In the book of John there are seven miracles of Jesus that John calls “signs”. These are miracles that point to Jesus’ identity as the Messiah and reveal His glory as the Son of God. We are going to spend the next seven weeks going through these “signs” one by one to see Jesus more clearly. Too often when we read Scripture we read it for ourselves. We search it to see how we fit, to find the answers to our questions and the road to our destiny, but Scripture was not written so we could see ourselves more clearly it was written to reveal Jesus, to show Him in all of His glory and power and so that we could decrease by increasing in our vision of Him.
Our third message in this series is taken from John 5:1-15, Jesus’ healing of a paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda. In this message we see three revelations of Jesus’ glory:
1. Jesus is glorious in His knowledge. He knows us perfectly and loves us, ministers to us, walks with us and comes to and for us.
2. Jesus is glorious in His compassion. He looks at us as children that have sinned, sheep that have strayed and rather than being frustrated with our failure His is compassionate and generous with His love and grace. Compassion makes grace appear, it is the emotion that causes God to love the rebellious, to be married to the backslider and to weep over the stubborn and hard-hearted. Never ever think Jesus to be harsh or unfeeling, He is eternally moved with compassion, in fact it is His compassion that made Him not only the Creator of all things but the Redeemer of all things as well.
3. Jesus is glorious in His forgiveness. He does not forgive and say we better not do this again; He forgives our past and then prepares our future. He covers us for eternity not simply until we fall again and ultimately it is His grace that makes us able to stand in His glory without falling and without fault because He has borne our transgressions and carried our iniquities.