Spiritual Paralysis

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 145:1-2, 9, 21
• Hymn — All Creatures of Our God and King
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Faith — 1 Timothy 3:16
• Scripture Reading — Jonah 4
• Hymn — Amazing Grace
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Prayer of Dedication
• Hymn — Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
• Sermon
• Hymn — I Surrender All
• Benediction

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Sermon Title: Spiritual Paralysis

Scripture: John 5:1-18

I. The Sin of Man — The Source of Spiritual Paralysis

A. Jesus deliberately seeks out this particular man among all the invalids at the pool of Bethesda

1. The man had been paralyzed for 38 years — a detail John includes intentionally to highlight the magnitude of divine power at work
2. This mirrors John 11, where Jesus waits four days before raising Lazarus to demonstrate his divine power
3. The healing fulfills Messianic expectation: Isaiah 35:6 — the lame will leap when the Messianic age dawns

B. Jesus's words in John 5:14 — "Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you" — indicate the man's condition resulted from his sinful lifestyle

1. The Greek construction suggests an ongoing sinful way of life, not necessarily one specific act
2. Not all suffering is the direct result of particular sin — Job and John 9 (the man born blind) make this clear
3. Yet Scripture also shows suffering can result directly from sin: 2 Samuel 12 (David and Bathsheba), Acts 5 (Ananias and Sapphira), 1 Corinthians 11 (unworthy partaking of the Lord's Supper)

C. The man's failure to reflect on his sin leaves him spiritually blind even after physical healing

1. Like an alcoholic who doubles down on drinking after an accident caused by his drinking, this man does not contemplate the cause of his condition
2. Proverbs teaches that sin has real and consequential effects — physically, relationally, and spiritually
3. Unless we recognize the cancer within, we cannot be open to the remedy — and we will miss Christ altogether

II. The Fear of Man — The Sustaining Force of Spiritual Paralysis

A. Jesus seeks the man out a second time in the temple (John 5:14), yet the man immediately reports Jesus to the Jewish authorities

1. His response is Judas-like — he betrays his benefactor to hostile religious leaders
2. He fears the Jewish authorities more than he fears God, who stands before him calling him to repentance

B. The man has technically broken the Sabbath according to man-made rules codified in the Mishnah

1. One of 39 definitions of prohibited Sabbath labor was moving an object from one domain to another
2. This offense could carry the penalty of death or severe communal shame

C. The fear of man in this passage is not secular but religious — the man is in the temple, worshiping

1. Fear of man is not always overt cowardice before secular culture; it often appears in religious forms
2. The extra-biblical Sabbath laws were originally enacted to resist Greco-Roman cultural influence — but what began as resistance to secularization became its own system of man-made rules
3. Martin Luther's experience illustrates the danger: counter-culturalism rooted in the fear of God is biblical and humble; counter-culturalism rooted in fear of culture produces its own idols and misses Christ
4. A fear-of-God counter-culturalism is Christ-centered and self-effacing; a fear-of-man counter-culturalism is self-exalting and hobby-horse-driven
5. On the last day we will answer to God alone, not to the religious or cultural gatekeepers of our era

III. The Pride of Man — The Solidifying Force of Spiritual Paralysis

A. Just as Adam's pride in Genesis 3 solidified the fall when God gave him opportunity to repent, the Jewish leaders' pride solidifies their hardness against Jesus

1. God gave Adam the opportunity to confess; instead Adam blamed the woman — pride entrenched the fall
2. The Jewish leaders similarly cannot pause to marvel that a man paralyzed for 38 years is walking; their focus is entirely on their violated rule

B. The leaders are not struggling with an intellectual or doctrinal problem about Christ's equality with God

1. They are not even open to the possibility that he might be equal with God — their pride forecloses inquiry
2. Jesus says elsewhere: if you will not believe my words, believe the works — because these are works only God can do (John 10:38)
3. Their man-made rules have made them incapable of being surprised by God

C. Spiritual health requires a teachable spirit — openness to correction and to being surprised by God

1. Abraham in Genesis 15 had to be corrected about his expectation of a son; in that correction God surprised him — "So shall your offspring be" — and Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness
2. If we are not open to correction, God becomes merely a larger version of ourselves — bland and predictable
3. The Triune God who has life in himself and became man to reveal himself is worthy of endless wonder

D. Conclusion: Spiritual wholeness comes through three things

1. Recognition of the cancer within — honest acknowledgment of personal sin
2. Fear of God rather than fear of man
3. A teachable spirit open to correction and to the surprising works of God in and through Jesus Christ