John 5:1–30. Feeling Stuck.

How Does Jesus Help Us When We Feel Stuck?

Everyone knows what it feels like to be stuck.

Sometimes it’s a habit you can’t break. Sometimes it’s a sin you keep coming back to. Sometimes it’s a literal hole that you fall into. One time my phone got stuck in the toilet.

Sometimes it’s fear, bitterness, anxiety, or just a long season where your relationship with God feels flat and unmoving.

Previously in John’s Gospel, we’ve seen who Jesus is and what he has come to do. He is the eternal Word (1:1) who became flesh (1:14), the Lamb of God who takes away sin (1:29), the one who brings new birth (3:1–12), living water (4:1–24), and real life to people who cannot fix themselves. Again and again, Jesus meets people who are stuck in different ways. He shows that real life doesn’t come from trying harder, but from coming to him and trusting his word.

As we move into John 5–7, the focus sharpens. Jesus keeps giving life to people who are stuck, but now his words and works start to cause some serious beef. As he heals, teaches, and calls people to listen to him, the question becomes unavoidable: will we hear Jesus’ voice and receive life, or will we resist him when his word exposes us and challenges where we’re stuck?

In John 5 in particular, Jesus meets a man who has been stuck for 38 years. Literally stuck. Lying on a mat, unable to move forward. But this story is about more than just physical healing. It shows us how Jesus helps all kinds of people who are stuck.

Berthold Werner, *Pool of Bethesda, Jerusalem*, photograph, 10 November 2008, public domain; Wikimedia Commons, file “Jerusalem Bethesda BW 1.JPG”, uploaded 10 January 2009, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerusalem_Bethesda_BW_1.JPG.

1. Lying on a Mat (5:1–7)

As chapter 5 kicks off, we find Jesus in Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals (we’re not told which festival). Jesus goes to a well-known place in Jerusalem called the Pool of Bethesda, near the Sheep Gate, a place where the sick gathered, hoping for healing.

In 1888, archaeologist Conrad Shick discovered this very site, revealing two large pools with five covered colonnades, exactly as John describes, confirming that this was a real place where real people waited for life.

Anyway, Jesus goes to Jerusalem and finds a man who has been an invalid for thirty-eight years (5:5). He’s lying there, surrounded by others, waiting, watching, and completely unable to fix his own situation.

This man is stuck. In every possible way. He’s physically helpless. He has no one to carry him. He has no plan that will work.

Curiously, when Jesus asks him, “Do you want to get well?” (5:6), the man doesn’t say yes. He explains why he can’t (5:7). That alone shows how trapped and powerless he feels.

This is what it means to be “lying on a mat”. Not just struggling. Not just stuck. But unable to rescue yourself.

And it’s not hard to see how this connects to us. People get stuck in all kinds of ways. Patterns of sin, habits, fear, shame, anger, people-pleasing. Or we just feel stuck spiritually. Like we’re going nowhere in our faith. Sometimes, the hardest part isn’t changing, but actually admitting that we really are stuck.

Before Jesus lifts anyone up, he helps us face where we really are.

2. Lifted by a Word (5:8–9)

But Jesus does more than just point out that we’re stuck. In our story, he fixes the situation. He speaks. He says:

“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (5:8)

And John tells us:

“At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” (5:9)

The man is healed. How?

Because Jesus is “the Word”. Now he speaks a word. And the man is healed by Jesus’ word. Not by effort. Not by gradual improvement. Not by trying harder. Not by medication or surgery. The power is in the voice of Jesus.

Just by speaking a word, Jesus lifts him from his stuck-ness. The man doesn’t make himself un-paralysed. Jesus does it.

We may not have been paralysed for 38 years like this man. But there’s a real sense in which we were spiritually paralysed by sin. But when Jesus calls us to be his followers, he lifts us out of our spiritual paralysis and gives us a new life.

3. Living a New Life (5:10–15)

And so, in our story, this miracle isn’t the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a new life.

The man gets up and walks off. Interestingly, he goes off and talks to the Jewish leaders, kind of dobbing on Jesus.

Later, Jesus finds the man in the temple and says:

“See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (5:14)

That’s a striking thing to say. It shows that Jesus didn’t just want him walking. He wanted him living differently. He doesn’t want the man to walk in sin. He wanted the man to walk to walk with the Son.

It’s the same thing for us. When Jesus lifts us from sin, he wants us to walk with the Son, with him. He doesn’t just lift us up so we can go back to our old patterns. He calls us to walk with him. To leave the mat behind. To not treat our old life—with all our old ways—like something we can keep around.

Of course, it’s tempting to drift back. Old habits are familiar. Old sins are comfortable. But Jesus didn’t save us so we could be forgiven and unchanged. He saved us so we could live a new life.

4. Listening to the Lord (5:16-30)

From verse 16 onwards, John zooms out and shows us why Jesus’ word has this kind of power.

The leaders are furious because Jesus is not just claiming to be a healer. He is claiming to be equal with God (5:18). But notice how Jesus explains that equality.

He says:

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19)

That sounds almost like weakness, but it’s actually a claim to perfect unity. Jesus is not a second, independent agent working alongside God. He is saying: the Father and I always act together. Whatever God does, the Son does. Whatever the Son does, God is doing.

Christians have used the phrase “inseparable operations” to describe this. When God acts in the world, the Father and the Son are never divided. The Father works through the Son, and the Son works from the Father. The same thing goes with the Spirit. You never get one without the other.

And if that’s true, then listening to Jesus is never separate from trusting God himself. You never hear the Son without the Father acting through him. You never receive the Son without receiving what the Father gives.

That’s why Jesus can say, moments later:

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

And notice how strong that is. Not will have eternal life. Has eternal life. Not might avoid judgment. Will not be judged. To hear Jesus and trust the Father who sent him is already to pass from death into life.

Why can Jesus promise that? In fact, how can he have that some kind of divine, life-giving power?

He then goes on to explain it moments later:

“For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” (John 5:26)

This is where Christians have traditionally spoken about “eternal generation”. The Father has life in himself—he is the source of all life. And the Son also has life in himself—not as a creature, not as a borrowed power, but because the Father has eternally given him this life “to have in himself”. The Son is not created. He is eternally from the Father, sharing the same divine life.

And now you can see how the surrounding verses fit.

First, verse 25:

“A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” (John 5:25)

Why does the Son’s voice give life?

Because the Son has life in himself (v26). He doesn’t just talk about life. He gives it.

Then verse 27:

“And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” (John 5:27)

Why does the Son have the right to judge the world?
Because the Father has given him his own life and therefore divine authority (5:26). The one who gives life is also the one before whom all life must finally answer.

Put it all together and the picture is very clear and very powerful.

Because the Father and the Son always work together (5:19), and because the Son eternally has life from the Father (5:26), to hear Jesus is to hear God himself.

That’s why Jesus can promise, right now, in the present:

“Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (5:24).

The voice that told one man to get up and walk is the same voice that gives eternal life now (5:24–26). And it is the same voice before whom everyone will one day stand (5:27).

So the question becomes unavoidable: whose voice runs your life?

If Jesus really is the Son who always works with the Father, who eternally has life from the Father, who gives life now and will judge the world, then his words are not just helpful advice. They are the words that define reality.

He doesn’t just deserve a hearing. He deserves to be taken seriously as Lord.

Bringing it all together

So how does Jesus help us when we feel stuck?

He shows us where we are lying
He lifts us by his word
He calls us into living a new life
And he teaches us to keep listening to him as Lord

Or, in one sentence:

Jesus doesn’t leave us lying: he lifts us by his word, leads us into a new life, and calls us to listen to him as Lord. And that’s the hope for anyone who feels stuck.

Youth Questions.

Pray and Get Going

1. What are some ways people our age can feel “stuck” in life or in their relationship with God?

Look at John 5:1-30

2. In John 5:1–7, how is the man lying on the mat truly stuck and unable to fix himself? What shows us how helpless his situation is?

3. Where do you think people today are most likely to be “stuck on a mat”? What would it look like to actually admit that you’re stuck?

4. In verses 8–9, what does Jesus say, and what actually makes the man well? What does this show about the power of Jesus’ word?

5. What might it look like in real life for us to take Jesus at his word and obey him, even when it feels hard or risky?

6. In verses 10–15, why does Jesus warn the man, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you”? What does this show about what Jesus wants for the man’s life now?

7. What does it look like for a Christian today to “walk with the Son, not the sin”? What are some ways people drift back to their old life?

8. In verses 16–18 and 21–27, what is Jesus claiming about himself? What authority does he say he has?

9. If Jesus really is the one who gives life and will judge everyone, what difference should that make to how seriously we take him and whose voice we listen to?

Pray and Give Thanks

Please God, help us to admit where we are lying and stuck. Help us to trust Jesus and take him at his word. Help us to live a new life, walking with the Son and not the sin, and help us to listen to him and take him seriously as Lord. Amen.
Thank you God that Jesus does not leave us lying where we are. Thank you that he lifts us by his word and gives us new life. Thank you that he is Lord, and that in him we have real life and real hope. Amen.

Kids’ Club Questions.

Pray and Get Going

1. When have you felt stuck?

Read John 5:1-7

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 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. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 “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.”

2. How is the man stuck?

Read John 5:8–9

8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

3. How does Jesus help the man?

4. What does this teach us about Jesus and the words he speaks?

Read John 5:14

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

5. Why does Jesus say to “stop sinning”? What does he want the man to do instead?