Sermon Tone Analysis

Wholeness has become an important word in our society.

The Wholeness Movement also called the Wellness Movement has become subjects of academic study in many colleges and universities.

Western New Mexico University has a Department of Wellness and Movement Sciences.

The University of Buffalo has a Living Well Center.

These are just two examples of hundreds of similar academic programs in colleges and universities across the nation.

The movement grew out of the early seventies when many doctors and health care providers concluded that modern medicine and medical technology only focused on the physical problems of the patient at the neglect of their mind and spirit.

The result is what we now call holistic medicine.

It’s an attempt to treat the whole person and not merely a set of physical symptoms.

The wholeness movement has focused on some pretty good basics.

It gives us some fundamental rules for becoming whole: eat right, exercise regularly, don't smoke, cut down on stress, expanding your mind through learning and culture, and nurturing the spiritual aspect of your life.

Not bad rules.

And it’s become big business.

On Amazon.com—an

On-line book store—you’ll hundreds of books related to holistic living.

Many, I have no doubt are biblically sound and offer perceptive advise.

Others, I have not doubt, are New Age psycho-babble that can ultimately do the reader more harm than good.

The point is, that books on ‘healing’ the mind and soul (as well as the body) are hot sellers.

A Google search on holistic living provides over 15 million pages.

But long before modern men were interested in holistic living, God was.

Our text tells us that treating the whole person was at the core our Lord’s ministry.

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I. THE WORLD LIES SICK AT THE FEET OF GOD

* John 5:3 /"Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed."/

NIV

#. in what surely must have been a pathetic scene, we find a huddled mass of humanity gathered in a collective agony of hurt, injury, affliction, and misery

#. they represent a macrocosm of the world we live in

#. it’s a world full of lost and hurting people in need of healing

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!! A. WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF HURTING PEOPLE

#. the physically sick, the disabled, the blind, and the lame of our text are the obvious ones

#. but there are others . . .

#. the wife who is abused by her husband

#. the handicapped who are shunned by society

#. the elderly who are abandoned by their families

#. the child who is sexually molested by an uncle

#. the spouse of an alcoholic

#. the loneliness and pain of the divorcee

#. the sinner without Christ

!! B. WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE HURTING PEOPLE SEEK SPORADIC HEALING IN THE MYTHS, LEGENDS AND UNREALITIES OF THE DAY

#. legend had it that at certain times, an angel would stir or ‘trouble’ the waters of the Pool of Bethesda

#. the first person to step into the pool after that would be healed of whatever problem they had

#.

we still have our pools of hope today that the world attempts to find security and healing in

#. /There Is the Pool of Hedonistic Philosophy/

#. many cannot deal with the guilt of their sinfulness and immorality and so they cope by adopting a philosophy that says: If it feels good must be all right

#. /There Is the Pool of Humanistic Reason/

#. we live in a culture where the autonomy of man reigns supreme—it’s all about me!

* ILLUS.

Some of you read my February newsletter article where I quoted the Feminist and Pro-choice activist Mary Elizabeth Williams on abortion.

She say: “All life is not equal.

... a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides.

She's the boss.

Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her.

Always.”

#. that’s the result of humanistic reasoning and people like Mary Elizabeth Williams have jumped into the deep end of that pool

#. /There Is the Pool of Scientific and Technological Advancement /

#. there are those who believe that technology is the cure-all for what ails men

#. if everyone could just have access to the right technology, they could be whole

#.

/There Is the Pool of Religious Ritual/

#. religion often leaves us powerless and nursing an impotent faith

#. we see in our text that there were some who were more concerned about religious rules and regulations than the fact that a man who had been lame for 38 years was now walking

* John 5:9-10 /"At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”/

NIV

#. religious rules and regulations are usually ineffective and often produce more hurt than healing

#. the pseudo-pools of healing of our day appear to offer hope for the masses of humanity and yet the individual is never quite able to avail themself of their supposed healing powers

#. like the central character of our story, most men lie in an agony of fear, devoid of any inward hope that life will ever be any better than what they now know

#. life had beat up on this man all of his days

#. he had become resigned to his fate and had accepted the inevitable

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II.

GOD LOOKS PAST THE MASSES TO SEE THE INDIVIDUAL

* John 5:5-6 /"One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, . .

."/

NIV

#. this is the marvelous thing about God—He loves the world, but He does it one person at a time

#.

God is big enough to give me the personalized treatment whenever I need it

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!! A. JESUS COMES TO THE PLACE WERE PEOPLE HURT

#. we find Jesus passing from Galilee through Samaria and into Judea in order to go to a feast at Jerusalem

#.

Jesus had just finished the first summer of His ministry—mostly in and around the city of Capernaium

#. the disciples had returned to their homes while Jesus moved about chiefly alone and unattended

#. the narrative of our text transports us to the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem

#. here is a place where thousands of hurting people have gathered in the hope of being healed

#.

Jesus stands and focuses on one individual who has been and invalid for thirty-eight years – in a few moments his life is going to change forever

!! B. JESUS KNOWS OUR NEEDS BETTER THEN WE KNOW THEM OURSELVES

#. when a man is at a point of hopelessness that is when Jesus make Himself most available to heal the soul

#. the person on whom Jesus zeros in on was a fractured man

#. he was fractured of health

#. he was fractured of mind

#. he was fractured of spirit

#. he would not know joy again until his life was restored to wholeness

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III.

JESUS SEEKS TO TOUCH THE LIFE OF MEN AND MAKE THEM WHOLE

* v. 6b /". . . he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”/

#. what a strange question on Jesus’ part

#. literally Jesus asks, Do you want to be made whole?

#. the approach at first appears foolish

#. no sick person would choose to remain sick – would they?

#. a closer look of Jesus’ question reveals that He was probing the man’s inner heart

#.

Jesus is trying to discover if the man has the will and the faith to be cured

#. the desire to be cured and the will to be cured are two different things

#. the man’s reply indicates that – to large degree – he saw himself as a victim

* John 5:7 /“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.

While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”/