I wanna read in John chapter
five with you about this man who had been sick. He had this
condition for 38 years and he was lying here by this place
hoping to get healed. So let's look at this in the
first 16 verses and then I wanna try to give you an overview of
this so that you appreciate the expert skill with which God has, by
his grace, written in his word, and orchestrated everything,
the events, the words, the response of the enemies of Christ, everything,
in order to glorify himself and give to his church such great
hope. In John chapter five and verse
one, It says, after this there was a feast of the Jews. After
this means after Jesus had been in this place called Cana of
Galilee, had healed the nobleman's son, and had before that been
with the people of Samaria, and many had believed on him. It's after that. It says, after
this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by
the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue
Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude
of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving
of the water. For an angel went down at a certain
season into the pool, and troubled the water, whosoever then first,
after the troubling of the water, stepped in, was made whole of
whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there,
which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw
him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that
case, he saith to him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man
answered him, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled
to put me into the pool. But while I am coming, another
steppeth down before me. You can hear the frustration
of this man, can't you? It's like, you're asking me if
I want to be made whole? Let me tell you. Jesus said to
him, rise, take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man
was made whole and took up his bed and walked, and on the same
day was the Sabbath. Can you imagine I had surgery
and the place of the surgery has limited my ability to move
and muscles that normally would get used are not getting used
and that muscle tissue has been begun to deteriorate very quickly
in a matter of weeks. Can you imagine being sick 38
years? There would be no muscle in his
legs or ankles He couldn't stand up, let alone walk. But immediately
the man was made whole, took up his bed and walked, and on
the same day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him
that was cured, it's the Sabbath day. It is not lawful for thee
to carry thy bed. He answered them, he that made
me whole. The same said to me, take up
thy bed and walk. Then ask they him, what man is
that which said to thee, take up thy bed and walk?" Isn't it
absolutely startling that here's a man for 38 years had been in
this case, and he's carrying his bed and walking, and these
guys make an issue of the fact that he's doing it on the Sabbath
day. And he that was healed was not
who it was, for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being
in that place. It was the feast, after all.
Thousands, literally thousands of people were there. Afterward,
Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said to him, Behold, thou
art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto
thee. Suggesting that his condition
had been the result of his own personal sin. Verse 15, the man
departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him
whole. It doesn't appear whether or not his telling the Jews had
any malice behind it or just informing them in response to
their question. But nevertheless, therefore,
did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him because
he had done these things on the Sabbath day. All right, now I
want you to see the context here. But first realize, that as a
preacher stands and reads a passage of scripture and then expounds
that text of scripture to bring the message of God from it, so
the Lord Jesus Christ, the master, the wisdom of God, the word of
God here, has performed this miracle at this time and in this
place, and now he's going to expound what he just did. So the meaning of what precedes
this is explained in what follows. And if we understand that, then
we can stand still and see here the salvation of the Lord, the
one who is the salvation of the Lord. So it was, as it says here,
a feast of the Jews. And it's not clear which feast
it was. In Leviticus 23, there were three
feasts that God required all of the Israelites to come to.
The first was Passover. The second was Pentecost. And
the third was called the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of
Trumpets. And it was the time when they
would have the Day of Atonement. in the seventh month, and it
would be a time called when they gathered in all of the harvest.
So keep those feasts in sort of in your mind here, Passover,
Pentecost, and harvest, or the ingathering, also the time of
atonement, the time of the blowing of trumpets. This feast, we're
not sure which feast it was, but in the preceding chapter,
It had been the Passover and the feast after the Passover.
I mean, before the Passover, he says that it was four months
until the harvest. So it was preceding the in-gathering
feast. And then Jesus was there in Galilee,
came to Galilee for a while, healed the nobleman's son. It
could be, as John Gill and Robert Hawker suggest, that this was
the next year, another Passover. And one of the reasons they say
this is because in the book of John, all four Passovers are
pointed out. And by this, we know that Jesus's
ministry was three and a half years. OK, so I'm not going to
make a point of that too strongly, but the point here that I do
want to make is that it was a feast of the Jews. It's called a feast
of the Jews. And it's significant that God
calls it a feast to the Jews because those three feasts that
I mentioned that God required in Leviticus 23 in the law that
all of Israel were to attend to were given to point to the
Lord Jesus Christ. All of the feasts were given
to point to the Lord Jesus Christ. Passover, 1 Corinthians 5, 7,
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. And at these other two
feasts, in the last feast, in the seventh month, an atonement,
the day of atonement was made. But in all the feasts, there
was always an offering of a lamb and other offerings. And in the
Pentecost, we know what that was about, Christ had had given
His life, had attained our eternal redemption, had ascended on high,
taken His place at the right hand of God, and with all authority
and power in heaven and earth, has sent His Holy Spirit to build
His church, to gather in the firstfruits of His church. That
was Pentecost. So all of it has to do with the
Lord Jesus Christ. In the end of the world, the
Lord will gather his people. There will be a blowing of a
trumpet because all those for whom he has made an atonement
will be gathered into his booths, the place of their dwelling in
Christ. That's the last feast of the
year. The point here, though, is that these feasts, which were
meant to teach of Christ, had been turned into something else.
Thousands of people had come to Jerusalem because they were
looking at the feast as a ceremony to perform, and they didn't see
the meanings in it. They had lost the reason why
the feasts were given, which was to lead them to Christ. In
fact, they had lost the reason why the Sabbath was given. which
was to teach them that God's work will be done by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he then would give us rest
from all of our sins and all of our labors and eternal rest
because he would accomplish the work. Now, that's the setting. And at this setting in verse
one, it says there was this feast of the Jews and Jesus went up
to Jerusalem. There was a reason then that
Jesus came at this time. First of all, he had come to
fulfill the law. Here he was, the one the feast
celebrated, coming up to Jerusalem. And not only that he was the
one who would fulfill the law in the feast, but he came at
this time because everybody was coming then at this time. And
so he came at the time of maximum attendance. The most people were
there then. So when he performs this miracle,
it's going to be done in this context where all of the people,
all of the people who would attend on these feasts and come then
would see what he did and hear his sermon. The Jews had turned it into their
feast. They had made a work. of keeping
the feast. They had made a work of keeping
the Sabbath. They had trusted in their work
to keep the law. And when Jesus healed this man
on the Sabbath day, they showed their complete hypocrisy and
lack of understanding that by their own law keeping, and they
condemned Christ for not keeping the Sabbath day when he had healed
this man, made him whole on the Sabbath day. Okay, so then we
see in verse two, the rest of the context. He says, now there
is in Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool which is called
in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. Here what
we have is a sheep, it says in the King James Version, market.
But that word is in italics, it doesn't mean a market, cuz
there's no market for sheep in scripture in Jerusalem. But there was a sheep gate. So
this was the sheep gate. It should have been called the
sheep gate. There was at Jerusalem the sheep
gate, and near that gate was a pool, and that pool was called
Bethesda, which means a house of mercy. or a flowing stream,
and the people there were on these five porches. It was a
large area where people who were sick were gathered, and there
was a great multitude of impotent folk there. So that the people
of Jerusalem could be seen here, they were all gathered here,
and for the most part, they were sick. They were sick, and they
were sitting by this pool on these five porches around the
pool called the House of Mercy, the pool for healing, waiting
for an angel from heaven to come down and stir up the water, and
then the first person who would get into that water would be
healed. Not a very bright hope, is it? You're sick. Now the water's troubled and
here you are behind three or four layers, maybe 10, 100 layers
of people. It's like you're in a stadium
trying to win the lottery. You're not gonna make it, are
you? And this man had been sick 38 years. You can imagine what
he felt like, didn't he? Can't you? He felt absolutely
hopeless. He knew he couldn't get in that
pool. And also he knew that there was no one who was willing to
take time to help him, even though he had been sick for 38 years. You would think that someone
would say, look, this guy has been sick so long, let's at least,
the next time this happens, let's get him into the pool first.
No. No, you know how it is. It's
not gonna work that way. But God had arranged this. The
Lord had arranged this for this purpose. So here we have a sheep
gate. What was the sheep gate for?
That's where they would bring the sheep through the gates of
the city to be brought to the temple and offered to the Lord.
And there near the sheep gate was a pool for healing. And this is called the house
of mercy. Now Jesus did this miracle at
the feast when all the people were gathered, a maximum crowd,
and he chose to heal this man who was impotent for 38 years
and his sickness was beyond all human help. He had a sickness
for a long time, a man known to be helpless, a man no one
had either been willing to help or who had been able to help
get into this pool of healing, he hadn't himself been able.
He was impotent. His sickness was evidently, according
to Jesus, verse 14, evidently, it was his own fault. Doesn't
that describe the need of a real sinner? Doesn't it? A real sinner. It's all my fault. I have sinned against my creator
who holds my life and breath in his hands. I've sinned against
my judge before whom I have to give an account for all of my
works, whether they've been good or bad. And based on that, he's
going to sentence me. He's either going to condemn
me or justify me. I've sinned against him. And
now it was the Sabbath day. Others might have suspected this
man's sickness was the cause of his sin. They might have.
Maybe that's why they didn't help him. 38 years. There's no
way we're gonna help that guy. He deserves what he gets. You can imagine what they were
thinking. But Jesus healed this man on
the Sabbath day. And he not only healed him on
the Sabbath day, but notice the way he healed him. He commanded
him, get up, rise, and take up your bed and walk. He knew that
taking up his bed and walking with his bed roll on his shoulder
or however he was carrying it, he knew that would offend the
Jews. He knew that. And he's setting
it up, isn't he? He's setting it up so that everyone
could see this man. This is the guy who was sick
38 years. What happened? There's no way
he could have got in the pool. He's not even wet. Here he is
carrying his bed. How dare he? How dare he carry
his bed on the Sabbath day? These people trusted that by
not working on the Sabbath day, God would accept them, that they
were keeping the law. But what did they do when they
saw this man working on the Sabbath day? They not only completely
disregarded, they looked past the miracle But they also, it
says here in verse 16, they wanted to kill. They tried to kill Jesus. They wanted to kill Him. Look
at John chapter 7, because this miracle, it turns out, had such
an impact that it was carried on through chapter five and six
and seven, even on beyond that. This miracle was brought up throughout
the book of John because it so incensed the Jews, so offended
them against Jesus, they wanted to kill him. And look at John
chapter seven, in verse 19, Jesus asked the people, didn't Moses
give you the law? Okay, they're gonna say, yeah,
and yet none of you keep the law. Why do you go about to kill
me? Didn't Moses say not to kill?
And they said, the people answered said, thou hast a devil, who
goeth about to kill thee? Wait a minute, I just read back
in chapter five, verse 16, the Jews sought to kill him. Jesus answered and said to them,
I've done one work, and you all marvel. He's talking about the
man who was healed on the Sabbath. Moses therefore gave you circumcision,
not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers, and you on the
Sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath day received
circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken, are
you angry at me? because I made a man every whit
hole on the Sabbath day. You're violating the law that
you said Moses gave you in order to do some ceremonial performance
of the law, claiming that you keep Moses' law. Look at John
chapter five now. In John chapter five, he said, Verse 45, do not think that I
will accuse you to the Father. Now this is his sermon after
he performed this great miracle of healing this man on the Sabbath.
Don't think I'm gonna accuse you to the Father. There is one
that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. You see? Had you believed Moses, you didn't
even believe him, You would have believed me because he wrote
of me. But if you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my words? The Old Testament is about Christ. That's what Jesus just said there.
When it talks about the Lord, Jehovah, our righteousness, that
is talking about Christ. That's his name. He's Jehovah
Tzidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. He's Jehovah Nisi, the Lord,
our banner. He's Jehovah Jireh, the Lord
would provide. He's all the names of Jehovah. He is Jehovah God. That is who
the Old Testament is about. The Prince of Peace. The Son
given. The Everlasting Father. The One
whose name is Wonderful and Counselor. The Great Shepherd of the Sheep.
He's the One. He's the Creator. He's the Old
Testament. He's the subject of it all. Even
the law was given that He might fulfill it, and only He could. And all the sacrifices that were
given because of the sins of the people breaking the law,
He is spoken of as the One who would fulfill and satisfy the
justice of the law in those sacrifices. So you see, these people were
straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. They missed the fact
they were in the temple and one greater than the temple was there. They were celebrating the feast,
but they missed the one the feast were given to celebrate. They
were concerned about keeping the law, but they had broken
the law in the worst kind of way because they were trying
to kill the one who is given of God to save his people, the
judge and the creator of all. They wanted to take the life
of the life giver. They wanted to judge their judge.
That's what they were doing here. You see, so this miracle was
multifaceted. It's going to set it up so that
the Lord preaches to them. And listen to the sermon he preaches
here. In verse 17, Jesus answered them. Now this is their accusation. They want to kill him. They're
so mad at him. And he said, my father works
hitherto, and I work. What a word. What a word. God the Father works, and I work. Now, who could fault him for
that? If God the Father, I'm just doing the works of my Father.
He says in verse 18, therefore the Jews sought the Moor to kill
him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said
also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. It's true. By the way, I just
raised a man who had been sick 38 years by my word. That was
the Father's work, the work He gave me to do. Can anyone deny
that He's now walking about as every bit whole? Can you deny that you've broken
the law in your heart because you want to kill me? He's the one who is equal with
God. He is the Son of God. He goes
on, verse 19, Then answered Jesus and said to them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself but what he
seeth the Father do. Now, sometimes we read that and
think, Does that make Jesus lesser than the Father? He's not equal
with God? No. It actually affirms His deity
that He is equal with God because He does the works of God the
Father. Only the Father can do that work,
create the world, bring life out of death. I mean, yeah, bring
life out of death. So he says, the son can do nothing
of himself. There's such a unity of will
and work that whatever the father does, he does only through the
son. And whatever the son does, he only does because it's the
father's work to do. He says, but what he seeth the
father do, for what thing soever he doeth, the father, these also
doeth the son likewise. For the father loveth the son,
and you hate him. What does that say about you?
What are you doing? You hate the one God loves. That means A, you don't know
God. B, you have not the love of God. And C, you're under the wrath
of God. and you are hating the very one
he gave to come into the world as the propitiation for the sins
of his people. The father loveth the son and
showeth him all things that himself doeth, and he will show him greater
works than these that you may marvel. For as the father raiseth
up the dead and quickeneth them, gives them life, even so the
son gives life to whom he will. That's what this miracle was
about, giving life to a man who had no ability, even though he
was a sinner. For the Father judgeth no man,
but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should
honor the Son even as they honor the Father. Here the Lord Jesus
is expounding to the Jews the real meaning of this miracle. You must honor me as you honor
the Father, as you claim to honor the Father. He that honoreth
not the Son honoreth not the Father which has sent him. Verily,
verily I say to you, he that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death to life." Justified. Justified. The believer in Christ
is justified. He shall not come into condemnation. He is already passed from death
to life, and the Son gives that life to whomever He will. Yes,
and He shall not come into condemnation. Verily, verily, I say to you,
the hour is coming, and now is, as is demonstrated in this man,
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
they that hear shall live. These people would not hear,
but they that hear would live. For as the father hath life in
himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself,
and has given him authority to execute judgment also because
he is the son of man. Marvel not at this, for the hour
is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his
voice. and shall come forth they that have done good unto the
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the
resurrection of damnation." Not only do I give life now by my
word, but there's a day coming when I will raise everyone from
the graves. and all will appear before me. And everyone who has done evil
will be raised to the resurrection of damnation, and all who have
done good will be raised to the resurrection of life. And before
this, he said, whoever believes on me shall not come into condemnation,
but has passed from death into life." They've already been judged.
So those that have done good have already been judged in Christ,
have been justified by God, they've passed from death to life, and
the evidence is that they've been given this life by faith
in Christ. You see this sermon? Isn't it
a powerful sermon just from this one miracle? We're just reading
this, and he goes on to condemn them further for what they said
against him. And you could read about this
if you read John 6 and John 7. He's really expounding this one
miracle right here. It's fantastic. But let's deal
now with this man's own healing here for just a moment. Back
in verse 3, in these, So first of all, the sheep market, or
the sheep gate, really, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God,
isn't he? Why did he come in through the
sheep gate? To offer himself. to offer His
blood in the very presence of God, to obtain our eternal redemption,
to sanctify the people with His own blood, to fulfill the everlasting
covenant, to perfect His people forever by His one sacrifice,
to put away their sins, to put out their sins from the remembrance
of God forever, to justify them by His blood. That's why He came. And notice, at Jerusalem, by
the Sheep Gate, there was a pool for healing. Because He justified
His people, therefore He commands their life. He raises them from
the death that Brad was reading about. When we were sinners,
because of His great love wherewith He loved us, God, who is rich
in mercy, has quickened us together with Christ. Amazing. God is gonna show in the ages
to come His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. It's
all because of Him, the Sheep Gate, the Lamb of God offered.
Therefore, the pool is for our healing because by His stripes
you were healed. You see, everything is orchestrated
by the Spirit of God and by the arrangement of God for the salvation
of His people and the exaltation of the Son of God in our nature
as our Savior. In these five porches around
this pool for healing, because of Christ's stripes, lay a great
multitude of impotent folk, blind, halt, and withered, absolutely
without strength, because when we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Blind, we can't
see how God could save us. Halt. We can't walk in the ways,
we can't believe, we can't love God, we can't do anything, we're
sinners. And withered, we have no functions
of spiritual life in all the members of our body. There's
no life in us. We have no strength. Waiting
for the moving of the water, the Lord Jesus Christ had to
come in the fullness of time and offer himself and then send
his spirit in order to give us life. You see, justified by His
blood? Yes. Therefore, the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus fulfills the law in us when He gives us
everlasting life to believe Christ, life in our souls, Christ Himself
our life in us, us living by faith on the Son of God. And
so we see, that the entire feast and the ceremonies and everything
were there to point to the Lord Jesus Christ. And these people
were utterly decimated because of their sin. And yet the Savior
comes and he makes them whole, every whit whole. And a certain
man, verse 5, a certain man was there which had an infirmity
thirty-eight years, a long time sick. Come, thou long expected
Jesus. Isn't that the cry? Thou long
expected Jesus. Come and set thy people free
from our fears and sins. Release us. Let us find our rest
in thee. He says a certain man that was
there, 38 years, he had given up hope. He had given up hope. He had thought that he could
get in year after year. He couldn't. He thought maybe
someone would come and help him in. No one was found. And when
all hope was lost in the end of the world, God sent his son
and he offered himself to God for his people. He bore their
sins and he purged their sins. And it was at the end of the
world. The law was our schoolmaster until Christ. And now that faith
has come, the gospel has come, that we believe Christ has come,
and now we live. He says here, he had seen him,
he knew he had been there a long time. And he said to him, will
you be made whole? Wilt thou be made whole? The Lord asks him a question.
I want you to see, just think for a minute here, how the Lord
asks questions and why he does this. Look at John chapter six,
just the page over. In verse five, John six, it says,
Jesus lifted up his eyes and saw a great company to him. And
he said to Philip, a question for you, Philip, where shall
we buy bread that these may eat? That's a question. Jesus said
this to prove him. He himself knew what he would
do. Interesting. So when he asked the question,
he already knew what he would do. But he asked the question
to prove him, to find out what he was thinking. Ho everyone
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And ye that have no money,
come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money. Here's the question. Wherefore
do you spend your money? For that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which satisfieth not. Hearken diligently
unto me, and hear that your soul may live. You see? Or as God
asked the prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 37, son of man,
Can these bones live? Oh, Lord, you know. I'm not going
to presume to answer that. You know. Well, you know why
he asked, because he was going to raise the dead. So here the
Lord asked the question in order to first open up the subject
of this man being made whole to his awareness. He had lost
all hope and his hope is suddenly awakened. An expectation is set
in his mind, and he is directed to the one who asks the question,
and yet the man answers only out of his limited understanding.
He says, in verse 7, the impotent man answered him, Sir, I have
no man. when the water is troubled to
put me into the pool." He had one, he had a one myopic view
of how he could possibly be healed. It was this pool, he had to get
in there somehow. He didn't see the one who would
fulfill the pool, the healing by his stripes, did he? He didn't
see the lamb had come through the gate. of the city and come
in to be offered and to give his life a ransom for many. He says, someone else gets in
in front of me. Some people are capable. I am not. Some people
have a little bit more ability than I do. Therefore, I sit here
pining away. I'm going to die this way. I'm
going to, I've resolved, I've decided that this is the end
of me. I'm going to die impotent. And
the Lord Jesus Christ came in a hopeless time. It was dark
when He came. It was utterly dark. There was
no life in this world when the Son of God came. But He commanded
the light to shine out of darkness. And the glory of God is seen
in the face of Jesus Christ because He came and commanded this man
to live. You see, will you be made whole?
Suddenly his thoughts are challenged and he can't find really a suitable
answer. He doesn't understand how possibly
he could be made whole. His case somehow depended upon
himself. Whatever healing would have to
come to him, it's going to have to come in spite of his impotence. In spite of the fact that no
man would see his soul and help him. And so the Lord asks us
a question. This is the all-important question.
How can man that is born of a woman be clean? How can men that is
unclean be justified by God? Isn't that the question? How
are we going to stand before the judge of all the earth and
pass the judgment? How are we who are dead to spiritually
do one thing to live? How can we believe? How can we
love God? How can we understand? How can we know Him? God has
to come to us in the person of His Son. He's the Son of God. He gives life. He has it in Himself. He gives it at His will. He gives
it at His word. Will you be made whole? It suddenly
attracts this man's attention to the Lord Jesus. Only God can
raise the dead. Only God could do this. And suddenly
here you come to give me healing. He's wondering, he's pondering.
And almost before he has time to think, Jesus says, rise and
stand up and take up your bed and walk. And immediately that
man rose up. Because in the command came the
power And with the command, the will of God was performed. I
have spoken it, he says in Isaiah 46, I will also do it. The word of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ came into the world to do the will of God. None of us
could do it. He came to do it and he finished
the work. And it is that work and that
one who completed that work who sits on heaven's throne and sends
his gospel and by that gospel tells sinners, live. Look at
Romans chapter eight. This is the exposition of this. Everything in the gospel is teaching
the same thing. And it's for us to find it and
to enter into it and believe it, Romans chapter eight. He
says, notice here, Jesus has said, whoever believes on me
shall not come into condemnation. He has everlasting life. He has
already passed from life to death. Here, Romans 8, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh. They don't trust in their flesh.
They walk in the Spirit. They trust Christ. They look
to Him. They don't look to themselves.
for what the law could not do. Here were all these folk, impotent
multitudes, great multitudes around this pool for healing
and all of them as if the entire nation of Israel was sick because
of their sin. This is our case. And the law comes and we can't
keep it. It only condemns us. It's administration
of death. The law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
What the law could not do and that it was weak, impotent because
of my flesh, my sinful self. God sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh. Here's the lamb of God coming
to the sheep gate. And for sin, God condemned sin
in His flesh. My sin and the sins of His people,
that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,
the spirit of life, who walk not after the flesh but after
the spirit. Here God commands life because he has justified
us in the blood of Christ. In Christ we're justified, therefore
the law is fulfilled and now it's fulfilled in us when God
commands that life to us. When Christ himself comes to
dwell in us by his spirit and he gives us life, and where we
could not see how God could save us, where we could not walk in
the things of the Lord. We couldn't believe Him, where
we couldn't do anything spiritual. Now there is this moisture of
life, the Spirit of Christ in us, giving us eyes to see and
faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and feet to walk.
And this is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. He came to do, to
finish the work and to give us rest. Live. Rest. Look to Christ. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for such a sermon
by our Savior. He came and lived it. He came
and performed it. He came and told it to us. And
now we hear it. And like these impotent folk
who were blind and halt and withered and had no hope and had been
there a long time and it was all the result of their own sin.
So we, in our sinfulness, confess we have sinned. We've done iniquity. We have transgressed your law.
We haven't done one thing you told us to do. And we pray, Lord,
that in your righteousness, you would forgive our sins by looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ and justifying us by his blood, not
condemning us for our sins, which we deserve, but fulfilling your
law in his obedience unto death. We pray you would exalt him and
give As you are pleased to do, life to your people, through
your spirit, build your church, bring us to see Christ in everything,
and never trust in ourselves. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.