Session 7 John 5:5-16
pay attention to Jesus’s question and to how the disabled man responded.
5 One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time,
he said to him,
“Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the disabled man answered,
“I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up,
but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”8 “Get up,” Jesus told him,
“pick up your mat and walk.”
9a Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.
summary statement
Jesus is Lord over all creation and values all people.
suggest connections between the summary statement
and Jesus’s encounter with the man at Bethesda.
Connect Jesus’s ability to heal with His role as Lord over all creation.
Emphasize the value Jesus sees in all people,
not just the rich or influential.
Point out that He chose to go to the helpless and needy.
Encourage the group to discuss whether the man’s actions were a statement of faith.
Emphasize how obedience to Jesus can show faith
while disobedience points to a lack of faith.
The man’s faith in Jesus allowed him to do something he had never done.
Jesus healed the man because he was willing to literally take a step of faith.
But in the middle of the most important moment of his life, the space man faced some stiff opposition
life, the space man faced someerned with holding to their own power than
in celebrating the power that had changed this man’s life.