The guy in this story tonight had been waiting, get ready for this, for 38 years.

He had been waiting for his life to change.

For 38 years, he had been waiting for his life to change.

You know what that says up front tonight?

It says that there's no expiration date on hope and faith in Jesus.

So you may have been waiting for three years, 38 months, for as long as you can remember

you've been waiting.

But you're going to be encouraged tonight.

I'm encouraged tonight that when God is in the story, when Jesus is in the story,

there's no expiration date on His grace and mercy at work in our lives.

The story is found in John's Gospel.

We've been looking at encounters that people had with Jesus.

And this one comes from John's Gospel chapter 5.

And I'll just read it, and I'll try to read it as much as I can all the way through to verse 15.

And then we'll back up and unpack a little bit together.

It says in verse 1, John 5, hope you have your scripture.

If not, we're going to put the verses up for you.

It says, sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.

Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate, a pool, which an aromatic is called Bethesda,

in which it's surrounded by five covered colonnades.

Here a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind and the lame and the paralyzed.

One who was there had been an invalid for 38 years.

...