How Is “God @ Work?” Jn5:17 S4e106

We've been considering WHO is the BOSS, and today, OVER WHAT? Who gets to be "Lord of the Sabbath?" Though the external fight is over paralysis, there is an inner war.  There is an internal war over SIN.  After the Sabbath and healing battle subsides, Jesus tells this person to change INSIDE.  Stop sinning.  Whatever the sins you were committing up there in the colonnades of the pool of Bethesda, probably INSIDE YOUR HEAD, you need to STOP it.

So apparently, this guy was not 100% victim and worthy of 100% sympathy.  Nobody is. Apparently, though he had a showy external problem, Jesus wanted to address the super personal sin that he'd been committing for 38 years.  All the 10 commandments can be broken by a paralyzed guy: idolatry, lust, covet, disrespect, using a Name of God in vain, and even stealing.

This is where a lot of the Lord's good work is done, in the hearts and volition of men and women.  I'm not saying it is EASY.  Forgiving and convicting and atoning is serious work.  He needs to do it in the invalids, and in the robust; in the ancients and in the moderns; in men and in women; and in those who look pretty together and those that are a mess.  So don't think Jesus is done when He fixes the OUTSIDE.  There is real WORK TO BE DONE on the insides.

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