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]
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. This is gross. I mean think about it. [Screen 8]
7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
The story gets a little hairy when he gets back.[Screen 9]
8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.
11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
What else have you got?
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
I didn’t see him. [Screen 10]
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. The Pharisees were the ones who could tell them what was going on here. But all they noticed was it was the Sabbath. [Screen 11]
14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.
15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
We all have God boxes. We all believe our way about God. We see God and what he will do according to what we believe. The Pharisees were looking through their God box.
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
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17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
The man replied, “He is a prophet.” [Screen 13}
18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.
19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind.
21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.”
22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Their God box. They are still seeing god through their own eyes.
23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” [Screen 14]
24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.” They wanted the man to put Jesus down and give them something to use against him. But this man was seeing them and he said: [Screen 15]
25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
Can we have a little party! This is the best day of this man’s life. He can see. But all they are worried about is Jesus and they want to stop him. [Screen 16]
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” [Screen 17
27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Then he said something that really went too far for the Pharisees…
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Do you want to become his disciples too?” …… [Screen 19}
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciple]s of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, (You did that by faith) but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. (Not really true) He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
He was going to be like a gentile the rest of his life.
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35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
Now it doesn’t say it but I believe he recognized Jesus’ voice. [Screen 21]
36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
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37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
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38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
And you would have too.
39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
End of story.
The Pharisees could not get past the unexplainable in this story. They were dead on with the undeniability of Jesus, but could not see it.
You may ask me if I ever doubt. I talk this stuff with so much confidence that I could never doubt. But I do. I doubt whenever I lose sight of the undeniable and fall for the unexplainable.
Jesus is undeniable. Tell His story and you start to see it is so. A guy shows up in Palestine, Nazareth to be exact and is a carpenter’s son.
His message is pretty simple.
Love your neighbor and pray for those who are persecuting you.
Really. I don’t know about that.
Jesus says if they ask for one mile to give them two.
Love everybody. Even those that don’t love you.
And he said some really far out things.
I personally am the light of the world.
Come on Jesus where have you been.
But he says I am the light of the world.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
I hear the Father and He hears me. That is big.
This is crazy talk. That is stuff crazy people would say. Isn’t it?
This message should never have gotten out of the first century.
BUT. BUT. Jesus did something else.
He told them he was going to die.
He did and then arose. Hundreds of people saw him. The disciples, all but one, suffered a martyrs death because they believed. Actually they gave their life for something they saw not just believed. People all over the world, non Jews, Gentiles everyone gives testimony on how Jesus has changed their lives.
It’s unexplainable.
But it is undeniable.
There is a hole in your heart that can’t be filled by anyone but Jesus.
It ain’t working for you without Him.
God looked down on this world and saw all the despair and sin.
He didn’t offer a Q & A session to figure out what was wrong.
He wanted it to be personal. How could he do that?
He sent His Son to take our sin away.
To give us a way to get by the unexplainable things that keep us from Him.
God gave us the way to beat sin and death. But it has to be on His terms.
Not intellectual.
Not categorically. [Screen 24]
Personal. It has to be personal.
Jesus came to be our personal savior. There is an avenue option for the undeniable and not live in the shadow of the unexplainable.
My goal is to get as many as possible to accept the undeniable Jesus.
The one who chose to save us by his sacrifice on the cross.
Who asks us to follow him and know what true grace and forgiveness and joy are all about.
Won’t you come today and be baptized and be a true follower of Jesus.
Bibliography
Stanley, Andy; It’s Personal; A New Approach; North Point Ministries, DVD
