God So Loved Pt. 5

Message Text

John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Luke 8:43-48

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

John 5:1-9

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,

John 9:1-7

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

Message Notes

1. Without Christ we are already condemned.

Paul lays out the case in Romans 3 that we are already condemned. That there is no one good.

Jesus did not come into the world to condemn us again, sin had already done that. He came so we could have eternal life and that through Him we could be saved.

2. Jesus didn’t need an explanation of why people were like they were, He offered them what they were not.

Is it more beneficial to know how condemned we are or how forgiven we can be?

If we are not careful we will engage in debating sin vs offering grace.

Jesus did not debate with the woman, in Luke Chapter 8, whether she went to the right doctors or not.

Jesus didn’t ask the man at the pool in John Chapter 5 why he had not been healed yet, He offered him wholeness.

Jesus did not engage in a conversation in John Chapter 9 about who’s fault this was, He just healed the man that was blind.

3. End and begin forgiven.

We don’t need to debate the past to be forgiven in the present. Finish this year and start the next as forgiven and whole.

End this year and begin the next by forgiving and extending someone grace.