And welcome back
to this Bible study
00:00:01.40\00:00:03.27
of the Gospel of
John with Dr. Jon Paulien.
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And, Dr. Paulien, you said
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that there are three
different types of faith
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and I want to just
review those again.
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You said that the first
one is an 'Inadequate Faith,'
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which is an
expression of faith, you know,
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I say I believe or
at least I acted or--
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But because it's
focused on miracle,
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it's really
faith in a caricature
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of what God is like. Right.
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God is this kind of
heavenly vending machine,
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you know, you punch a
button, you get the candy or--
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Well, this is
not a Saving Faith.
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Right. Because it does not,
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it's not really
directed to the true God.
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Okay, the second type of
faith is a 'Saving Faith,'
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which is immature and shallow.
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And the third type of
faith is a 'Full Saving Faith,'
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that's what you call it. Yeah.
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Which includes the cross.
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And the 'Full Saving Faith'
comes to grasp that it's not,
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you know, God is not
about working miracles.
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He is not about power
and intimidation and so on.
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But rather that God
is all about the cross
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that it's in self-sacrifice.
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It's in weakness
that true God is seen.
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And when you
have faith in that God
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then our lives are
ordered in a proper direction.
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So which is out of these
three-- which is the faith
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that we ought to have?
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Well, the goals
very certainly is a rich,
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full understanding,
full-bodied faith.
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But salvation
often comes to people
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who don't know everything.
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They don't know
much, they just know,
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they hear the words of
Jesus, they respond, they're in.
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You don' t have to
earn your way to Jesus,
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so I got to develop faith
here for the next three months,
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then maybe I can dig in.
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He accepts you when you enter,
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but invites you
to continue growing.
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So the disciples at
the wedding of Cana,
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they see the water turned
to wine and they're saying,
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"Wow, Jesus is a miracle worker.
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This is pretty cool.
I want to follow Him."
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And that's the
right move to make,
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but they still at this
point, don't fully understand
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the cross and the implications
that the greatest glory of Jesus
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is washing feet, you
know, not beating up Romans.
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Yeah, so this nobleman
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comes to Jesus with
an inadequate faith.
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Yeah, his faith is
just based on miracles.
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He says, "Well,
if Jesus heals my son
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then maybe I'll believe in him."
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But when he hears the words
of Jesus, something changes.
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And that faith changed.
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He went back with
a different faith.
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He no longer needs
to see the miracle.
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He can even
wander back the next day.
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So he didn't have
to see his child alive
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and well in order for him
to have that experience that,
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what you call the
'Full Saving Faith.'
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He knows that
Jesus is who He is.
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Quickly, how do I know
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which faith do I--
which faith I have?
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Can I know that?
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That's an interesting
and a very good question.
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Because you see,
this is John's expression,
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these three types of faith.
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Is that all there is to
say about faith, perhaps not.
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But I-- that's a
good curveball to ask
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because it gets down to
a very individual thing.
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How do I know that
I'm right with God?
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And I guess at the
bottom-line is to question.
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Are you willing to accept Him?
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No matter what
the price, no matter
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what the cross would
say, anything in your life
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that you would hang on to
rather than grasp on to Him.
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And I think
'Saving Faith' happens
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when we say, "I
don't care this, that.
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I don't care if I lose my job.
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I don't care, you
know, if I lose my life,
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my reputation or anything.
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I want what God has.
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And I think that
is 'Saving Faith.'
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If there's anything
inside of us that's holding back
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then it's some of
this more shallow,
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more inadequate
faith, I would say.
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And another thing is that
faith is not a permanent thing,
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meaning that, I can have
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'Full Saving Faith' today,
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but tomorrow I
might not have it.
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Well, that's a
very interesting point.
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And John definitely
speaks directly to that.
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Because in the Gospel of
John, faith is never a noun,
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it's always a verb,
and it's a continuous verb.
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So faith isn't
something, you know,
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that you kind of throw at God.
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Okay, here, have
my faith, you know.
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Faith rather is a
settled way of life.
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And the real
definition of faith is trust.
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Do you trust God to do for you
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what you can't
do it for yourself?
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That's the core
what faith is all about?
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And trust really is a verb.
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It's a relationship.
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It's an ongoing thing.
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So John is not
seeing faith as an idea,
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he is not seeing
faith as a onetime act.
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You know, I had faith.
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I know I'm saved now, you see.
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But no, faith is
a continual walking
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in relationship with God.
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A continual believing
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that He can do
everything that you need.
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So for John, it's active.
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It isn't just a onetime thing.
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Well, we also are going to
talk about another miracle.
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Pool of Bethesda? All right.
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That's right.
And we are in--again,
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we are in chapter 4
of the Gospel of John
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and we are picking
up in, which verses now?
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I think now we
move to chapter 5.
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Oh, we are in chapter 5.
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And we get to
the very first verse.
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And we are in verse 1.
So we'll make that clear.
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Thank you. After
this, shall we read then?
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Sure, go ahead.
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"After this there
was a feast of the Jews
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and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
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Now there is in Jerusalem
by the sheep gate a pool,
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which is called in Hebrew,
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Bethesda, having five porches."
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Why don't you stop
there for a second? Okay.
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So scholars doubted
John for a long time
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because they know
where the sheep gate is.
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There is no pool, you see.
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So, how could this
great big thing be here
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and we don't know about it?
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So scholars kind of
doubted, but the gospel said
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it was there, and eventually
the archeologists found it,
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underneath the
neighborhoods and all that,
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somebody came to discover.
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Yes, there was once
a great pool down here.
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There is even a
church built over
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at a few centuries
later to commemorate that.
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You can go visit it today.
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It's like, 100
meters long, 70 meters wide,
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40 feet, you
know, 12 meters deep.
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I mean, this is
huge, and it has 5 porches.
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It's kind of like a figure 8.
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So you have
porches on the four sides
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and then down the middle it
was separated into two pools.
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So today we know
that the Gospel of John
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was grounded on
accurate reality.
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And the name of
this place is Bethesda,
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which means, 'House of Mercy.'
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It was kind of like an
ancient hospital. So read on.
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"In these lay a great multitude
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of sick people,
blind, lame, paralyzed,
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waiting for the
moving of the water.
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For an angel went down at
a certain time into the pool,
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and stirred up the water
then whoever stepped in first
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after the stirring of the water
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was made well of
whatever disease he had.
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Now certain man was there,
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who had an
infirmity thirty eight years?
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When Jesus saw him lying
there, and He knew that he had,
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he had already been in
that condition a long time.
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He said to him, 'Do
you want to be made well?'
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The sick man answered him,
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'Sir, I have no man
to put me into the pool
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whenever the
water is stirred up,
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but while I am coming,
another steps down before me.'
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Jesus said to him, 'Rise,
take up your bed, and walk.'
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And immediately
the man was made well,
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took up his bed, and walked
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and that day was the Sabbath."
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Okay. So here's this
crowd of people around the pool.
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It's kind of an ancient hospital
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with an
interesting type of triage.
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It's the least sick
person that gets helped first,
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you know, and this
guy has been paralyzed.
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He had been there 38 years,
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found no mercy at
the House of Mercy.
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Jesus comes in, picks
a man out of the crowd.
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This man doesn't know
Him, this man doesn't express
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any faith in Him,
and Jesus heals him.
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It's a pure act of grace.
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And, you know, I've experienced
that from time to time.
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You wake up one
day and just realize,
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"Hey, God has touched me.
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My life is different."
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That's kind of what
happened on this day.
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And it's the
Sabbath day and Jesus seems
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to deliberately
in the Gospel of John
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heal on the Sabbath
day almost to make a point
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that the Sabbath day
is there for doing good.
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Now continue
reading up through verse 15.
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"The Jews therefore
said to him who was cured,
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it is the
Sabbath, it is not lawful
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for you to carry your bed.
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He answered them,
'He who made me well,
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said to me, Take up
your bed, and walk.'
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Then they asked
him, 'Who was the man
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who said to you, take
up your bed, and walk?'
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But though-- but
the one who was healed
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did not know who it
was for Jesus had withdrawn
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a multitude
being in that place.'
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Afterward Jesus
found him in the temple,
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and said to him, 'See,
you have been made well,
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sin no more, lest the
worse thing come upon you.'
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The man departed, and told
the Jews that it was Jesus,
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who had made him well."
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I want to focus
in on verse 14 here
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because it says
something very powerful.
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Later Jesus found him at
the temple and said to him,
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"See, you are well
again, stop sinning
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or something worse
may happen to you."
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Now English translation
can't always pick up on this.
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But there are two ways in
Greek to say the 'stop sinning'
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or as your
translation said 'sin no more.'
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One is the 'Aorist Subjunctive'
which basically means,
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don't even think about it.
00:10:01.25\00:10:02.95
You're not there,
but don't start, okay.
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The other is the
imperative present tense,
00:10:05.90\00:10:10.06
present imperative,
which is continuous,
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stop what you're doing
and what you have been doing
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these last 38 years, you see.
00:10:16.56\00:10:19.21
So this man has been
sinning for 38 years.
00:10:19.24\00:10:23.45
How does a paralyzed man sin?
00:10:23.48\00:10:25.93
Can he rob a bank? No.
00:10:25.96\00:10:27.63
No. Can he commit rape?
00:10:27.66\00:10:32.52
Would he even
be accused of that?
00:10:32.55\00:10:34.18
No, probably not.
00:10:34.21\00:10:36.05
Can he kill people? No.
00:10:36.08\00:10:38.93
So, how does he sin?
00:10:38.96\00:10:40.33
It's in the mind, you see.
00:10:40.36\00:10:42.78
And here's the
interesting thing.
00:10:42.81\00:10:44.27
Jesus heals his body,
but invites him to enter
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into relationship a
process to heal the mental,
00:10:49.42\00:10:52.28
the emotional,
and the rest of that.
00:10:52.31\00:10:55.28
And so the idea
of emotional healing
00:10:55.31\00:10:57.61
is an important piece of this.
00:10:57.64\00:10:59.53
And Jesus invites
us into relationship
00:10:59.56\00:11:02.13
to deal with the whole thing.
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And here a person then
can be physically healthy,
00:11:03.97\00:11:08.35
but spiritually unhealthy.
00:11:08.38\00:11:10.81
And here's a key
lesson out of this,
00:11:10.84\00:11:12.96
Dr. Paulien, that God is
looking to heal us spiritually.
00:11:12.99\00:11:18.80
He wants to search our hearts
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and cleanse us from
any unrighteousness,
00:11:20.46\00:11:22.82
any impurities
that we might have.
00:11:22.85\00:11:24.62
Well, friends,
thank you for joining us,
00:11:24.65\00:11:26.16
and we'll see you next time.
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