Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Listen, turn to somebody, give them a high five, tell them it is almost Christmas time.
It is almost Christmas time.
Come on, do it.
I want to see.
I seen like three high fives.
Come on, work with me here a little bit.
High fives.
It's almost Christmas time.
Tell somebody you're glad to see them.
Sometimes they need that encouragement.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
West Shore, East Shore, online, wherever you're joining us together.
And you may take notice just a little bit this morning that some people have gone out
and have not come back in.
That is because this is Be the Church Sunday and there's an outreach that's going to take
place simultaneously this first gathering.
While we're worshiping and hearing the word, there are a few people that are going to go
out and they're going to do an outreach and we're believing God to use that outreach.
They're going to go out into the stores in the local area, hand out gift cards and just
offer to pray for people.
And we're just believing what God's going to do.
I think they're going to have to dodge the raindrops while they're doing it, but that's
all good.
Hey, listen, rain's blessing in the word of God.
It really is.
So they're getting blessed big time.
But it's good to have you here this morning.
And we are here to give glory to God.
We're here to raise up the name of Jesus.
That's why we come to church, right?
We come into this place to lift up His name.
We come into this place to worship.
We come in this place to gather and lift up His name.
And all that we do when we're worshiping in the morning, when we're preaching the word,
when they're teaching up in class, when you're even, even when you're getting coffee, how
many of you worship God while you're getting coffee?
It's true.
Even while you're getting coffee, you can be worshiping the Lord and just lifting Him
up.
And that's why we come together.
And this morning, I just want to continue on.
We've got a theme over Christmas.
You can look there.
You can look on that wall.
It is hope for real, hope for real.
And we're going to move into John chapter five.
So if you've got your Bible, you can go into the book of John chapter five.
And while you're going there, I'm going to speak for just a little bit.
And I'm going to make somewhat of a bold statement.
And it's this.
What we hope for will predict our future.
If you're jotting things down this morning, if you're taking notes, I encourage you to
do that last week so that you remember what God might be speaking to you.
What we hope for will predict our future.
If you want to know where you're headed in life, if you want to think about what you're
hoping for, you want to know what direction your life might be moving in.
I want you to ask yourself, what am I hoping for?
If you want to know what might happen this week, next week, maybe next month, maybe next
year, you need to articulate.
Maybe write down, maybe verbalize.
Take note of or even pin it up on your refrigerator.
What am I hoping for?
Because it's what you're hoping for, what you're dreaming of, what you're fantasizing
about will predict some things in your future.
It'll come to pass in your future.
And I said it'll predict some things about your future.
I did not say that you will get everything that you're hoping for in your future.
Amen.
That's a big difference.
It'll predict some things in your future, but you may not get everything that you're
hoping for.
When we say we hope for something, it's our idea.
It's our thought of a desired preferred future.
Do you know that?
Right?
When we hope for something.
I remember when it was like, how many remember the old cartoons, a little bubble would pop
up, right?
When somebody was thinking something, they'd go blink and it'd be a little cloud or bubble.
And how many remember that?
One, don't make me feel old here.
All right.
And it would be the desire to be a vision of a desired future.
When we're hope for something, it's the idea of what things might look like in the future.
What might be needed in our lives and how we want things maybe to play out.
And that hope can be a good idea or a good hope, or it can be a bad idea or a bad hope.
Right?
It can be a godly hope or it can be an ungodly hope.
It really can.
And I may or may not obtain that desired future, but it will definitely, definitely predict
some things about my future for real, for real.
It'll shape some things in my future.
And I don't know what you're hoping for this morning.
Maybe it's a good thing.
Right?
Maybe it's a godly thing.
Maybe it's not a great thing.
Maybe it's an ungodly thing.
Maybe it's a Christmas present that you've been longing for.
How many are you longing for a Christmas present?
Right?
Maybe it's a pair of shoes that you've been dreaming about.
I don't know.
Kids are into shoes these days.
Man, I talk to some of these kids.
They're telling me all about these kind of shoes.
I'm like, you're a kid.
What do you know about shoes?
All right?
It could be a pair of shoes.
It could be a new outfit.
Right?
It might be a new car.
How many of you like a new car for Christmas?
That's a dream.
Right?
Come on.
Right?
But if someone doesn't get what they're longing for for Christmas, what they're dreaming about,
maybe what they're pining away about, fantasizing about, maybe seeing yourself having a need
for, if you don't get it, you know it'll change your future if you continue to hope for that
thing.
Right?
How many of you, if you're hoping for a new car, that's probably not going to happen.
Come on.
How many know it's about 99% chance.
Right?
You're not going to get that.
But if you're, if you're hoping for that, it'll change your future.
If you continue to hope for that after Christmas, you might go work some after, some extra shifts
at work.
Right?
How many know that changes your future?
It changes some things.
Right?
You might, you might put every dime you've got in a piggy bank.
You won't go on vacation.
Right?
You won't order that steak when you go to the restaurant.
Right?
You're just going to, you're going to live on beanie weenies for the next three months.
Right?
Next year.
Right?
Maybe three years.
Right?
Cars are expensive.
Right?
You might be desperate, you might try to steal a car.
How many know that'll change your future?
Right?
Yeah.
I don't know what the sentence is these days.
And I don't want to know.
Right?
But what I hope for can predict my future.
And John chapter five introduces us to an unnamed man whose hope definitely predicts
some of his future.
In this scripture, we're going to travel to the pool of Bethesda.
Say Bethesda this morning.
Yeah.
It's good.
Do we know where we're going in scripture?
Right?
They're going to put a picture of that up on the up on the screens.
There's a pic and there's a little bit of a back story that you need to know about the
pool of Bethesda because the pool of Bethesda was a five sided manmade pool that was accessible
by steps.
Now this is the ruins that you're seeing.
If you can imagine in your mind, when it was all finished and it was located by the sheep
gate in Jerusalem, which was used to access the temple to bring sacrificial lambs into
the temple area.
And in John's biblical account, the pool is described as having four or I'm sorry, five
porticoes, right?
Five roofs that were suspended by columns.
And the pool is one of two pools in that location.
And if you were there back in Jesus time, those pools were fed by underground springs.
So underground springs would put water into those pools and there was a churning effect
that would take place sometimes.
There was a whirlpool effect while sometimes that level would go up and down in those different
natural naturally fed manmade pools.
And the legend was the Greek legend was that if the pool stirred and you got into the pool
just at the right time when it was stirring, the first person in would be healed.
Okay.
That was the legend.
Right?
That's what they believed.
So this pool was surrounded by people who had been to the doctors maybe and couldn't
get healed.
They were sick and they couldn't do anything about it.
And they were hoping that the waters would churn and that they could be the first one
in the pool and including in that mob or that crowd around this pool was an unnamed man
in the story who was in need of healing for 38 years.
And the problem that this man had or at least he thought he had was that he had no one to
help lower him into the pool or into the waters.
When the water stirred, he couldn't walk for whatever illness he had, he couldn't walk
and he couldn't get there fast enough.
Somebody jump and when the water stirred, somebody else had jumped in in front of him.
And all this man's hope was fixed in the thought that the pool could heal him.
But one day he meets a man named Jesus.
Amen.
John chapter five verse one says this.
After this, it was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there was there in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda,
having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving
of the water for an angel went down at certain time into the pool and stirred up the water.
Then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease
he had.
Now a certain man, say a certain man, certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years
and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition
a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well?
I want to stop right here and preach just for a couple of minutes.
How many know 38 years is a long, long time to hope for something, right?
For real.
That's a long time to hope for something.
If you had been hoping for a Christmas gift for 38 years, how many know that's a long
time, right?
That's a long time.
38 years, 456 months, 13,870 days, 332,880 hours of hoping to be healed.
That's a long time to wait for something.
38 years, this guy probably hoped that he would be healed and I don't know, we don't
know how many decades he might have spent sitting by this pool.
Every day this guy, now can I do something this morning?
I'm going to name this guy because I don't want to call him the unnamed guy.
Don't email me.
I know this isn't in scripture.
Work with me here, okay?
I'm going to call him Pete who laid by the pool, okay?
Everybody okay with that this morning?
I know it's not biblical.
Just for context sake, right?
For conversation, we're going to call him Pete.
Every day Pete woke up like you and I and thought, I got to get to the pool today.
This might be the day.
This might be the one.
This could be miracle day.
He probably took his breakfast there.
He probably took his lunch there.
He probably took his, I saw somebody bring their breakfast in this morning, right?
He took his supper there.
He probably had Grubhub on speed dial, right?
And maybe on more than one occasion, Pete slept by the pool, right?
That's where he parked his hope.
He probably brought a sleeping bag.
He brought his lantern with him.
He got his favorite Batman PJs on, right?
And he got a thermos of hot chocolate and just sat and watched the water waiting for
it to stir.
And I'm thinking he might have really watched it at night, right?
Because everybody else would be sleeping.
Maybe he's thinking if it stirs at night, I might actually get there and be the first
one in.
Hoping nobody else would notice the stirring that would take place.
He stared at the water for countless hours, counting the ripples maybe that come across
the water, thinking of the possibilities, counting the cracks in the side of the pool.
How many of you do that kind of stuff when you're sitting looking at something long enough,
right?
He's counting the cracks in the rocks or the cracks around the pool, right?
Hours, days, years.
Why does he do it?
Because his hope was in the pool.
His hope was locked up in the pool.
The pool predicted his future, right?
What he hoped for.
The pool shaped his future, his tomorrow.
His next day was going to be at the pool.
What we hope for will predict our future.
What we hope for, what we place our hope in, what our hope is parked on will predict our
future.
This guy's tomorrow was shaped by the hope in the pool today.
He knew exactly where he was going to be tomorrow.
He knew what he would be parked beside tomorrow because that's where his hope was.
What we hope for will predict our future, pieces of our future.
What has my attention?
What consumes my time?
What I dream of?
What I fantasize about, right?
We all dream about things.
We all kind of fantasize about things.
We maybe fixate on a preferred future of some kind.
It will grab your tomorrow.
If you really hope to get married, you might daydream about getting married.
You might fantasize about getting married, right?
It will predict your future on some level.
You'll go to where single people hang out, right?
Not where the married people are.
Well, at least I hope so, right?
You go to where the single people are.
If you're hoping to get out of your marriage, I'm going to know that's a whole different
kind of thing for your future.
That'll predict some things about your future, right?
If you hope to buy a home, I can predict some things for you right up front, right?
You're going to probably have to go get a mortgage.
You're going to go see a bank or a lender of some kind.
You're going to buy homeowners insurance.
Isn't that a fun thing to do, right?
There's some things I can predict, right?
Be very, very careful of what you're hoping for.
For real.
Be very, very careful.
Filter what you dream of.
Examine what you're fantasizing about.
Make sure it is a godly hope.
Make sure it is a God-honoring dream that you're engaging in of some kind because it
will predict your future.
It will show up in your future.
What has my hope has part of my future, if not all of my future locked up in it.
It's true.
Take a moment.
Think about it right now.
Come on.
What's your hope?
What do you hope for when you see something?
What are you hoping for?
Man, I could spend some time here.
I could go down a lot of avenues in this.
Good and bad, right?
Godly and ungodly.
What are you hoping for?
The story of Pete by the pool continued.
Pete didn't know it yet, but he was in conversation with the one who his hope should have been
in, right?
He didn't realize it quite yet, but every hope that he would ever have was standing
right in front of him and he didn't recognize it.
And he meets Jesus for the very first time.
Jesus asked him an unusual question for their context.
He really does.
I'm going to go back and reread six.
He says this when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that
condition a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well?
The sick man answered, yes, sir.
I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.
But while I'm coming, another steps down before me.
Everyone sitting at that pool was waiting for the water to stir.
Every person that was sitting there, their hope was in the legend that the legend was
true.
Everyone that was there had their faith destroyed by a doctor or a diagnosis and they didn't
feel like anything could be done for them.
So they were by the pool waiting for that one shot, right?
Everyone camped by that pool was there for a reason and one reason only.
So why would Jesus ask a person sitting by this pool this question, do you want to be
made well?
That's what everybody wanted that was sitting there, right?
Of course he wanted to be made well.
Well, it turns out this is a legit question because Jesus was there to shift what this
man's hope was in.
Jesus knew what he was hoping for.
Jesus already knew that what his hope was fixed on.
He knew what Pete's hope was fixed on, right?
It was the pool because and I think Jesus wanted Pete to verbalize it.
I think he wanted him to say out loud what he was hoping for because a lot of things
can happen to your hope in a 38 year span.
Amen?
It really can.
Your hope can change.
It can shift in 38 years.
When you can't get the answer in one place, how many know we go to a different place to
get an answer, right?
Our hope might shift from one thing to another thing.
Some people's hope in 38 years might die, right?
You're hoping long enough and that hope just kind of dies inside of you and it just goes
away and you move on.
Your hope can shift.
But Pete verbalized, he showed that he still had faith.
Jesus questioned him.
He answers it right.
He shows he has faith in something.
It's not in Jesus, but it's in the pool.
His faith didn't wane and didn't diminish.
He's still showing up at the pool.
See, Pete didn't have a faith problem.
He had a hope problem.
He had a faith in something.
He just had his faith in the wrong thing.
It was fixed on the wrong thing.
And Jesus asked the question because he wants to shift Pete's hope.
He wants to change what Pete's hoping in.
So he asked him, I'm going to reread six again.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition for
a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well?
He's getting him to think.
He's getting him to realize.
The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water stirred
up.
But while I'm coming, another steps in before me.
Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed and walk.
And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed and walk.
Jesus posed one question.
Do you want to be made well?
Then Jesus surmised from Pete's answer that he did want to be made well.
Right?
Jesus heals him and commands him to take up his bed and walk.
One question, one question.
What are you hoping for?
He didn't ask him how long Pete was attending church.
He didn't ask him what denomination he belonged to.
He didn't ask him how much scripture he knew.
Right?
How much he had memorized.
He didn't ask him that.
He didn't ask him, hey, Pete, what's your faith level today?
One out of 10.
What would you think it would be?
Is it a three today?
Is it a two?
Is it an eight?
Right?
He didn't ask me that.
He just asked one question.
Do you want to be made well?
Pete indicates yes.
And Jesus tells him, take up your bed and walk.
And immediately he's made well.
And it says in the day was the Sabbath.
And the Jews therefore said to him who was cured, it is the Sabbath.
It is not lawful for you to carry your bed.
How many know sometimes even when you get the miracle, somebody's going to criticize?
Come on, right?
They're worried about the rules.
This guy just got healed in 38 years.
And he answered them, who made me well said to me, take up your bed and walk.
He didn't even know who made him well.
Then they asked him, who is the man who said to you, take up your bed and walk.
But the one who was healed, right?
Pete didn't know who it was for Jesus had withdrawn a multitude being in that place.
Pete didn't know who healed him.
He knew it was some stranger.
What a crazy day for him, right?
He's carrying his bed.
Just some guy walks up, asks one question, heals him and he's walking around with his
bed on the Sabbath day, which was illegal by then, by the way.
Right?
And when he gets questioned, he doesn't even know what happened to him.
What just happened?
And something happens after all this that really starts to lay out what's taken place.
How many of you know sometimes it's what happens afterward that really matters?
And it's true, it gets missed so many times in this portion of scripture, but in 14 it
says this afterwards, say afterward.
Sometimes it's what happens afterwards.
In the temple, right?
Afterward, Jesus found Pete.
I'm throwing in Pete there.
I know it's not in the scripture.
Him, it says, all right?
Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see you have been made well, sin no more
lest the worst thing come upon you.
The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well.
There are two miracles that took place.
The first miracle for Pete leads to the greater miracle.
Jesus heals this man physically to heal his hope problem spiritually.
The end game was not just a physical healing.
If that's all this was about, Jesus would have healed him, slipped into the crowd, and
that would have been the end of the story.
Would have been like, woohoo, he got healed, right?
Would have been celebrated.
But that's not the end.
That wasn't the end game.
Jesus goes and finds him in the temple and he says, Pete, sin no more.
Go and sin no more.
He tells him, lest something worse happens to you, don't get caught up in sin.
Jesus, the bigger fix was his soul.
The biggest fix was what he had his hope in.
Jesus was there to shift his hope from the pool to Jesus.
He just used the healing to do it.
He caught his attention, right?
His hope, he wanted Pete's hope shifted.
Because here's what could have happened, and I don't know if this took place or not because
of the legend, but what if Pete would have got in the pool, right, when it stirred?
What if he'd have been watching it at night and he just slipped in there and he did get
healed?
He'd have been healed physically, but his hope still would have been in the wrong thing
spiritually.
He would have had nothing of eternal value.
Maybe his body would have been healed, but the rest of them wouldn't have been.
Jesus came and he healed this man so that his hope would shift.
And it would no longer be in the pool, but it would be in the man, Jesus Christ.
And we know this because that last portion of scripture, he goes and tells everybody,
he goes and tells the Jews who were questioning him previously, it is Jesus who made me whole.
He didn't care if he got in trouble.
He didn't care if he was associated with Jesus because they were all after Jesus.
He didn't care.
It shifted his hope because your hope will predict your future.
Amen.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from Lifehouse Church.
We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.
If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with
us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.lifehousecog.com.