Amazing Grace
Key Scriptures: John 5:1-15
Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 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. 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 am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
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. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
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.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
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Lesson One: Grace has a name.
• We don’t need a system—we need a Savior
• Grace isn’t found in a location—grace is found through surrender to an invitation
John 5:15, The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
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Lesson Two: We get what he paid for.
• We cannot climb our way up to him—so Jesus came to rescue us
• We must have a heart that is anchored in surrender to Christ
2 Corinthians 5:21, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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Lesson Three: Grace isn’t just our ticket to heaven—it’s our power for today.
• Grace doesn’t just save us—it sustains us
• We must have a heart that is anchored in Christ
Colossians 2:6, So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
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Lesson Four: Grace changes us.
• Surrender to the all-sufficient work of Christ on the cross changes our hearts
John 5:14-15, 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.”
Titus 2:11-14, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone. It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
1 Corinthians 15:10-11 (MSG), But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I’m not about to let his grace go to waste. Haven’t I worked hard trying to do more than any of the others? Even then, my work didn’t amount to all that much. It was God giving me the work to do, God giving me the energy to do it.