If you have your Bibles with you please open up to the gospel of John 9:26. You may recall we have been in the gospel of John since about February. Most recently, we have been looking at the miracle story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind. You may recall that Jesus was walking along the road with his disciples. They came across this man who had been blind since birth. While Jesus saw him as a man of need, the disciples saw him as an object to be discussed. They decided they were going to ask Jesus somewhat of a theological question. They said “Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that this man was born blind?” Jesus said neither sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in this particular man’s life. Then what he did was he spit on the ground. Made a little bit of a mud paddy and pressed it into the man’s eyes. Then he told the man “Go, and wash in the Pool of Siloam.” So the man went and washed, and he could see. He was given sight. The man was excited so he went back home to his neighbors and his neighbors couldn’t believe it was him. Some would say is this the same blind beggar that used to beg over by the temple there. And others would say it can’t be him. It must be somebody different. The man said no it is me. It really is me. So they said how were your eyes open? All he knew were the basic facts. He knew this man Jesus spit on the ground and made some mud and put it on my eyes and he told me to wash. I washed it and now I see. That is basically the story. They said where is this man? He said I don’t know where he went. They weren’t satisfied with his answers so they brought him to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the people that were very inquisitive. They asked him the same sorts of questions. How did this happen? He repeated the story. He said Jesus put some mud on my eyes and told me to go wash in the pool and I washed and now I see. This wasn’t good enough for the Jews because they were trying to find a reason to accuse Jesus of something. This healing had taken place on the Sabbath just like it had when Jesus had healed the man who was paralyzed for 38 years. You might remember that story. They said this man must be a sinner. Somebody else said if he was a sinner then how could he perform such miraculous signs. So a debate started between them. Finally they went to the man and said it was your eyes that were open. What do you say? He says I think he was a prophet. A prophet is seen as a truth teller. Somebody who can speak truth into a situation but also someone who is believed to be the very mouthpiece of God. Someone who would speak for God.
Basically, there was a little bit of confusion going on there. The Pharisees started thinking maybe we need to call in the man’s parents. Maybe it wasn’t an actual healing. Maybe he really wasn’t born blind. So they called the parents in. They sit the parents down and say we have three questions for you. First of all, is this your son? Second of all, was he born blind? Third, how did it happen that he was able to gain his sight? They answered the first two questions. They said yes he is our son. Yes he was born blind. The third one we don’t want to answer. As Chris mentioned last week, the reason they didn’t want to answer was because if they were to imply that he was the messiah, he could get kicked out of the synagogue out of the community there. They said you need to go back and ask the man because he is of age. So they go back and ask this man. They say give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner. This is where the man voices that famous line that says “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see.” This is where we pick up the story. We will actually pick it up in verse 26. Reading from the New International Version. If you want to follow along in the red pew Bibles it is about page 1062 or so. Reading from John 9:26. (Scripture read here.)
We see here the Pharisees are not satisfied with his answer so they drill him again. How could this happen? How could your eyes be open? The formerly blind man is getting frustrated about this. He says I have told you before. Why do you want to know? Is it because you want to be his disciples also? In other words, do you want to sit at his feet as students? They didn’t like that at all. That is when they started hurling the insults at him. They said we are disciples of no one but the prophet Moses and we know God spoke through Moses but as far as this fellow, we don’t even know where he came from. That is when the formerly blind man takes the position of the future. This is an uneducated, blind beggar is now about to turn the tables and teach the Pharisees. First of all, he says “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he listens to men who do the will of God.” He is reminding them of something probably they have told him before. Maybe something that came out of the book of Psalms when King David said “If I had cherished sin in my heart, you would not listen to me.” So he is kind of reminding the teachers of what they taught him. Then he goes on to say that he only listens to a godly man who does his will. Then he goes on to say “Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” This would have really upset them. What is amazing here is you have an uneducated, formerly blind man, a beggar who is instructing these men on the very thing that Jesus had been trying to tell them for the past nine chapters. He is sent from God and he could do nothing apart from God. This man was giving them a theology lesson. A thing that had been revealed to this man by Jesus. By God directly had revealed to him that this man, Jesus, who healed his eyes, was from God or else he could do nothing.
As we know, this got them really upset and they decided to throw him out violently. They probably picked him up and threw him out of the synagogue. They excommunicated him. We pick up the story further on in verse 35. (John 9:35-41 read here.) So they throw this guy out of the synagogue. They excommunicate him from the community of faith. Jesus searches him out and finds him. You may recall in the story several chapters ago about the man who was paralyzed. When he went to the temple, Jesus sought him out too. Jesus seeks this man out. When he finds him he doesn’t comfort him and say how is it going. How did it go with the Pharisees? He says do you believe in the Son of Man? A little refresher. Son of Man is a term. It is a self-designation of Jesus. It carries a lot of weight to it. We don’t know exactly the meaning of it, but basically it implies his origin. You may recall back in chapter 3 or so where Jesus says only the Son of Man can descend from heaven or ascend into heaven. It speaks of his heavenly origin. It also speaks of his authority. It said that the Son of Man is only the one that could judge rightly and only the one that could give life. It also speaks of his ultimate mission. The Son of Man must be lifted up, placed on the cross for the sins of all mankind. There were deep theological implications of this. The man wanted to know. He says where is he sir that I might be able to believe in him? “Jesus said, ‘You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking to you.’ Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshipped him.” When we think of worship, we think sometimes of this setting here. We think of coming in and getting a bulletin. Being welcomed. Moments of hospitality. Maybe a baby dedication or two. A sermon, some songs, maybe an offering, communion, some cookies, and then we go home. That is our worship experience. This man was experiencing something beyond that. This man probably dropped down to his knees and face and worshipped God. That word worship is actually, especially in the early part of the Bible, limited to somebody who was considered divine could only be worshipped. That man was saying basically he no longer saw him as a man. He no longer saw him as a prophet. He no longer saw him as somebody sent from God. He saw him as God. He saw him as Lord. Because of that he worshipped him. Jesus is standing around there and knows that the Pharisees are listening. He goes on to say “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” These Pharisees are thinking so what are you saying? I am blind too? Is that what you are saying? Jesus goes on to say “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” What he is saying is if you were spiritually blind like this man and could admit it and sought me out like this man had, then you would be free from the guilt. But yet because you claim to have direct revelation from God, you claim to have this direct connection from God, yet you trust in yourselves, then your sin remains because you have blinded yourself to the works of God. So your guilt remains. That is really the end of that entire section. That is how chapter 9 ends up. The story of the blind man.
When we think about implications, we have talked about a lot of them the last few weeks; I want to sum it up with a few more. The first one being when you decide to follow Jesus, life can be messy. When you decide to follow Jesus, you may not get physical mud in your eyes, but I guarantee if you are truly following Jesus, you will probably get some mud thrown your way. Often just like this man, the only thing you are guilty of is a changed life. That is all you are ultimately guilty of. That is the only thing they could pin on that man was the fact that he was a changed life. He was guilty of nothing other than he was this way and now he is this way. When I talk about a changed life it could be related to just becoming a Christian and you decide to give up some things. This is the way I was and this is the way I am and your friends don’t like that. They don’t appreciate it. They want the old person back. It could be that you formerly were a religious person. Maybe you were a regular attender at a church, but you are moving from that idea of religion to relationship. In other words, you are moving from the idea of a Sunday morning only worship to a real life relationship with the living God. People don’t like that because what you are doing is shining the light of Christ on them. When you are shining the light of Christ on them, they don’t understand that. John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” When the darkness does not understand it, he slings mud at it. That is what the darkness does. So that can be expected. The interesting thing about this is Jesus knew all along that this man’s life would be affected. There would be mudslinging at him but yet he let him go into this den of wolves. He allowed him to do that. It is the same thing with the man who had been paralyzed for 38 years. Remember he was healed on the Sabbath. Immediately the Pharisees came to him and confronted him about this healing on the Sabbath. The difference being that the man who was paralyzed for 38 years turned around and snitched on Jesus. Remember Jesus said stop sinning or something worse is going to happen to you. He confronted him with sin after the healing. This man found himself defending Jesus. This man was the object of mud being thrown at him. The reality is we can expect this. We should expect this. We know when we become a Christian or begin follow Jesus that we are going to face trials of many kind. I guarantee if you try sharing your faith out in the community or your workplace or your home, you are going to get some mud thrown at you. You are going to face those trials. Those trials are not without a reason. The idea is that it would develop perseverance. The perseverance must do its job in order that you may become mature. This is actually what James says in the book of James. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Not just from sharing your faith. You are facing trials because you are going through a job change. You are facing trials because you have some health issues going on. You are facing trials because you have some issues going on at school. You are facing trials of many kinds. He says that you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work in order that you might be mature. You don’t become a Christian to make your life better. It can get a lot worse initially. You will face trials. Once again, God is trying to refine you. Trying to make you better. When you decide to follow Jesus, life can get a little bit messy.
The second thing is when you decide to follow Jesus, your eyes may be opened a little bit. You remember the man, he was healed physically but to be honest that wasn’t much of the story. The real story was that the man had gotten healed spiritually. He went from seeing Jesus as a mere mortal man to seeing Jesus as a prophet, the mouthpiece of God, to seeing Jesus as divine and sent by God to seeing Jesus as God, as Lord. Really it is a picture of our spiritual journey. Our spiritual journey is the gradual opening up of our eyes that brings us into a more intimate and deep relationship and understanding of the Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Of coming into a more intimate relationship so you, like the blind man, can stand up and say I was blind in this area but now I see. My eyes have been opened. Keep in mind when I say revelation, I am not talking about information. Information doesn’t lead to transformation. Only revelation will lead to transformation. Only revelation will lead to a changed life. The church doesn’t need more information. The church needs more revelation if the church is to change. Once again, I am not talking about information. Information often comes through the physical eyes. We read books. We sit in classes. We get all this information. The problem is that information settles on our brain. We end up with all these years of information that really doesn’t do much. It is like all the schooling we have. It just kind of sits there and turns to mush. Revelation is different. Revelation is not reading with our physical eyes or seeing with our physical eyes. It is seeing with the eyes of our heart. It is opening the eyes of our heart that we truly may be enlightened to who God is and who we are in his presence. It really was the prayer that the apostle Paul prayed to the Ephesians church when he wrote “I also pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you; the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us to believe.” The people needed to understand that because they were going under intense persecution. They were dying daily. They were facing all sorts of obstacles. They were facing all sorts of trials. They needed to see that hope. They needed a fresh revelation of God. They needed to see him in order that they could continue on. That they could persevere. Revelation is not simply revelation like information. It is basically revelation that has to be acted on. When God gives you a revelation, when he places a nugget of truth, something that you know that you have never had before, a clear nugget of truth about God or about yourself, you can’t sit on it. If you sit on it, it is going to die. It is going to go away. It is like the story of the sower. The man sowed the seed on the rocky ground and it withered up. That is what we are talking about here. You have to take that information and allow it to be nurtured and allow it to grow because if it doesn’t grow, it dies. It turns to mush. Kind of like the information does. We have a lot of people that have a lot of information but they haven’t taken that information. They haven’t taken that revelation and they haven’t acted on that. If you don’t act on it, if you go long enough without acting on it, God says you know what, even what you have will be taken away from you. Even the good stuff I have given, I am going to remove that stuff. In other words, I am going to put the blinder on so that you will get no more revelation from God. You will be like those Pharisees and I am going to cut you off because you haven’t done anything with the revelation, with the truth that I have given you. When those blinders are closed, there is no way for transformation to happen.
You say how do I get this revelation? How do I get these nuggets of truth? The reality is you can get them anywhere. You can get them through what we would call the spiritual disciplines which is Bible reading, prayer, solitude, spending time in your small groups. Yes you can get it there. You can get information and you can get revelation. You can also get it just walking along the street talking to somebody. You can get it by looking at God’s creation. You can get it riding on the bus talking to somebody. You can get it from watching a TV show or even a movie. One of the biggest revelations I got was about the importance of Bible study and the importance of Bible memorization was from a secular movie. I won’t even tell you the name of it but it was from a secular movie that impressed on me the importance of Bible memorization. You can get revelation anywhere. Once again, you have to act on it. The key thing is you have to be open to that revelation. The reason the man got so much revelation was because he was seeking after it. He was taking the revelation that was given to him and he was acting on it. He wanted more information. So when Jesus said do you believe in the Son of Man? He said who is he sir that I might believe. Tell me. Tell me that I might believe in him. Tell me so that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened. Tell me that my faith may be expanded. I want to know. So Jesus gave it to him. He says you see him. He is the one that is speaking to you right now. The man’s eyes were open. He said how can I know that I have really received it? It is easy. It is one word. Worship. It goes back to that original passage. It says “’You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking to you.’ Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshipped him.” The natural result of a revelation from God, the natural result of belief in God is worship. If you don’t have a natural response of worship to God and you say you believe, you probably didn’t believe. The natural response of an unveiling of Jesus Christ in your mind, in your heart is to worship him. There is a one-on-one correlation between belief and worship. The more you believe, the more you worship. That is the way it goes. Once again, we are not talking simply about the Sunday morning worship. We are talking about an awe and a reverence. Really what we are talking about is what God designed us to be from the very beginning. I have said before that the Bible is one long story of worship. It is a story of man’s fall. What did he fall away from? He fell away from the fact that he was created in the image of God, created to live under submission to God, created to have authority over creation while under submission while under worship to God. Yet we decided in our own way to walk away from that worship. The whole Bible is one more story of coming back to worship. What we are doing today, what we do every Sunday is worship practice. That is all we are doing. We are practicing our worship. He continues to reveal himself to us. He does it through a variety of ways. He does it through what we call general revelation which happens through the created order. You cannot look at the creation out there and not see God. He gives that creation so that no man is without excuse. No man can make some sort of excuse and say I didn’t know about God. You cannot look at creation and not see God. Then he continued on with that revelation. The revelation came through a more specific revelation through Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us. That is why we come together for Christmastime because Emmanuel came to us. Then he gives even more specific revelation through the Word of God. We call it the Bible. We had that revelation and the natural result is worship. Once again, it is not a Sunday morning thing. It is more than that. It is a lifestyle thing. We don’t know what happened to the man in the story but we can pretty much assume that the man didn’t stop there. He tried to take what he was learning, he tried to take that worship, and he tried to actually apply it to his life in his workplace, his home, and all those places.
That is what Paul talks about in the book of Romans in chapter 12 about your whole life being one sacrifice of worship. He writes in Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” Worship does not stop here. Worship is a lifestyle. Worship is not a religion. Worship is a lifestyle so if you don’t find yourself being prompted because of your relationship, because of your belief in Jesus Christ, if you don’t find yourself being prompted to change in the community, to affect your community, to affect your home, to affect your life, to live according to his commands, you have to question whether you are even a Christian. Belief and worship go hand in hand. Not just here. Not just Sunday. But I know that there are people that struggle with worship even on Sunday. On any given Sunday we all can feel a little bit dry. We have our minds distracted. We are thinking about the babies running around. I am distracted half the time up here. It is tough. Try preaching when you have 12,000 kids running around the place. It is hard. But we are all distracted at one time or another. It is tough. If you are continually distracted, if you can never find yourself getting into worship either here or home or at the workplace or wherever, you need to ask God for a fresh revelation. You need to say God I need something fresh in my life because I am missing it. I find myself not being drawn to worship. In fact, I find myself being drawn backwards. You need to ask him for that fresh revelation of God. In order to do that though you have to open your heart. You have to allow those nuggets of truth to find their way into the recess of your heart and begin to grow. As you get that, you begin to believe. It becomes part of your faith. You begin to allow that to grow and you begin to have this belief in it. You don’t just talk about it. It is not something that you just know. It is something that you believe from your heart.
I remember my first wife, Dana, when she got cancer, the first thing she said was “I know what I believe but do I believe what I know?” In other words, I have a lot of Bible learning behind me. She was a teacher of women and she was a Bible scholar. She said I know what I believe. I have all this stuff. You all know what you believe. But the big question is do you believe what you know? Do you believe it enough that you are going to act on it. Do you believe you are going to act on it to develop that perseverance and that perseverance is going to develop character and it is going to grow you up in maturity. That is what you have to ask yourself. Do you believe it enough to act on it. Most of all, when you believe on it, you confirm that. You confirm it by a desire in you not only to worship on Sunday morning or even in the quietness of your own home but to take it out in the community and let your lifestyle be one of worship. Let us pray.
