The Courage to Get Well (John 5)
This sermon invites listeners to consider the profound courage required to move beyond comfortable limitations. It explores how familiar patterns and environments can normalize dysfunction, hindering the path to true well-being.
This sermon explores how we often normalize personal limitations and dysfunction, finding comfort in familiar patterns. It challenges listeners to cultivate the courage to leave old excuses and limiting environments behind, embracing God's call to a new identity and purpose.
Overview
The sermon begins by addressing the human tendency to become comfortable with limitations, such as lack of confidence, unforgiveness, or addiction. While recognizing these issues hold us back, it's often easier to adapt to them, making dysfunction feel normal. This acceptance prevents individuals from becoming the healthy, confident, and successful person God created them to be.
Getting well, the sermon argues, requires courage and comes at a significant cost. This includes shedding excuses, moving out of comfort zones, and distancing oneself from limiting environments or relationships that enable stagnation. The preacher illustrates this point with the story of the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5, who had normalized his 38 years of infirmity.
Jesus' seemingly simple question, "Do you want to get well?" goes deeper than just physical healing. It challenges the man's willingness to abandon his long-accustomed routine and identity as a victim, accepting new responsibilities that would come with being whole. Many, like the crippled man initially, respond with excuses, blaming external factors, or clinging to a victim mindset that defines them by past hurts or losses.
Ultimately, the sermon calls for obedience and action, echoing Jesus' command: "Rise up, take up your mat, and walk." This means actively forgiving, changing harmful relationships, and adopting a new, God-given identity as a free, blessed, and victorious person. It encourages listeners to leave the "pool" of dysfunction behind and step into the fullness of their purpose and destiny.
Key points
- Many people learn to live with personal limitations, normalizing dysfunction like self-pity, bitterness, or addiction because change requires effort and discomfort.
- Getting well takes courage and costs something, including giving up excuses, comfort, and limiting environments or relationships.
- The story of the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5) highlights how 38 years of a limited environment can make dysfunction feel normal.
- Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?" challenges individuals to be willing to leave what they've grown accustomed to, including old routines and identities.
- Excuses and a victim mindset, where past hurts or losses define a person, prevent true healing and the embrace of a new, God-given identity.
- Healing and freedom are found in obedience, requiring individuals to "rise up, take up your mat, and walk," actively making changes even before they feel fully healed.
- God wants people to leave the "pool" of dysfunction and step into their purpose, rather than just functioning better within their limitations.
In Joel Osteen's words
“The new you won't show up as long as you're allowing the old you to stay.”
“Your environment has a way of normalizing your condition.”
“The healing is in the obedience.”
Outline
- I. The Comfort of Dysfunction
- A. Normalizing limitations (lack of confidence, unforgiveness, addiction)
- B. Resistance to change due to comfort and effort required
- C. The cost of getting well: excuses, comfort, limiting environments/friends
- II. The Man at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5)
- A. 38 years in an atmosphere of defeat and disappointment
- B. Environment conditioning and normalizing conditions
- C. Jesus asks: "Do you want to get well?"
- D. Deeper meaning: willingness to leave accustomed routines and responsibilities
- III. Barriers to Getting Well
- A. Excuses keep you at the pool (blaming others, circumstances)
- B. Old identity and victim mindset (defined by hurts, losses)
- C. Choosing familiar comfort over necessary change
- IV. Historical Examples of Resisting Freedom
- A. Israelites wanting to return to slavery in Egypt
- B. Released prisoner returning to the jail for familiarity
- V. Rising Up and Walking
- A. Responsibility comes with being made well
- B. Jesus' command: "Rise up, take up your mat, and walk"
- C. Healing requires obedience and action (forgiving, changing relationships, new identity)
- VI. A Personal Example: The Preacher's Father
- A. Breaking free from a limited, poverty-stricken environment at 17
- B. Contrast with a childhood friend who remained in dysfunction
- VII. God's Call to Leave the Pool
- A. Recognizing areas of comfortable dysfunction
- B. God wants you out of the pool, not just functioning in it
- C. Embracing a new day, identity, and destiny through supernatural strength
Scripture references
Insights
Comfort can become a quiet prison, masking the potential for growth.
Our environment shapes our perspective, sometimes normalizing our limitations.
True healing requires a willingness to release old excuses and identities.
Questions & answers
What does the sermon mean by 'the courage to get well'?
It refers to the bravery needed to move beyond familiar limitations and dysfunction, even when those patterns feel comfortable or provide excuses. It's about being willing to change what's holding you back.
Why do people resist getting well, even when they know they're limited?
People often resist getting well because human nature leans toward comfort, and change requires effort and can be disruptive. They may also cling to excuses or a victim identity that has become familiar.
What does the story of the man at the Pool of Bethesda illustrate in this sermon?
The story illustrates how long-term dysfunction can become normal, leading to a limited perspective. Jesus' question to the man challenges him to consider if he is truly willing to give up his accustomed way of life.
What is the significance of Jesus telling the man to 'take up your mat'?
Jesus instructed the man to 'take up your mat' to signify that he was not to return to his old place of sickness and dependency. It symbolizes a permanent break from the past and a step into a new, purposeful life.
How does our environment affect our ability to get well?
Our environment has a powerful way of normalizing our conditions, whether positive or negative. Being around people who complain or are stuck in dysfunction can make those behaviors feel normal, lowering our expectations for ourselves.
What role does obedience play in getting well?
The sermon emphasizes that healing requires obedience. Making the first move, such as forgiving someone or changing a limiting environment, is an act of obedience that God uses to bring strength, healing, and freedom.
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