Following Together (Central Baptist Edmonton‪)‬ Central Baptist Edmonton

We all need help in various ways, but often we don’t want anyone to tell us what to do. In today’s passage, Jesus identifies himself as the singular answer to life’s ultimate questions. How will we respond to his claims?

We all need some kind of healing, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. But how do we get it? The strategies we try often don’t work, or at least they don’t work long-term. In this story of Jesus healing a disabled man, we see three significant truths about finding healing, and we get a taste of God’s long term plans to make everything new.

Imagine if we had everything we needed right now. I know that's hard to believe because we're wired to look for and even expect something better - a better version of you, of what you have and for what God could do. We're wonder-seeking people but that could lead us to making wonder-filled mistakes and miss God who is here right now. In this passage, we read that Jesus meets us there and teaches us a better way.

In today’s passage, we find Jesus returning to the place he performed his first miracle and facing the reality that the people were looking for to place their faith in a king that would continue to exert such  miraculous power. Jesus speaks into this false understanding of faith, using another miracle to challenge people to believe in who he is, rather than in what he can do.

In the Gospel accounts, Jesus is generous in displaying the power of God over the natural world through signs and wonders. Often we can become obsessed with seeing the miraculous or we long for miracles for our own benefit. In our passage today, we will see that Jesus uses signs and wonders to encourage us toward a proper response and that is faith.

Our lives are formed by the choices we make. So, do you know how to make great decisions? If you want to have an awesome life, you've got to get wisdom. But it doesn't happen automatically.