The Eye Opener
John 9:1-11
Over the past several weeks we’ve been looking at the miracles recorded in the Gospel of John so that we can see how Jesus’ can make our impossible situations possible. This week, however, I want to skip over the fifth miracle of Jesus walking on water since we’ve looked at that miracle in the past so that we can finish next week.
Read v. 1
It’s hard for us to imagine what life must have been like for this man in our passage this morning; he was born blind. He didn’t know what a rainbow or a flower looked like. He had never witnessed the sight of a sunset. He didn’t even know what his parents looked like. For this man, the world was colorless and formless.
The good news is that when he met Jesus there was a miraculous change in his life! He received the gift of sight and then later he received the gift of eternal life through faith in Christ! This miracle not only met his physical need, but more importantly it met his greatest need of all… his need of a Savior!
There are several important eye-openers that we can gain from this miracle that will help give us a positive outlook when we face problems in our lives. The first eye-opener we find in our passage this morning is to:
1. Look for blessing, not blame.
If you want to experience joy in your life, then you need to have a good attitude. In this passage, what you’ll see is a contrast between the positive attitude of Jesus with the different examples of negative attitudes around Him. Right off the bat, we see that the first group of people who needed an attitude adjustment was the disciples.
Read v. 2
Now obviously there are consequences to the sin in our lives, but our problems aren’t always the result of that sin. The next time you have a problem in your life, rather than looking someone or something to blame, there’s another option. Let’s look at how Jesus responded:
Read v. 3
Here we have specific instructions from Jesus Himself on what to do when we’re faced with a problem - look at it as an opportunity for God to display His power and love.
It’s a shame that the disciples didn’t look at the blind man with a desire to help Him; instead they wanted to start a theological discussion. People don’t need a consultation when they’re facing problems; they need help. We shouldn't care as much about why they’re hurting as the fact that they are hurting.
If you were in a car accident and were bleeding to death in the ER, how would you feel if the doctor came in and wanted to talk about the Greek word for hospital or the history of the stethoscope? Everything he said to you might be true but it would also be irrelevant because it doesn’t stop your pain.
We don’t always need to know why problems occur. “Why did God let this happen?”, “Why do good people suffer?”, “Why does God allow natural disasters to destroy entire cities?”, Why this?”, “Why that?” Instead of wasting our time complaining about the fact that our problems exist, we should get busy finding a solution. Our time can be more efficiently spent doing the works Jesus did…telling the Good News to the lost…being a light instead of cursing the darkness.
Jesus continues answering the question of the disciples by telling them how to live out this kind of attitude.
Read vv. 4-5
When you find yourself in the middle of a big mess in your life, don’t get so distracted in life trying to solve puzzles that you fail to stay busy doing what God has called you to do! If He’s blessed you with a child – be the best parent you can be. Don’t allow your family to suffer because you’re facing problems at work. Don’t allow your marriage to fail because paying the bills is difficult.
If you will just use the gifts and abilities, the experiences, and the skills that God has already given you to further His kingdom, then you will find out that a lot of times your problems will work themselves out. God will add His big strength to your little strength! He will add His provision to your limited resources…Just like we saw in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
While you’re looking for blessing and not blame, here’s the second eye-opener:
2. Look for God to work "outside the box”.
Notice carefully how Jesus performed the miracle in this man’s life.
Read v. 6
Now you would think that Jesus would just speak the words or simply touch the man’s eyes and heal him, but that’s not what He did. Jesus did something unusual, something unexpected.
We shouldn't expect God to solve our problems in the way that we would solve them. God has ways of doing things that we’ve never even dreamed of. His imagination, ingenuity, resources and intelligence are unlimited. That’s why the Bible says,
For with God nothing will be impossible” (Lk 1:37).
The only thing that limits God is our lack of faith. When Jesus went back to His home country, Matthew writes:
Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief (Mt 13:58).
When we limit God because we want Him to fit into the mold we’ve made for Him, we limit His willingness to do might works in our lives. We need to give Him room to be God! Give him room to do the unexpected! Trust in His abilities. Place your life in his hands. Do what He has called you to do and then trust Him to do the rest however He sees fit!
Vv. 8-34 of John, chapter 9, talk about the blind man’s frustration of dealing with the Pharisees. Now, If anyone was clueless when it comes to Jesus - it was the Pharisees. Mainly because of their preconceived ideas of who they thought He would be and what He would be like.
Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath” (v 16a).
In their minds, Jesus couldn’t be God because He healed this man on the Sabbath. And just like the disciples, they missed the point.
Not only did they blame Jesus for breaking their Sabbath rules – but they also failed to respect and receive Jesus due to their unwillingness to let God work outside the box. To them, if Jesus wanted their blessing, He had to work inside the parameters of their rulebook.
Be careful about making the mistake of limiting God to your expectations. Have faith that God can work outside the box! Here’s the third eye-opener:
3. Look to God for who He is, not just what He can do.
Read Verse 7
It’s extremely important that we don’t make the Bible say things it doesn’t say – but we also don’t want to miss the symbolism of Jesus’ actions. Jesus never did anything that didn’t serve a purpose.
There’s a lot of symbolism in Scripture. God was always drawing pictures so that people could understand His teachings. In the Old Testament: the tabernacle, the temple and the sacrificial system all painted pictures of spiritual truth.
In the New Testament: Jesus often spoke in word-pictures and parables, using things like fig trees and houses built on the sand for object lessons. He had a way of telling a story or proving a point that made it easier to understand. He knew that people had preconceived ideas about Him and about truth – so a lot of times He would give them a little something extra to shake them loose from their biases.
So Jesus makes this man go and wash the clay out of his eyes. What do you think that says to the man? What did it say to the disciples? What does that say to you?
Maybe I’m simple minded, but I’ll tell you what it says to me.
You can’t see if you have dirt in your eyes!
It wasn’t the dirtiness of sinful deeds that Jesus wanted this man to wash from his eyes because He’s already made it perfectly clear that this man’s blindness wasn’t a direct result of his or anyone else’s sin. I think He was referring to the dirt of having a negative outlook on life.
Not only did the disciples and the religious leaders need an attitude adjustment, but this blind man did as well. And so do we from time to time.
I think the clay Jesus uses in this passage represents the mud in all of our eyes. It’s the dirt of an attitude that says, “What can God do for me.”
You see, this man had an even greater need than being healed from blindness. He needed a Savior. We have more important needs than finding solutions to our problems. We need a Savior. Jesus didn’t just want this man to see – He wanted him to experience the truth about God.
Jesus once asked the rhetorical question:
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? (Mk. 8:36)
What good would it have done for the blind man to have gained physical sight but not spiritual sight? What good does it do us if God solves our temporary problems in this life but we neglect His salvation and spend an eternity separated from Him in hell?
The Pharisees still didn’t believe. When this man wouldn’t back off his story of being miraculously healed by Jesus, the religious hypocrites kicked him out of the synagogue.
Read vv. 35-38
The miracle wasn’t over until this man trusted Christ by faith and worshiped Him! It wasn’t complete until he had a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ.
The plan of God is not just to solve our problems. The plan of God is for us to worship Him. We were created to serve God. It doesn’t matter if God decides to answer every one of our prayers in the way we want Him to. If we fail to worship God, then we’ve missed the point.
Place your trust in God for who He is, not just what He can do. The greatest resource for solving our problems is having a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ!
If you’re already a Christ follower maybe you’d like to ask God today to help you with your outlook on life. Ask God to give you the kind of attitude Jesus had. Give Him room to work outside the box with your problems.
If you have never really surrendered your life to Jesus would you do it right now? Don’t put it off until a "better" time. There will never be a better time than now. If you would like to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, you come.
Let’s pray together.
