Dharius Daniels - I Don't Feel Like It

I’m starting a series today called Level Up University. God is the college president, the Holy Spirit is the professor, I’m the teaching assistant, and the Bible is your textbook. We’re getting ready to go to school for the next four weeks, everybody! I want to read a small part of a story found in the Gospel of John, chapter 5, beginning at verse 5. Somebody repeat after me—class is in session! John chapter 5, verse 5 says, «One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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? ' Sir, the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I’m trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.' Jesus said to him, 'Get up, pick up your mat and walk.' At once, the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was the Sabbath.» This ends the reading of God’s Word. I want to talk from this subject in our time together, family. The subject is simple: I don’t feel like it. Am I in somebody’s shoes? Have you ever felt that way? I just don’t feel like it today.

Family, there are a number of words that are often inappropriately used to describe the fruit, the evidence of God’s work in the life of a believer: words like justification, sanctification, redemption, renewal, and revival. However, there is one that I think is incredibly important, and it will help simplify this sermon, and that word is «better.» Whenever there is divine involvement, there will be automatic improvement. God involves Himself in nothing that He does not improve. If God engages the heart, the heart gets better. If God engages the mind, the mind gets better. If God engages the relationships, the relationships get better. Because whenever He’s involved, the outworking of His involvement will be improvement. It’s got to get better; it has no choice but to get better. It will get unequivocally better, undeniably better, irrevocably better. It’ll get better if you like it, it’ll get better if you don’t, and it’ll get better if your enemies like it or don’t, because God is the God who improves what He’s involved in.

It may not be initially better, it may not feel better, it may not look better, but because God works incrementally and not completely, by the time He’s finished, it will be better. If it is not better, He is not finished, because God makes all things better. Although this is God’s intention for us, it is not always automatically our experience. It is possible for God to desperately desire better, and for us not to experience better. In our first class today, I want to introduce you to one of the precipitating factors, one of the reasons that things don’t always get better, and it is simple: sometimes things don’t get better because I don’t feel like it. Pastor, what do you mean? This story found here in John 5 helps me explain what I’m attempting to articulate.

In John 5, we read a small portion of a story regarding Jesus and this man with this unnamed condition for thirty-eight years. For thirty-eight years, he tried to fix it, and it didn’t get fixed. For thirty-eight years, he believed for adjustments and experienced no alteration. For thirty-eight years, he high-fived people, took notes on his iPhone, and wrote in his sermon journal about this year being the year of better. «Last year wasn’t my year, but this year is going to be my year,» only to experience chronic disappointment year after year, suffering from the same cycle.

You do know there is a difference between seasons and cycles. Seasons change with time; cycles change when I do. Thirty-eight years! And so, this Jesus walks to this place called Bethesda. Everybody say Bethesda! Come on, you’re going to learn a new word today. Let’s get deep; say it: Bethesda! Yes, He was at this place called Bethesda. Now, Bethesda is a synthesis of two words; this is what it means: it means «house of grace.» So Jesus walks to this place called Bethesda, and to get to this place called Bethesda, He has to go through this gate called the Sheep Gate. When He goes through the Sheep Gate, He gets access to this pool. This pool is covered by a covering that’s held up by five porches. So you’ve got a house of grace that you can only get into by going through the Sheep Gate, but once you get through the Sheep Gate, you gain access to a pool, and that pool is covered by a covering that’s held up by five pillars and porches.

This is a metaphor for the church because the church is the place of grace. Jesus is the gate we’ve got to walk through, and when we walk through the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we gain access to the pool, which is the Holy Spirit, that is covered by five pillars that represent the fivefold ministry: the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. The problem is when Jesus goes to this place, which represents the church, you’ve got all kinds of people. The Bible says they are dealing with all kinds of issues. If you read John 5, you’ll see that some people were there, and they were dealing with blindness. You know what that represents? It represents people who can’t see. It represents people who are living a visionless existence, people who don’t have a picture of God’s preferred future for their life. That’s vision.