{"id":14150,"date":"2021-02-11T21:00:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T04:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john_5_1-9-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-02-07T17:05:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T00:05:37","slug":"john_5_10-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john_5_10-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Restored to God\u2019s Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 5:10-18\u00a0 \u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 5:10-18.\u00a0\u00a0For context we\u2019ll start by looking at verse 9.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

John 5:9-10 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.\u00a0The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 9-10:\u00a0\u00a0In the Ten Commandments, God commanded His people to honour the Sabbath day by resting and not doing work on that day (Exodus 20:8-9).\u00a0\u00a0The religious elite among the Jews would interpret this command in an extreme and overly strict way, such that they considered carrying one\u2019s mat from one place to another on a Sabbath day to be a violation of the command to honour the Sabbath day.\u00a0\u00a0By focusing on these technicalities, the religious elite missed the purpose and heart of God\u2019s commands.\u00a0\u00a0All of a sudden, a command that was meant to bring joy, refreshing and rest became a burden.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0When thinking about the details, don\u2019t lose sight of the big picture.\u00a0\u00a0When thinking about how to apply God\u2019s commands, don\u2019t lose sight of why God gave us those commands in the first place.<\/strong><\/p>\n

John 5:11-13 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.'”
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 11-13:\u00a0\u00a0Both the healed man and the religious elite had no idea who Jesus was, but their views of him were already very different.\u00a0\u00a0For the healed man, Jesus was \u201cthe man\u00a0who made me well<\/em>\u201d (v11).\u00a0\u00a0For the religious elite, Jesus was a fellow who told a disabled man to pick up his mat and walk (v12) and in so doing violated their interpretation of Sabbath day laws.\u00a0\u00a0In thinking this way, the religious elite among the Jews ignored the tremendous miracle that took place and focused only on what they considered to be a technical violation of the law.\u00a0\u00a0Here is a classic example of the religious elite focusing so much on technicalities that they missed the heart of God.<\/p>\n

John 5:14a (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Later Jesus found him at the temple\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 14a:\u00a0\u00a0The fact that Jesus found the once disabled, now healed man at the temple is significant.\u00a0\u00a0That is because there was a law that stated anyone who was lame or crippled was not allowed to enter the temple and offer sacrifices to God (see Leviticus 21:16-20).\u00a0\u00a0Thus upon receiving his healing from Jesus, one of the first places this formerly crippled man goes is to the temple.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0Like the crippled man, all of us at one time were disqualified from entering God\u2019s presence.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0The disability that disqualified us was our sin, our inability to do everything that God commands us to do.\u00a0\u00a0But just as Jesus healed the disabled man and made him whole, so Jesus would heal us, restore us and make us whole through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0By trusting in Jesus\u2019 perfect sacrifice for our sins, we are forgiven, declared righteous in God\u2019s sight, spiritually restored and made whole, and can enter the temple of God\u2019s presence once again.\u00a0\u00a0As Isaiah 53:5 says, \u201cby his wounds, we are healed\u201d.<\/p>\n

John 5:14b (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2026and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 14b:\u00a0\u00a0The reason God gives us His commands and warns us against sin is not to short circuit our happiness.\u00a0\u00a0God gives us His commands not to serve as prison bars that limit our freedom but more like guardrails on a highway that protect us and keep us from falling into a ditch.\u00a0\u00a0God knows that in the end sin destroys us and makes us miserable.\u00a0\u00a0Thus it is out of love that Jesus says to the man \u2013 not as a threat but as a gentle warning \u2013 \u201cStop sinning or something worse may happen to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

John 5:15-18 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.”
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 15-18:\u00a0\u00a0Upon finding out that the man who said \u201cPick up your mat and walk\u201d was Jesus, the religious elite among the Jews begin to persecute Jesus as a Sabbath violator (v15-16).\u00a0\u00a0Yet in verses 17-18, the religious elite find another reason that makes them want to persecute and kill Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0By referring to God as his Father (not in a general sense but claiming a special relationship with God), Jesus was \u2013 in the minds of the religious elite \u2013 also committing blasphemy, that is, making false statements about God.\u00a0\u00a0As Professor Edwin Blum from the Bible Knowledge Commentary explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo them [the religious elite], God has no equals. Jesus’ claim, in their thinking, was a monstrous blasphemy. To be equal with God suggested, they thought, two gods and therefore polytheism. To make oneself \u2018equal with God\u2019 was a claim of arrogant independence.\u201d (The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary Faculty.)<\/p>\n

Of course, Jesus was not claiming to be an alternative to God or another god.\u00a0\u00a0He was claiming to be both God Himself and the Son of God.\u00a0\u00a0In this way Jesus was \u2013 at the same time \u2013 both equal to and subordinate to the Father.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus will explain his relationship to the Father further in the verses that follow.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, thank You that by Your wounds we are healed.\u00a0\u00a0Before we were disqualified from entering the temple of God\u2019s presence, but through Your precious blood shed on the cross, our sins are forgiven, our condition which disqualified us is removed, and we can enter Your presence freely because of You.\u00a0\u00a0Today may I not get so caught up in the details and minutiae of my situation that I miss the big picture and miss Your heart.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 5:10-18.\u00a0\u00a0For context we\u2019ll start by looking at verse 9.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

John 5:9-10 (NIV)\u00a0
\n9\u00a0\u00a0At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.\u00a0The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,\u00a0
\n10\u00a0\u00a0and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”<\/p>\n

On verses 9-10:\u00a0\u00a0In the Ten Commandments, God commanded His people to honour the Sabbath day by resting and not doing work on that day (Exodus 20:8-9).\u00a0\u00a0The religious elite among the Jews would interpret this command in an extreme and overly strict way, such that they considered carrying one\u2019s mat from one place to another on a Sabbath day to be a violation of the command to honour the Sabbath day.\u00a0\u00a0By focusing on these technicalities, the religious elite missed the purpose and heart of God\u2019s commands.\u00a0\u00a0All of a sudden, a command that was meant to bring joy, refreshing and rest became a burden.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0When thinking about the details, don\u2019t lose sight of the big picture.\u00a0\u00a0When thinking about how to apply God\u2019s commands, don\u2019t lose sight of why God gave us those commands in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14151,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14150\/revisions\/14151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}