It's Personal-Undeniable Series

Title: Personal-Undeniable

Place: BLCC

Date: 10/1/17

Text: John 9.1-41

CT: There is a way to God.

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All of us as adults will have obstacles to our faith. Something happens and God moves out of being a category and it becomes really personal. And my goal in this series is to let you know there is a way around all those things that are keeping you from following Jesus. People don’t become Christians by resolving all the issues they have with God and Jesus; they become Christians when it becomes personal. And most Christians bring those issues into the arena with them and in time they get an answer, but sometimes we never do really get an answer to our obstacles. But people become Christians not because they find reasons to not worry about their issues but by something coming along that shrink their obstacles to the point we can go around them.

This is the third week of the series personal. I am going to start out with a baseball story. Yale physicist Robert Adair, studied the science behind the big league fastball.

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A 90 mph fast ball travels 60.5 ft. in 400 milliseconds. Keep that in mind.

The batter takes 200 milliseconds for recognition/decision.

The batter takes 100 milliseconds for placement.

The batter takes 150 milliseconds to swing.

That is a total of 450 milliseconds.

Adair concludes from this data that it is impossible for a batter to hit a 90 mph fastball. It takes 450 milliseconds for him to hit the ball and it is past him in 400 milliseconds.

No one can hit a 90 mph fastball. ??

Anyone buy that? I saw it happen. I have seen it happen many times.

I can’t argue away the facts or tell him where he is wrong but I do know someone can hit a 90 mph fastball. I have even seen people hit a 95 mph fast ball.

Even though it is unexplainable it is undeniable.

We use this idea in all our circumstances. The first time they handed me a cellular phone. Been a few years mind you. But I didn’t get them to explain to me how it works. I wasn’t interested. But it was sure nice talking on the phone to some one from out on the farm. It was unexplainable how it worked but it was undeniable that it did.

We do this in every area of our life. We don’t get held back by the unexplainable; when there is an undeniable that takes hold.

Especially, if you are working in the business world you don’t want someone explaining how every little thing works. You don’t care as long as it works.

As long as it works for others we are in.

This is not to say that your questions are not important.

There is an avenue to God that allows you to go around your obstacles that may be keeping you from following Jesus.

Christianity becomes undeniable when it becomes personal. This may be an affront to you but you do this in all the other parts of your life.

Once people become Christians they are willing to carry some unexplainable things into their relationship because the relationship with God is so undeniable.

Ok lets go to John 9 and see what happens when people ignore undeniable circumstances to follow unexplainable things they are holding onto even though it is shown to be true. John 9.1-41

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1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Everyone believed if you had something bad in your life it was due to sin. They believed someone had sinned so the man was blind.

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3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

This man was blind so that God could make a point. I’m not comfortable with that. Then Jesus goes into the teaching mode. [Screen 5]

4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.

[Screen 6] 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

This is really arrogant. But Jesus was telling it like it was. He was saying he was leaving and then it was going to get dark again. And the confusion about God is going to get worse. So pay attention.

This is why you need to read Matthew, Mark Luke and John. The closest you are going to get to God is through Jesus and you meet Jesus in the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Read the Gospels. [Screen 7]