06/14/2026
Good afternoon everyone,
Sorry I we did not live stream this morning. One of the great treats this morning was the teen directed skit of John chapter 5. Here is my rough draft of the sermon for this morning. Hope you enjoy.
Who get’s the credit
Have you ever been given the praise for something that you didn’t do?
Have you ever been blamed for something that you didn’t do?
Have you taken the credit for something someone else did?
Have you ever blamed someone else for something you have done?
Maybe, just maybe this has happened simultaneously for you at times.
Awhile back we were having a dinner with some people from the club.
My wife had to be gone but she made ahead of time some delicious desert for me to take over.
Some of the club members began saying to me that these squares were so good.
So naturally I said they were really easy to make they hardly took me any time at all.
Then they started asking questions like what was in them and did I have a recipe
I figured the gig was up and as I was about to make somethings up I caught Dave’s eye and knew that he surely would throw me under the bus so I gave Caroline the credit.
This week I have been continuing to think about the scripture from last week where Peter and John say to the lame man as they are heading to the temple, “Silver and gold we do not have but what we have we give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. Acts 3:6
Again, the work of the Holy Spirit in and through Peter and John.
The power of Jesus to again bring healing and restoration to the lame man.
We touched on last week the faith of the man to begin to stand to his feet and the discipleship of Peter to reach out a hand to help him.
Then on Thursday night we looked at a similar story found in John 5
Here Jesus is making his way into Jerusalem
As he goes he passes this pool where the lame, paralyzed and blind sit waiting for the waters to be stirred so they can get in it to be healed.
Jesus ask the lame man sitting there if he wants to be well?
The man’s reply is that he has no one to help him into the pool when the water is stirred and usually someone else gets there first.
Like in acts this man is looking for healing, restoration in a certain way.
If I could just get some silver or gold
If I just had better or different friends that would help me into the pool.
If I just had a better car.
If my family could just get there stuff together.
If the doctors would just figure out what is wrong
If …..
In John 5 Jesus response is not to post a disciple there to help this man into the water
He like Peter would later on simply says to the man take up your mat and walk….
The man does just that
Can you imagine it?
For both of these men they woke up that day figuring it was just another day of the same old thing
The constant struggle to continue to constantly struggle
Hopeless that things would ever be different
Stuck, dependent on others and not able to do for themselves
Then Jesus shows up, his name is spoken over you and you can walk.
In Acts the man is walking and jumping and praising the Lord,
I would imagine that the man holding his mat at least had a bounce in his step or quite possibly was skipping.
Again imagine, imagine what it would be like to be healed,
Imagine what healing for our loved ones would be like.
Last week I had you just close your eyes and ask the Holy Spirit to show you someone that you could share the great gift of Jesus with and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Hopefully you have had that opportunity or will have that opportunity soon.
There are a couple things from these two stories that are different.
Peter and John continue on toward the temple with the man that has been healed.
In John we are told that Jesus doesn’t stand around to take the credit but as Caroline says does an Irish good bye and slips into the crowd.
Those that see the man walking in Acts are in wonder and amazement and in John we don’t here a reply from the witnesses.
One of the things that is the same is the religious people of the days response.
In John they are upset because the day the man is healed is the sabbath and he is carrying his mat.
He is healed and they are more concerned with the fact that he is carrying his mat.
In Acts they seize Peter and John because they don’t take the credit for healing the man they began to share about Jesus and life and resurrection.
In John Jesus doesn’t take the credit either but says that the son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what the father is doing.
This again causes the religious leaders to persecute Jesus and begin to question him.
In our Bible studies sometimes the question is asked if you could be someone in this story who would you want to be.
For some of us we would love to be the man sitting next to the pool or at the gate today.
Not because we want to be lame, unable to walk but because we too want to be made well.
We are tired of the same old struggle of our daily existence.
We can’t remember the last day we had a spring in our step or even thought about skipping and jumping.
We have looked to so many things and others to bring healing
We have exhausted resources and energy
Some of us view these things as hopeless and many have resigned to this is just the way life is going to be.
We long for Jesus and his name to be spoken over us that we may be made well.
Not just physical healing but new life in him.
So for some we want to be the man on the mat.
For others we want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and the disciples in these passages this morning.
This last week at our mission area meeting we were shown this quote that was a challenge to the church that stated some of the best times in the body of Christ was when the imagination of the people of God was caught up in the radical realism of the Kingdom of God.
I began to think that one of the radical realism of the Kingdom of God is that with God nothing is impossible.
That should cause such an amazement and wonder that we again began to imagine how God could change and transform our lives and the lives of those around us.
So what if you and I were so filled with the Holy Spirit, power from on high that in Jesus name lives around us were changed.
Oh to be such followers of Christ that we become these vessels that as we said last week are filled up and poured out.
That when asked about how Dave was set free from alcohol, or how Todd was made well after years of drug addiction, or how Peter was life flighted to the hospital only then to get in a car and come home, fill in the blank with your name and story.
That you and I would say not me, I can do nothing on my own, it was all God
He gets the glory, I didn’t even stir the pool, or the batter for the squares.
Let me tell you about the one who made me well, who made him or her well.
Which brings me to another possibility of someone we might like to be.
The onlookers, the witnesses of what just happened.
Here there really is two responses that we see in these passages.
The first is that as we recognize Zach who used to sit at the gate or near the pool is now walking we filled with wonder and amazement.
We first try to verify if this is even the same person.
Then we begin to ask how is this possible.
There is this Holy Curiosity that is sparked in us and we begin to wonder if Jesus can do this in their lives imagine what he could do in mine, or my loved ones life.
We are amazed at how those who have been made well have changed
I love it when God steps into the lives of those around me and transforms them and me as well.
When people start to be in wonder and amazement and say things like she is a totally different person.
He is not the same anymore.
What happened?
Or thank you for doing that for him or her. Had nothing to do with me let me tell you about Jesus.
So we can be filled with wonder and amazement at what God does in the life of others as an onlooker.
Or we can be like the religious people in our passages and miss the miracle and only see how this affects us and our way of life.
I said it on Thursday night, why do we look past the fact that the man who for 38 years couldn’t walk and now is walking and see that he is carrying his mat.
How could they be so concerned with who and what authority this man was healed that they forget that he is no longer lame, begging at the gate.
Well what if it changes the way we do church,
What if as we reach out our hands to help others to their feet our hands get dirty.
If this is the new reality then not only does this affect them but I have to wrestle with do I want to be made well.
Instead of wonder and amazement we turn our focus to being critical and knit picking so that we can distance ourselves from the radical realism of the Kingdom of God that changes everything, heals the broken, makes well the sick, sets the captives free.
We can dismiss it, reason it away and find a way to become complacent with not just those being healed but the movement of God that made it possible.
Two types of onlookers. I don’t want to find myself as I have before being the second type.
I want to be the first that is filled with wonder and amazement.
So this morning where do you find yourself in these two stories this morning and more importantly who do you want to be in these passages through Jesus Christ.
Maybe it is being made well so that sin, and brokenness no longer hold you down so you are able to walk and jump.
Maybe this morning you desire afresh infilling of the Holy Spirit so that with a renewed imagination God can be poured out into the lives of others.
Maybe this morning you long to be set free from being the onlooker with a critical spirit that is afraid of how this new movement of God may affect life as you know it.
Maybe you like me want to just be filled with wonder and amazement that sparks the what if imagination again.
I was reminded this week of a story of a missionary visiting one of our churches here in Maine.
At the end of sharing the work of God in and through his life and families life as per usual he opened it up for questions at the end.
One of the little boys there began to ask questions.
Things that was wondering about.
Like why the States are the color they are on the map.
To have that childlike wonder about the movement of God in our day would be for some of us nothing short of a miracle this morning.
May it be so.
