Jesus heals today and breaks one of the Pharisees’ rules. Their rules are often petty and deal with the minutiae of their understanding of the Law of God. They want people to obey God, so they create to-do (and to don’t do) lists. If I’m going to be honest with you, that’s what I want. I want to know exactly what to do and not to do. But Jesus calls us to something more than that. He calls us to love God with all that we are and love our neighbor with all that we are. That’s His to-do list. And it’s a lot harder. But it is also where life is truly found.

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Good morning! It’s great to be with you on this Tuesday morning. I’m glad we’re continuing our study in the Gospel of John together. Today, we’re diving into John 5:1-18, a passage that’s rich with meaning and depth.

The story is one you’ve probably heard many times, but it never loses its power. Sometimes, when we come across these familiar passages, it’s easy to feel like we’ve already explored everything there is to know. But the beauty of Scripture is that there’s always more to discover, more layers to peel back.

This passage gives us so much to reflect on, but today I want to focus particularly on the Sabbath issue. We’ve often heard sermons about the man’s long wait for healing and the importance of helping others reach Jesus. Those are valuable lessons, but the Sabbath controversy here opens up a profound discussion on legalism and the true nature of our relationship with God.

The Jewish religious leaders were upset with Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath and because He referred to God as His Father, making Himself equal with God. But to understand their outrage, we need to go back to the origin of these Sabbath laws.

The Pharisees, who emerged during the Babylonian exile, were deeply committed to ensuring that Israel would never again break God’s covenant and suffer the consequences. To safeguard the Sabbath, they created detailed rules about what could and couldn’t be done, such as how far one could walk and what kind of burden could be carried. These rules were intended to help people honor the Sabbath and, by extension, honor God.

When Jesus healed the man and told him to carry his mat, He wasn’t just performing a miracle; He was challenging these man-made interpretations of God’s law. The Pharisees were so focused on the rules they had created that they missed the point of the Sabbath itself. The Sabbath was meant to be a gift—a day of rest, healing, and communion with God. But in their zeal, the Pharisees turned it into a burden.

What does this mean for us today? The religious leaders wanted a checklist—a clear set of rules that would make them righteous before God. But Jesus shows us that faith isn’t about a checklist. It’s not about following a set of rules perfectly. It’s about a relationship. It’s about loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Following Jesus isn’t easy because it requires more than just doing the right things—it requires giving our whole selves to God. It’s easy to follow a checklist, but much harder to give up control and trust God with every aspect of our lives. Legalism is tempting because it gives us a sense of control, but true faith demands that we let go of that control and trust in God’s grace.

Loving God and our neighbor with everything we have is the core of our faith. It’s not something we can achieve through our own strength—it’s something that can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we love others as God loves them, when we see others as bearers of God’s image, we fulfill the law in a way that mere rule-following never could.

So today, as we continue our journey through the Gospel of John, let’s commit to moving beyond a checklist faith. Let’s embrace the radical, all-encompassing love that Jesus calls us to. Let’s love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and let’s love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the true essence of the Sabbath and the heart of the Gospel.

We’ll pick up tomorrow with verse 19. Have a great day!