1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 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. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?”
7 “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.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath….” (-John 5:1-9)
The MegaBus Agenda
A few years ago, I needed to travel to Oklahoma City to see my sister, who was expecting a baby. To save some money and get some much-needed sermon preparation done on the road, I decided to take the MegaBus.
If you’ve ever taken a bus trip, you know the drill. You find your seat, you claim your territory, and you build a little invisible wall around yourself. I sat down, plugged in my laptop, opened my Bible, and got ready to do my work for God. Just before departure, a rough-looking woman boarded the bus and sat directly across from me. She looked like she had lived a hard life, and she looked like she wanted to talk.
I was not looking to meet any strangers that day. I had a sermon to write. I had ministry to do! So, I executed the universal, modern-day sign for “Do Not Disturb”—I put in my earbuds. I stared at my screen. I protected my agenda. Eventually, lulled by the hum of the highway, I actually fell asleep.
Hold onto that image of me on that bus: earbuds in, shutting out the world, desperately trying to protect my ministry and my agenda.
Let’s talk about what happens when our agendas, our plans, and our ministries stop working. What happens when we realize that the weight of what we are trying to accomplish is actually crushing us?
If you have your Bibles, open them to the Gospel of John, chapter 5. We are going to look at a man who had been crushed by his circumstances for 38 years, and we are going to look at a Savior who asks him a very provocative question.
The Paralyzing Weight of the World (John 5:1-4)
Let’s set the scene. John tells us that Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem for a festival. He enters the city near the Sheep Gate and comes to a pool called Bethesda.
Listen to how John describes it in verses 2 and 3:
“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.”
The name “Bethesda” translates to “House of Mercy.” Yet, this House of Mercy was filled with a multitude of broken, desperate people. Why were they there? There was a local belief—a superstition—that an angel would occasionally stir the waters, and the first person into the pool would be healed.
Just imagine the atmosphere of this place. Hundreds of people lying on their mats, their eyes intensely fixed on the surface of the water. When the water stirred, it was chaos. The strongest, or those with the most friends to carry them, would scramble in. The weakest were left on the dry pavement, defeated. Day after day. Year after year.
This is a picture of a people desperately trying to manufacture their own healing. They were relying on their own strength, their own timing, and their own broken systems to get them to the water.
And friends, if we are honest, this is often a picture of us.
We sit by the pools of our own lives, trying to manufacture our own success, our own healing, and our own ministries. We carry the crushing burden of making sure our families succeed, our jobs flourish, and our churches grow.
Recently, I had a profound zoom conversation with Steve Seamands and about 20 others. Dr. Seamands is a theologian and author, and more importantly someone who takes his discipleship very seriously. We were talking about the heavy burden of ministry and the exhaustion that so many Christians face today. He pointed out a brilliant contrast found in New York City.
If you go to Rockefeller Center, you will see a massive, famous bronze statue of Atlas. He is straining, his muscles bulging, his head bowed down, holding the immense, crushing weight of the entire world on his shoulders.
But, if you walk just across the street into St. Patrick’s Cathedral, you will find another statue. It is a statue of Jesus as a young boy. And in His hand, He is holding the world effortlessly, like a tennis ball.
Which one of those statues represents your life right now? Which one represents your ministry?
Too many times, we have taken the burden of the world—the burden of saving our families, fixing our work places / communities, or building our ministries—upon ourselves. We play Atlas. And when we carry a weight we were never designed to carry, we get overwhelmed. We lose our joy. And eventually, just like the people at the Pool of Bethesda, we become completely paralyzed.
Preparation doesn’t exhaust us. Hard work doesn’t exhaust us. The burden of the outcome exhausts us.
The Provocative Question (John 5:5-6)
Out of the hundreds of people lying by that pool, Jesus zeroes in on one specific man. John 5:5 says,
“One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.”
Thirty-eight years is a lifetime. For nearly four decades, this man’s entire existence has been defined by his mat, his paralysis, and his daily failure to reach the water in time. He is the ultimate picture of a man crushed by his own inability.
Jesus walks up to him, looks down, and asks what seems to be an absurd question in verse 6:
“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?’”
Why would Jesus ask a paralyzed man if he wants to be healed? Isn’t it obvious?
No, it isn’t. Jesus knows human nature. He knows that sometimes, we grow comfortable in our paralysis. Our excuses become our identity. To be made well means to accept change. It means giving up the identity of a victim and stepping into the responsibility of a healthy life.
But on a deeper, spiritual level, Jesus is asking him: “Are you ready to stop trying to heal yourself? Are you ready to stop playing Atlas? Are you ready to let go of your agenda and step into Mine?”
When I met with Steve Seamands, he said something that completely confirmed what the Lord has been working in me over the last few years. He said,
“Christian ministry is not asking Christ to join me in my ministry; rather, it is joining Christ in His ministry to others.”
The difference seems subtle, but I promise you, it changes absolutely everything.
Jesus is asking this man, “Do you want to keep playing by the rules of this pool, trying to build your own kingdom of healing? Or do you want to join Me?”
This requires a fundamental shift in how we view the Christian life. The resurrection of Jesus was not just about His physical body being raised from a tomb. His ministry was raised! His ministry is alive and being lived out through our hands and feet today. Christianity isn’t just about reading what Jesus did 2,000 years ago; it is about participating in what He is doing right now. Jesus’ ministry is ongoing. It isn’t ours. Jesus says, “I will build my church.” He never said, “You build it, and I’ll come bless it.”
I wish I could say that I always remember these truths, but too often, I forget. And when I forget, I take the burden back. I play Atlas. I get overwhelmed, I lose my joy, and I end up paralyzed on my mat.
When Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?”, the very first step toward healing is repentance. We have to repent of trying to do God’s job for Him.
The Shift in Prayer (John 5:7)
Look at how the man responds to Jesus in verse 7.
“‘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.’”
Did he answer Jesus’ question? No. He just gave Jesus his resume of failures. He gave Him his excuses. He is essentially saying, “Lord, my strategic plan isn’t working. I need you to help me get into the water. I need you to bless my agenda.”
This is how I used to pray. For years, my prayer life was just a long list of “Help me” prayers.
“Lord, help me parent my children.”
“Lord, help me fix this conflict.”
“Lord, help me balance all of this work.”
Do you hear the exhaustion in those prayers? Those are the prayers of a person trying to hold up the world.
But when we realize that the work belongs to Christ and it is a gift that He wants to use us, our prayers shift. I now pray far fewer “Help me” prayers, and a lot more “Help yourself to me” prayers.
“Lord, use me.”
“Lord, what are You doing in this room, and how can I join You?”
“Lord, please don’t let me get in the way of what You want to do today.”
Mother Teresa understood this beautifully. People would look at her staggering impact on the poor in Calcutta, and they would ask for her secret. Her response was simple:
“I am just a little pencil in the hand of God writing a love letter to the world... and that pencil is awfully dull and in need of sharpening sometimes.”
A pencil doesn’t worry about what words to write. A pencil doesn’t carry the burden of the storyline. The pencil simply rests in the hand of the Author.
Are you resting in His hand, or are you trying to write the story yourself?
The Command to Rise and Surrender (John 5:8-9)
Jesus listens to the man’s excuses, but He doesn’t entertain them. He doesn’t help the man into the pool. He completely bypasses the man’s flawed system.
In verse 8, Jesus speaks a word of sovereign, creative authority:
“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’”
And verse 9 tells us:
“At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”
Now, let’s pause here for a second, because we need to clear something up. I just spent ten minutes telling you to stop playing Atlas and lay down your burdens. But here, Jesus tells this newly healed man to pick up his mat. Isn’t that asking the man to carry a burden?
We have to understand the difference between a burden and a mat.
The burden is the weight of trying to save yourself, run your own life, or build your own kingdom. Jesus absolutely wants you to lay that down.
But the mat? For 38 years, that mat was this man’s comfort zone. That mat was his identity. That mat was his excuse for why he couldn’t participate in life. Jesus tells him to pick up his mat because if he leaves it on the ground by the pool, he will be tempted to come back tomorrow and lie down on it again!
Jesus is saying:
“I am carrying the burden of your salvation. But you need to dismantle your waiting room. Take your safety net, fold it up, and carry it out of here, because you are never coming back to this old identity.”
He is asking the man to surrender his past identity.
There is a profound spiritual principle here: God-given gifts and identities have to be sacrificed and surrendered before they can be fully used.
Think about the story of Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was a miracle child, a gift given directly by God. But before God could build a nation through Isaac, Abraham had to be willing to place him on the altar. He had to surrender his grip on his identity as a father to let God be the builder of the nation.
Think about Moses. Moses had a shepherd’s staff. It was his livelihood, his identity, his safety net for 40 years in the desert. But when God appeared in the burning bush, what did He tell Moses to do? “Throw it on the ground.” Moses had to let go of his staff, watch it become a snake, and then pick it back up by the tail. From that moment on, it was no longer the staff of Moses; the Bible calls it the “Staff of God.”
Your talents, your intellect, your business, even your trauma or your history—until you surrender them, until you pick up your mat and stop letting it define you, you will stay stuck by the pool. You have to say, “Lord, my past, my present, and my future belong to You. Help Yourself to me.”
When we finally do this—when we remember that the burden of the outcome is His and not ours—something amazing happens. Our boldness and our confidence skyrocket.
Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, experienced this. For a long time, the reach of the Gospel was confined strictly to the coast of China. The inland territories were considered too vast and too dangerous. Hudson Taylor was agonizing over this, carrying the weight of millions of unreached people on his own shoulders like Atlas. He was on the verge of a physical and nervous breakdown.
But then, the Lord spoke to his heart. God essentially told him, “Hudson, I am going to evangelize the inland of China. And if you will let Me, I will do it through you.”
The burden lifted. Hudson Taylor realized he didn’t have to save China; Jesus was already saving China, and he just had to join Him. Taylor went back to China with just a handful of missionaries. By the time he retired, there were 650 missionaries reaching the deep inland of the country.
When you realize the world is a tennis ball in the hand of Jesus, and not a boulder on your shoulders, you can walk into any hospital room, any boardroom, and any broken family situation with absolute, fearless confidence.
Taking Out the Earbuds
The Lord is asking us today:
Are you wanting Me to help you build your kingdom, or are you joining Me in building My kingdom?
Let’s go back to that MegaBus rolling down the highway toward Oklahoma City.
There I was. I had my Bible open, my sermon document pulled up. I was carrying the heavy burden of my own agenda, essentially asking Jesus to come sit quietly and bless my ministry.
And those earbuds? That laptop screen? That was my mat.
It was my comfort zone. It was my highly-spiritual excuse to stay in my own little bubble and actively ignore the broken, hurting woman sitting two feet away from me. I was clinging to my mat—clinging to my identity as a busy minister doing “important work”—so I wouldn’t have to step into the actual, unscripted ministry Jesus was doing right there on that bus.
But the Holy Spirit is persistent. I felt this undeniable nudge to stop what I was doing. So, I took out my earbuds. I closed my laptop. I laid down the burden of my agenda, and I folded up my mat.
I looked across the aisle and simply said, “Hi.”
What followed was a divine encounter. She poured out her heart. She told me her partner had recently left her, she had lost her job, and she had just been evicted from her apartment. She was completely stuck, sitting by her own pool of Bethesda, searching for a way to get her life back together.
I didn’t have to force a sermon. I didn’t have to carry the burden of saving her soul. I just had to be a dull pencil in the hand of God, writing a love letter to a woman who desperately needed to know she was seen.
Eventually, she pressed me to tell her what I did for a living. When I told her I worked at a church, she physically recoiled, asking… “what exactly do you DO for the church?” She was stunned. She asked, “Why haven’t you judged me? Why haven’t you told me I am living a sinful life or condemned me?”
I looked at her and said, “Because you have lived through enough of that already. What you need right now is an experience of grace.”
Just like the man at the Pool of Bethesda, she didn’t need someone to point out her failures or help her navigate her broken system; she needed the life-changing grace that only comes from encountering Jesus. God was doing a healing work on that bus, And the beautiful truth is, it wasn’t just for her. Both of us were experiencing a profound encounter with God. Both of us were experiencing His immense grace. She was receiving the grace of being seen and loved without judgment, and I was receiving the grace of being completely unburdened—freed from my exhausting agenda so I could simply be a pencil in the hand of the true Author.
Church, Jesus is walking through the colonnades of this sanctuary today. He sees exactly where you are lying. He knows the burdens you are carrying. He knows how tired you are of playing Atlas.
He is holding the world in His hands. And He is looking at you, asking the ultimate healing question:
“Do you want to get well?”
Say yes. Repent of carrying the burden. Shift your prayer from “Help me” to “Help yourself to me.” Pick up your mat, fold up your excuses, and leave that old identity behind. Join Him in the glorious, joyful, unburdened work of His kingdom.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus,
Forgive us for the times we have tried to carry the weight of the world on our own shoulders. Forgive us for treating our gifts, our families, and our ministries as our own kingdoms to build. We are so tired, Lord. Today, we want to get well. We lay down the burden of playing God, and we pick up our mats so we never return to our comfortable excuses. We ask that You would help Yourself to us. Make us little pencils in Your hand. Give us the boldness to join You in what You are already doing in our marriages, our families, our neighborhoods, and our world.
In Your powerful and healing name, we pray. Amen.