Doing the Lord's Work - John 5:9b-17

Have you ever gone on vacation with someone who made a strict itinerary? That way of thinking is like the opposite of my natural disposition. I’m pretty laid back, but I guess an itinerary could be helpful in some vacation settings. It really depends on what you're doing. But can you imagine having a strict itinerary for a beach vacation? Wouldn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? The point of the beach vacation is to have no plans.

For most of us, it can really feel like every minute of our lives is parceled out.

And so, we go to the beach to escape that. You go to the beach to just kick back and relax. Obsessing over rules and regulations is a great way to ruin rest isn’t it?

It’s what we see in our passage.

The Jews were so wrapped up in their legalistic Sabbath keeping that they missed the point of the Sabbath altogether. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. God did us a favor by giving us a day of rest. The Sabbath or the Lord’s Day as the New Testament refers to it, is supposed to be a day to rest in Christ giving glory, honor and worship to the living God.

The Sabbath is a glorious thing that has been graciously given to us from the Lord! But legalism will destroy the Sabbath. We see three ways that legalism destroys our enjoyment of the Sabbath in our passage this morning.

First, legalism will destroy your rest (vv. 9b-10). Second, legalism will destroy your joy (vv. 11-15). And third, legalism will destroy your need for the gospel (vv. 16-18).

Recap

Last week, we looked at the actual healing of the lame man. And today, we’re going to look at the fallout that surrounded it. Remember that he thought there were healing powers in the water, but the true and better healing comes from Jesus Christ.

But what’s really central to this particular healing is that it took place on the Sabbath. It raises an important question: How do we understand the Sabbath?

Most of you are probably aware of the fact that the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday. And at some point, I’m sure you’ve wondered why Christians worship on Sunday.

Jesus rose from the grave on the first day of the week, and because of that, the book of Acts tells us that Christians began worshiping on Sunday. I think it’s important for all of you to know why Christian Sabbath is no longer on Saturday, especially because we’re going to be looking at a passage that deals so heavily with the Sabbath.

And although the day has changed, its significance has not. Sabbath rest is every bit as important now as it was then. But the key question that surrounds the Sabbath is what are you resting in?

Legalism Destroys Your Rest (v. 9b-10)

We quickly see in our passage that the Jews were not resting in the Lord, rather, they were resting in their ability to keep all the rules and regulations. Look at the end of verse 9 with me.

“Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”” Now remember the backstory here. There was a paralytic man who had been lying next to the pool for thirty-eight years because the pool was believed to have some sort of healing powers.

And Jesus walks up and simply heals him.

You’d expect there to be rejoicing and excitement over an immobile man having his mobility restored, wouldn’t you? But that’s not what happens here, is it? Instead, the Jews (which is probably a reference to the religious leaders) interrogate the healed man about “picking up his bed.”

Isn’t that interesting? The act of picking up his bed is what gets him in trouble. Doesn’t that seem extremely petty?

They understood him to be violating Old Testament regulations surrounding the Sabbath, particularly, Jeremiah 17:21-22. Let me read Jeremiah 17:21-22 to you: “Thus says the Lord: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. 22 And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.”

They thought he was violating the Sabbath because the “burden he was carrying” was his mat. But the words of Jeremiah are really being taken out of context by the Jews. In Jeremiah 17, the Lord was challenging folks who were profaning and disregarding the Sabbath for commerce. They were carrying items to market to sell on the Sabbath to make money.

Obviously, this is not what this man is doing. He wasn’t planning on buying or selling anything. He was simply carrying his mat because it was what Jesus had instructed him to do. He told him to pick up his mat. He wasn’t violating the Sabbath. He was simply carrying his mat. Nevertheless, the healed man was accused of “working” on the Sabbath.

But notice how rigidly and out of context the Jews were reading the Old Testament. They were really seeking to understand what the Lord was saying, they were simply boiling it down to the lowest common denominator. Are you working? To them there are no exceptions, no rationales or anything. They were so petty that picking up your mat was considered, “work.”

I think it’s important for all of us to see that the Jews Sabbath-keeping legalism was so consuming that they were actively walking around policing what everyone else was doing.

I enjoy going to concerts and football games. It’s fun watching these events live in person. There’s nothing quite like it. But I have to do a real cost/benefit analysis because the worst part of live entertainment is the fact that you have no control over what’s going on around you. You can’t control what people say or consume or do.

It would be the silliest thing ever for me to start patrolling the stadium looking for rule breakers. Typically, there are police officers at live events, but they don’t even catch or prevent everything.

It’s impossible to control what everyone else does all the time. Not only is it impossible, but it’s exhausting to constantly worry about what other people are doing. The text certainly seems to indicate that Jews were walking around looking for Sabbath-breakers.

The only real rationale for patrolling around looking for Sabbath breakers is to make yourself feel better. To be able to say to yourself, “look at how well I keep the Sabbath.”

But again, isn’t all of that missing the point? What’s the purpose of the Sabbath? To make sure everyone else is faithfully observing it? Of course not! The Sabbath is supposed to be a day for you to rest in the Lord. The irony here is that they were the ones violating the Sabbath because they weren’t resting in the Lord. They were glorified hall monitors.

The very thing that the Jews were accusing Jesus and the healed man of was the very thing that they were doing! The pot is certainly calling the kettle black here! Clearly, they weren’t thinking about the Lord! They were concerned with what everyone else was doing.

This is what legalism does! You become so focused on following the letter of the law you will miss the spirit or intent of it to begin with! Sabbath regulations were never intended to be a burden! Sabbath regulations were created to set you free!

The Lord in his sovereign mercy created a day not to heap burdens upon you, but to set you free from them!

Everyone here is busy. Have you ever wished there was time or a day to set aside the stresses of your busy life? A day dedicated to focus on something bigger than the trivial matters of your daily life? Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing here? We’re not resting in the pleasures of this world, but in the Lord. Knowing that he will safely lead us into the promised land of eternal rest.

But the very moment you begin to obsess over all the pedantic little details of keeping and observing the Sabbath, you begin to miss the point. Having an incredibly legalistic view of the Sabbath will destroy your ability to rest in the Lord. Why? Because your rest, comfort, and faith is,’t rooted in the Lord, it’s rooted in your ability to follow the rules.

Legalism Destroys Your Joy (vv. 11-15)

Not only does legalism destroy your ability to rest, but it destroys your ability to find joy in what the Lord is doing. Look at how the healed man responds to the Jews in verse 11. But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”

The healed man tells them directly that he just did what Jesus told him to do after he healed. And how do the Jews respond? 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”

What massive detail did they completely ignore? The fact that the man had been healed! They were totally indifferent.

They didn’t care that the man had been healed. They didn’t care about what God was doing. That’s how hard their hearts are. They cannot even express joy in what the Lord has done. Isn’t that so telling? They were so wrapped up in the rules and regulations of Sabbath keeping that they didn’t even care that the man was healed.

But it’s even worse than that, isn’t it? They’re angry that a man was healed on the Sabbath. They’ve accosted the healed man, now they want to accost Jesus. Neither of these men were breaking the Sabbath. But they were violating man-made rules.

There are still man-made rules in effect today. In fact, there are man-made rules that at times, take precedence over the Word of God. I’ll give you a great example. “Thou shalt always be nice.” I’ve heard people refer to that as the 11th commandment. Often, the 11th commandment forbids any questions or criticisms. And if you dare break the 11th commandment then you're an uncharitable, unloving, mean spirited, person that’s sowing seeds of division.

And the real irony is that the people that religiously follow the 11th commandment are the same people that want to mute, downplay, or outright ignore certain parts of the Word of God!

The 11th commandment is a man-made rule that’s just been served up to us a little differently. It’s just wrapped in a different package.

And it makes as much sense as the Jews wanting to punish Jesus for showing mercy on the Sabbath! He healed a man on the Sabbath! How dare he! Their man-made Sabbath rules were so out of control that acts of mercy were out of line. That is every bit as insane as it sounds!

You see, legalism breeds joylessness and a lack of compassion. Legalism has a real blinding effect on people because it makes them unable to celebrate anything. Even the glorious things that the Lord has done!

Legalism Destroys Your Need for the Gospel

The underlying belief of legalism is that your adherence to the law, your ability to be a good person, and do the things that please God is what will ultimately earn your own salvation. Isn’t that exactly what the Jews believed? Because they were keeping the Sabbath perfectly God could not be displeased with them. They were adding to the law of God making it harder to keep then it actually was. That’s an incredibly scary position to be in.

Arbitrarily adding rules to the faith is legalism and legalism is the breeding ground for self-righteousness. The Jews go out of their way to prove their righteousness to everyone around them.

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus never went out of his way to prove his own righteousness. Rather convincing people of his own righteousness, he instead regularly demonstrated his grace and mercy to others.

But what we see in the passage is Jesus healed the crippled man and moved on, as did the man that was healed. They ended up going their separate ways.

Ironically, the man that had been healed didn’t even know who had healed him. He hadn’t even asked for Jesus’s name. But eventually what happens? The healed man eventually finds Jesus again, but Jesus doesn’t give him Sabbath keeping tips. Rather, he gives him spiritual advice: “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

The advice that Jesus gives him has more to do with the state of his eternal soul than any rule or regulation.

When Jesus said, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you,” he’s not saying that the formerly crippled man’s illness or lameness was brought upon him because of some sort of sin that he committed. Rather, Jesus is telling him that he should respond to his miraculous, merciful healing by repenting and putting his faith and trust in the living God.

What would “be worse” is for the man to experience the healing power of Christ and still go to hell because he rejected him. That would have compounded his guilt before the Lord because he would be rejecting God twice.

It’s the exact message that the Jews needed to receive as well.

But it’s really unclear where the lame man stood before God, because as soon as he realized that it was Jesus who healed him, he turned around and went and told the Jews. And the Jews persecuted Jesus because they thought that he was a Sabbath-breaker. Especially when he says, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

The Lord rested on the seventh day of creation to establish the pattern of rest for us, but he is still at work on the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day.

If the Jews were right and everything is forbidden on the Sabbath then God himself breaks the Sabbath. Is He not working through the ministry of his Church?

But the way the Jews framed God’s restriction from work was theologically inaccurate. It’s not that God restricts you and prevents you from not working on the Sabbath. It’s that God has given us a day of freedom to rest and rejoice in how he has richly blessed us in Christ Jesus.

But all of this speaks to their misunderstanding of the Sabbath as a whole. They thought that man was made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. The Sabbath is a blessing and a delight!

It’s a blessing to stop each week and rest in the beauty of our Lord. Especially, in a world where everything is constantly defcon level one, just screaming for our attention. Isn’t there more to life than running around all the time putting out fires? Aren’t you tired?

The Jews were so zealously keeping the Sabbath that they forgot the Lord. The very reason for keeping the Sabbath!

Have you ever met someone that has the uncanny ability to bring every conversation back to himself or herself? It’s kind of revealing isn’t it?

It’s similar to a legalistic mindset which encourages you to continually focus on yourself. To compare yourself to everyone around you and remember once again, how great you are. How well you keep the law. How much better you are than your neighbor.

Because the Jews were so merciless they couldn’t see their need for the gospel! After all, if you do everything perfectly, why would you ever need a Savior?

This helps us understand verse 18, doesn’t it? “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

The saddest component of all of this is that the Jews were such arrogant, rigid, legalists, they never stopped to ask, “could Jesus be right about the Sabbath? Or more importantly, “could he be the Savior of the World?”

Doesn’t this really serve as a foil to chapter 4? The Samaritans received Christ with all humility, but the Jews “were seeking to kill him?”

But on the most fundamental level Sabbath rest points us to an eternal rest. That in heaven death, sin, and the curse are no more. In heaven there will be great healing from the pains of our fallen condition, sin, and death.

And what do we have in our passage? Jesus reversing the effects of the sin and the curse by healing a crippled man on the Sabbath day! It’s rich with heavenly allusions. And it’s coming through the power of his hand!

This points us to the gospel. It’s through faith in Jesus Christ that we receive eternal life and where sin, death, and the curse are no more!

And it’s not just our duty to think about these glorious realities. It’s the Christian’s duty to reflect the mercy we’ve been given to those around us.

There is work that you and I need to do on the Lord’s Day - to be vessels of God’s mercy.

You might be wondering, what does that mean? I can’t forgive sins! No you can’t and neither can I! We all know sick people, but when was the last time you visited them? Or when was the last time you did something incredibly generous for someone that you know is in need? Or when was the last time you just picked up the phone to check on someone that you know is struggling? What about setting aside time to have an intentional gospel conversation with someone?

These are, yes small, but glorious acts of mercy. And of course, we should always be cognizant of these things, but if you’re anything like me, you never feel like you have time to do these things! We’re all so busy we’ve successfully crowded opportunities to show mercy out of our lives. But that is the beauty of the Sabbath - the Lord has given us a day to specifically pursue these sorts of things.

But again, isn’t this exactly what the Lord’s Day is all about? A day devoted to stop thinking about you! A day to take your eyes off of your navel and to cast them heavenward! We must think about the greatness of our Lord, how he’s shown incredible mercy to us, and how we can show a small fraction of that mercy to those around us.

May you and I take up the Lord’s work.