Stumbling Toward Wholeness

The Comeback
Stumbling Toward Wholeness

I. Introduction

A. Proverbs 24:16a (NLT) The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.

B. Joshua 7:10, 13a (NLT) ¹⁰But the LORD said to Joshua, “Get up! Why are you lying on your face like this?” ¹³”Get up!”

II. Stumbling Toward Wholeness

A. Bethesda

1. John 5:1-6 (NKJV) ¹After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ²Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. ³In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. ⁴For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. ⁵Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

2. While others were going to the , Jesus went to the .

B. Bethesda: house of mercy or, house of grace

1. The house of grace, filled with the disgraced, was about to collide with the embodiment of grace—Jesus.

2. John 5:5-6 (NKJV) ⁵Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

III. What’s Holding Back the Comeback?

A. The illusion of proximity

1. “Do you want to be made well?” Jesus understood what we so often deny: that we can live in our pain, our disappointment, and our dysfunction for so long that it begins to feel like home. We slowly deceive ourselves into thinking we’re moving toward healing simply because we’re near sacred things—we’re going to church, singing songs, engaging in spiritual routines. But what we may really be doing is maintaining the illusion of movement while quietly resisting the discomfort of true transformation.

a. The pool gave hope by ; Jesus offered healing through .

B. The of familiarity

1. Do you want to be well, or has your setback become part of your ?

2. John 5:6b-7 (NKJV) ⁶“Do you want to be made well?” ⁷The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

3. At some point, we have to decide, I may not be in the pool, but I to die on the porch!

C. The pattern of and

1. John 5:6-7 (NKJV) ⁶“Do you want to be made well?” ⁷The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

a. As long as your story is always someone else’s fault, you’ll never write a new story.

D. The lies of a faulty belief system

1. John 5:3-4 (NKJV) ³In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, [c] waiting for the moving of the water. ⁴For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.

[c] – “The remainder of verses 3 and 4 are not found in earlier older manuscripts.”

2. If you’re waiting for God to yank you off the porch, you just might be waiting on an angel that’s never going to come. is a process the Holy Spirit starts with your participation, not in spite of it.

IV. Conclusion

A. Where you , there lies your .
For it is only when we stumble that we learn something about ourselves, and something about the nature of God who meets us in our brokenness.