Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00010B
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00:01 And welcome back to this Bible study
00:03 of the Gospel of John with Dr. Jon Paulien. 00:06 And, Dr. Paulien, you said 00:07 that there are three different types of faith 00:10 and I want to just review those again. 00:11 You said that the first one is an 'Inadequate Faith,' 00:14 which is an expression of faith, you know, 00:17 I say I believe or at least I acted or-- 00:20 But because it's focused on miracle, 00:22 it's really faith in a caricature 00:24 of what God is like. Right. 00:26 God is this kind of heavenly vending machine, 00:29 you know, you punch a button, you get the candy or-- 00:32 Well, this is not a Saving Faith. 00:34 Right. Because it does not, 00:36 it's not really directed to the true God. 00:38 Okay, the second type of faith is a 'Saving Faith,' 00:43 which is immature and shallow. 00:46 And the third type of faith is a 'Full Saving Faith,' 00:49 that's what you call it. Yeah. 00:51 Which includes the cross. 00:53 And the 'Full Saving Faith' comes to grasp that it's not, 00:58 you know, God is not about working miracles. 01:00 He is not about power and intimidation and so on. 01:04 But rather that God is all about the cross 01:09 that it's in self-sacrifice. 01:11 It's in weakness that true God is seen. 01:16 And when you have faith in that God 01:17 then our lives are ordered in a proper direction. 01:20 So which is out of these three-- which is the faith 01:23 that we ought to have? 01:24 Well, the goals very certainly is a rich, 01:27 full understanding, full-bodied faith. 01:30 But salvation often comes to people 01:33 who don't know everything. 01:34 They don't know much, they just know, 01:36 they hear the words of Jesus, they respond, they're in. 01:39 You don' t have to earn your way to Jesus, 01:41 so I got to develop faith here for the next three months, 01:44 then maybe I can dig in. 01:46 He accepts you when you enter, 01:48 but invites you to continue growing. 01:50 So the disciples at the wedding of Cana, 01:53 they see the water turned to wine and they're saying, 01:55 "Wow, Jesus is a miracle worker. 01:57 This is pretty cool. I want to follow Him." 01:59 And that's the right move to make, 02:01 but they still at this point, don't fully understand 02:04 the cross and the implications that the greatest glory of Jesus 02:08 is washing feet, you know, not beating up Romans. 02:11 Yeah, so this nobleman 02:13 comes to Jesus with an inadequate faith. 02:16 Yeah, his faith is just based on miracles. 02:18 He says, "Well, if Jesus heals my son 02:20 then maybe I'll believe in him." 02:22 But when he hears the words of Jesus, something changes. 02:25 And that faith changed. 02:27 He went back with a different faith. 02:28 He no longer needs to see the miracle. 02:30 He can even wander back the next day. 02:32 So he didn't have to see his child alive 02:35 and well in order for him to have that experience that, 02:40 what you call the 'Full Saving Faith.' 02:41 He knows that Jesus is who He is. 02:44 Quickly, how do I know 02:46 which faith do I-- which faith I have? 02:49 Can I know that? 02:52 That's an interesting and a very good question. 02:54 Because you see, this is John's expression, 02:56 these three types of faith. 02:59 Is that all there is to say about faith, perhaps not. 03:03 But I-- that's a good curveball to ask 03:09 because it gets down to a very individual thing. 03:12 How do I know that I'm right with God? 03:15 And I guess at the bottom-line is to question. 03:18 Are you willing to accept Him? 03:21 No matter what the price, no matter 03:23 what the cross would say, anything in your life 03:25 that you would hang on to rather than grasp on to Him. 03:29 And I think 'Saving Faith' happens 03:32 when we say, "I don't care this, that. 03:35 I don't care if I lose my job. 03:37 I don't care, you know, if I lose my life, 03:40 my reputation or anything. 03:41 I want what God has. 03:43 And I think that is 'Saving Faith.' 03:45 If there's anything inside of us that's holding back 03:49 then it's some of this more shallow, 03:50 more inadequate faith, I would say. 03:53 And another thing is that faith is not a permanent thing, 03:57 meaning that, I can have 03:59 'Full Saving Faith' today, 04:01 but tomorrow I might not have it. 04:04 Well, that's a very interesting point. 04:06 And John definitely speaks directly to that. 04:09 Because in the Gospel of John, faith is never a noun, 04:15 it's always a verb, and it's a continuous verb. 04:19 So faith isn't something, you know, 04:22 that you kind of throw at God. 04:23 Okay, here, have my faith, you know. 04:25 Faith rather is a settled way of life. 04:30 And the real definition of faith is trust. 04:34 Do you trust God to do for you 04:37 what you can't do it for yourself? 04:40 That's the core what faith is all about? 04:42 And trust really is a verb. 04:44 It's a relationship. 04:46 It's an ongoing thing. 04:47 So John is not seeing faith as an idea, 04:51 he is not seeing faith as a onetime act. 04:53 You know, I had faith. 04:54 I know I'm saved now, you see. 04:57 But no, faith is a continual walking 04:59 in relationship with God. 05:01 A continual believing 05:02 that He can do everything that you need. 05:05 So for John, it's active. 05:07 It isn't just a onetime thing. 05:10 Well, we also are going to talk about another miracle. 05:13 Pool of Bethesda? All right. 05:15 That's right. And we are in--again, 05:17 we are in chapter 4 of the Gospel of John 05:19 and we are picking up in, which verses now? 05:21 I think now we move to chapter 5. 05:23 Oh, we are in chapter 5. 05:25 And we get to the very first verse. 05:26 And we are in verse 1. So we'll make that clear. 05:27 Thank you. After this, shall we read then? 05:31 Sure, go ahead. 05:32 "After this there was a feast of the Jews 05:34 and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 05:36 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, 05:40 which is called in Hebrew, 05:41 Bethesda, having five porches." 05:44 Why don't you stop there for a second? Okay. 05:46 So scholars doubted John for a long time 05:52 because they know where the sheep gate is. 05:55 There is no pool, you see. 05:57 So, how could this great big thing be here 06:01 and we don't know about it? 06:02 So scholars kind of doubted, but the gospel said 06:05 it was there, and eventually the archeologists found it, 06:08 underneath the neighborhoods and all that, 06:10 somebody came to discover. 06:12 Yes, there was once a great pool down here. 06:14 There is even a church built over 06:17 at a few centuries later to commemorate that. 06:19 You can go visit it today. 06:21 It's like, 100 meters long, 70 meters wide, 06:24 40 feet, you know, 12 meters deep. 06:28 I mean, this is huge, and it has 5 porches. 06:31 It's kind of like a figure 8. 06:33 So you have porches on the four sides 06:35 and then down the middle it was separated into two pools. 06:38 So today we know that the Gospel of John 06:41 was grounded on accurate reality. 06:44 And the name of this place is Bethesda, 06:47 which means, 'House of Mercy.' 06:50 It was kind of like an ancient hospital. So read on. 06:54 "In these lay a great multitude 06:56 of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, 06:59 waiting for the moving of the water. 07:02 For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool, 07:05 and stirred up the water then whoever stepped in first 07:08 after the stirring of the water 07:11 was made well of whatever disease he had. 07:15 Now certain man was there, 07:16 who had an infirmity thirty eight years? 07:20 When Jesus saw him lying there, and He knew that he had, 07:23 he had already been in that condition a long time. 07:26 He said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' 07:30 The sick man answered him, 07:31 'Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool 07:34 whenever the water is stirred up, 07:37 but while I am coming, another steps down before me.' 07:41 Jesus said to him, 'Rise, take up your bed, and walk.' 07:46 And immediately the man was made well, 07:48 took up his bed, and walked 07:50 and that day was the Sabbath." 07:53 Okay. So here's this crowd of people around the pool. 07:58 It's kind of an ancient hospital 08:00 with an interesting type of triage. 08:03 It's the least sick person that gets helped first, 08:06 you know, and this guy has been paralyzed. 08:07 He had been there 38 years, 08:09 found no mercy at the House of Mercy. 08:13 Jesus comes in, picks a man out of the crowd. 08:17 This man doesn't know Him, this man doesn't express 08:21 any faith in Him, and Jesus heals him. 08:25 It's a pure act of grace. 08:28 And, you know, I've experienced that from time to time. 08:31 You wake up one day and just realize, 08:33 "Hey, God has touched me. 08:36 My life is different." 08:37 That's kind of what happened on this day. 08:39 And it's the Sabbath day and Jesus seems 08:42 to deliberately in the Gospel of John 08:44 heal on the Sabbath day almost to make a point 08:49 that the Sabbath day is there for doing good. 08:53 Now continue reading up through verse 15. 08:56 "The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, 08:59 it is the Sabbath, it is not lawful 09:01 for you to carry your bed. 09:03 He answered them, 'He who made me well, 09:05 said to me, Take up your bed, and walk.' 09:08 Then they asked him, 'Who was the man 09:10 who said to you, take up your bed, and walk?' 09:12 But though-- but the one who was healed 09:15 did not know who it was for Jesus had withdrawn 09:18 a multitude being in that place.' 09:21 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, 09:23 and said to him, 'See, you have been made well, 09:27 sin no more, lest the worse thing come upon you.' 09:30 The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, 09:33 who had made him well." 09:35 I want to focus in on verse 14 here 09:38 because it says something very powerful. 09:41 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, 09:43 "See, you are well again, stop sinning 09:46 or something worse may happen to you." 09:48 Now English translation can't always pick up on this. 09:51 But there are two ways in Greek to say the 'stop sinning' 09:55 or as your translation said 'sin no more.' 09:58 One is the 'Aorist Subjunctive' which basically means, 10:01 don't even think about it. 10:02 You're not there, but don't start, okay. 10:05 The other is the imperative present tense, 10:10 present imperative, which is continuous, 10:13 stop what you're doing and what you have been doing 10:16 these last 38 years, you see. 10:19 So this man has been sinning for 38 years. 10:23 How does a paralyzed man sin? 10:25 Can he rob a bank? No. 10:27 No. Can he commit rape? 10:32 Would he even be accused of that? 10:34 No, probably not. 10:36 Can he kill people? No. 10:38 So, how does he sin? 10:40 It's in the mind, you see. 10:42 And here's the interesting thing. 10:44 Jesus heals his body, but invites him to enter 10:49 into relationship a process to heal the mental, 10:52 the emotional, and the rest of that. 10:55 And so the idea of emotional healing 10:57 is an important piece of this. 10:59 And Jesus invites us into relationship 11:02 to deal with the whole thing. 11:03 And here a person then can be physically healthy, 11:08 but spiritually unhealthy. 11:10 And here's a key lesson out of this, 11:12 Dr. Paulien, that God is looking to heal us spiritually. 11:18 He wants to search our hearts 11:20 and cleanse us from any unrighteousness, 11:22 any impurities that we might have. 11:24 Well, friends, thank you for joining us, 11:26 and we'll see you next time. |
Revised 2014-12-17