 21:06 at the graduate theological union, 21:07 the center for Jewish studies. 21:09 I was pastoring in Berkeley and I had several church members 21:13 who would have been this man. 21:16 They would have been held at a distance 21:19 because they had issues of deformity, 21:21 both of them were in wheel chairs and there's a whole-- 21:24 I need to take just a second her to explain this to you, 21:27 if you're a person who has some physical defect 21:30 and you have held some resentment toward heaven 21:34 about these stories about how that God 21:36 seem to hold these people and I was like, 21:38 let me give you something that actually come from 21:40 the mentality of Judaism that might be refreshing to you 21:43 and that is that they didn't necessarily see this as a curse. 21:49 They saw those moments when God would proclaim a person 21:52 ritually unclean and he was releasing them 21:56 from the obligation, 21:59 because of the challenge that they faced. 22:03 They actually read often as they define this out, 22:08 Judaism is often read these rituals uncleanness 22:12 not to be a curse or a negative but to be God's mercy, 22:17 God's compassion that will allow a person just a little break, 22:22 because of the challenge they faced in life. 22:26 Just last night I was flying with a young lady 22:28 from Phoenix, Arizona to St Louis 22:31 and she had a broken leg but as we began to talk 22:35 as she was sitting next to me on the plane 22:37 we began to talk it was more than a broken leg. 22:39 She shared with me, she'd been in a brutal accident. 22:42 She was in a coma for six weeks almost. 22:46 Ten years ago she had some spinal cord damage 22:48 etcetera, etcetera, and as I was sitting 22:49 and listening to this young lady share this, I was thinking 22:52 if this was biblical time if this, you know, 22:55 God would not expect as much of you, Maam. 22:58 He wouldn't expect as much of you 23:00 because of the challenge you face in life, 23:02 that maybe refreshing to you. 23:04 This man is asked "Wilt thou be made whole?" 23:08 I never understood until I had a young women 23:11 in a wheel chair who had many things wrong with her. 23:14 She had a number of serious challenges, 23:17 in fact she has now passed away with breast cancer. 23:21 But Norma was one of my church members 23:22 and Norma taught me something about the story, 23:24 I never could have known on my own being, 23:26 you know, moderately whole and healthy. 23:28 I never could have known. 23:30 Norma, one day, I was in prayer closing a sermon 23:35 and we had actually two church members 23:37 on wheel chairs that day and I said, 23:41 in my prayer in closing 23:42 and it made sense to me at the time, 23:44 we long for the day when we're going 23:46 to run the fields of heaven with Joe and with Norma. 23:51 At the end of the service Norma made it black and white to me 23:54 that she was furious with me. 23:57 She looked at me and she said, 23:59 she'd actually spend her early part of her life 24:02 in an institution where they believed 24:03 she would never accomplish anything 24:05 and here she was doing rhetoric at Berkeley that was her major. 24:10 But Norma looked at me and she said 24:11 don't you ever do that to me again. 24:14 I said, "do what?" 24:17 "Don't you ever do that to me again." 24:21 I said, "Norma, what I did I do?" 24:22 And she said, "I don't have a problem 24:25 with what I am, you do." 24:30 This verse suddenly made sense to me. 24:33 When Jesus looks at this man and says, 24:36 "Wilt thou be made whole?" 24:41 What he is saying is, "my friend if I heal you, 24:44 if I really do heal you, if I change you, 24:47 your life can not be the same. 24:49 For the last 38 years your whole reality, 24:51 your whole sense of being and manhood 24:54 is being tied up on this little mat and if I heal you, 25:00 you're gonna have to rise up off that mat and live a real life. 25:06 Your life can not stay as it is if I heal you. 25:09 Your reality, your world is gonna change. 25:13 Are you willing to surrender what has been your truth 25:17 and your reality and your existence, 25:19 are you ready to surrender that? 25:20 To step into the unknown because when I rise you up 25:23 off that mat, when I lift you up 25:24 and heal you your world is gonna change dramatically, 25:27 you don't even have a clue of what I got planned for you. 25:33 Would you be made whole or would you really? 25:36 Are you sure?" 25:38 My friend, this story is so necessary 25:44 for you and for me. 25:48 Because it is the confrontation of Jesus 25:51 with everyone of us about the issue 25:53 of submission and surrender and the willingness 25:57 that I exhibit or I refuse to give of me 26:02 being willing to say to heaven, "Okay, yes. 26:06 God, I don't know what your plan is. 26:08 I don't know what your design is. 26:11 I don't know what you're gonna make of me. 26:12 I don't know what you're gonna do to me. 26:13 I don't know what you're gonna take from to me. 26:16 I don't know, Lord, what you've planned for me. 26:22 But I trust you. And I'll step into the unknown." 26:28 Will you be made whole? Will you really? 26:33 If you're gonna be made whole, 26:36 it's going to require you to surrender, 26:40 submit, put away the past, get off the rotten mat 26:46 that has been your reality. 26:48 And for all of us, friends, that is the crisis of the will. 26:54 It is the crucifixion of self. 26:59 My reality, my comfort zone, the way I see things, 27:02 what I believe about me, what I believe about God, 27:05 that will I allow God to be the one 27:08 who shapes and designs that or will I selfishly clutch 27:12 and cling to my own little truth, my realities? 27:16 Would you be made whole is the central question, 27:23 a surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. 27:27 It is the absolute cutting edge rock bottom, 27:33 baseline, common denominator issue of submission 27:38 and surrender and dying to self. 27:40 And it is a question that rings out of John Chapter 5, 27:44 all the way to your life and to my life today. 27:47 My friend, I'm gonna have to answer this today and tomorrow. 27:51 Will I really, really, really, allow the past to die 27:55 to become what Christ wants me to be and how about you? |
Revised 2014-12-17