“Breaking Free From
Brokenness”
John 5:2-9a
Pastor Kelvin Walker
“I just cut away everything
that wasn’t David.”
-Michelangelo
..every broken situation in our lives
has within it a beautiful masterpiece
waiting to be transformed from the
massive fractured waste of rock if
we would only embrace the
brokenness in such a way
as to let beauty emerge
from ashes.
Are you ready
for a reality check?
John 5:2-9a
“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.
John 5:2-9a
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?”
John 5:2-9a
“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.”
John 5:2-9a
“Then 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.”
I. The Ubiquity (Universality)
Of Brokenness
v.3 – “Here a great number of
disabled people used to lie –
the blind, the lame, the
paralyzed…”
“Where human frailty once served
as a reason for me to withdraw
from the church, with its unruly and
divergent congregants, this is now
what compels me back to spiritual
community. I had overlooked one
essential factor—that I am as finite
and flawed as everyone else.”
– Carmen Renee Berry
II. The Transformational
Question About Brokenness
v.6 – “Do you want to get well?”
“Well” (translation):
Do you want to be freed?
Do you want to be sound?
III. The Impending Danger In
Brokenness
v.7 – “I have no one to help me
into the pool when the water is
stirred. While I am trying
to get in, someone goes
ahead of me.”
“He has given into his illness, become a
prisoner of despair…so often people
succumb to their illness, ‘bedding down’
with their alcoholism or heart trouble or
partial paralysis, or whatever.
They become psychological and spiritual
invalids, retreating within themselves,
avoiding responsibility and becoming more
and more self-centered as they demand
sympathy from others.”
- Roger Fredrikson
IV. The Bondage-Breaking
Word For Brokenness
v.8 – “Then Jesus said to him,
‘Get up! Pick up your mat and
walk.’ And at once the man was
cured; he picked up his
mat and walked.”
Our brokenness may not be our
fault. But it is now our
responsibility. Jesus has already
spoken the word of healing and
freedom.
But we must get up and walk
if we want to be free.
In that phrase, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat
and walk,’ Christ shows us that freedom
is DONE – He pronounced it! (Get up…)
But He also shows us that freedom is
PROGRESSIVE – we walk it out! (Take up
your mat and walk…)
The problem is that we want the
pronouncement of freedom without the
walking out, or the WORK of freedom.
Are you in denial about having broken places in
your life? Is your brokeness in a refusal to see
that you are broken?
Are you tired of settling for life on the edge of
the pool, waiting for someone to help you in?
Remember, freedom is declared. But, it must
also be walked out.
In what ways have you ignored the voice of
Jesus when He asks that transformational
question – “Do you want to get well? Do you
want to be freed? Do you want to be sound?”
In what ways have you rejected the idea of
needing to be healed of broken places by
excusing behaviors that are not consistent with
whom God designed you to be?
“Breaking Free From
Brokenness”
John 5:2-9a
Pastor Kelvin Walker