March 12, 2000 John 9
¡§Blind man sees!¡¨
INTRODUCTION
I want you to do something for me. I want you to close your eyes. Now, imagine yourself going about your daily activities this way. The alarm goes off tomorrow morning, but your sudden blindness does not prevent you from being able to smack the snooze button. You¡¦ve been doing that in the dark for as long as you can remember. You go to the dresser or the closet to pick out your clothes for the day, but since you can¡¦t see, you can¡¦t tell the color of the clothes you picked out. For all you know, you may be wearing two different colors of socks or an orange scarf with a red blouse. I¡¦ve seen some people who looked like they couldn¡¦t see when they got dressed in the morning. As your vacuuming that afternoon, you hear a screech and a ¡§thwooop¡¨, and you start to wonder ¡§Did I just vacuum up the cat?¡¨ At dinner that night, the kids take one bite of the meal that you prepared and notice that it tastes a little funny. ¡§Mom, are you sure that can was tuna and not cat food?¡¨ Now imagine yourself trying to do your job without being able to see. [pharmacist, traveling salesman behind the wheel, teacher] Now open your eyes. Some of you may need to punch your neighbor in the shoulder to wake him up. A seeing person can¡¦t fully understand what it would be like to be blind, and a blind person who has always been blind can¡¦t fully imagine what it would be like to be able to see.
In doing this, I in no way intended to poke fun at people who are blind. But I wanted you, for just a minute, to imagine what your life would be like if you had never been able to see and were suddenly granted the miracle of sight. That is exactly what happened in the life of a man that John tells us about in John chapter 9.
There¡¦s a reason that we have come to this passage of Scripture today. I believe that there are blind people in this church today. No, I don¡¦t mean that you can¡¦t see the sunshine coming through these windows, or that you couldn¡¦t see the words in the hymnal as we sang the songs this morning. But there are other things that you cannot see. Some of you cannot see how much God loves you. Some of you cannot see the extent of your sin that makes you so unworthy of that love. Some of you cannot see a way out of a situation that you have gotten yourself into. Some of you cannot see any hope for tomorrow. Some of you have to make some decisions about your future, and you cannot see what you are supposed to do next. Right now, you¡¦re stumbling along, and you¡¦re getting all bruised up because of all the things and people that you¡¦re bumping into along the way.
Do you believe that Jesus can take away your blindness? Do you want Jesus to take away your blindness? Let¡¦s take a look at how it happened in the man that Jesus encountered that day. By the time that we get done this morning, my goal is that you, like him, will be able to say, ¡§I once was blind, but now, I can see!¡¨
1. Some people are blind to their own blindness - ¡§blind from birth¡¨
A birth is normally such a wonderful experience in the life of a family. Expectant parents anticipate that day and all the joy that will come along with it. After the labor pains are over, and the dad has cut the umbilical cord, and mother holds the baby for the first time, all the months of nausea and the aching back and sore feat seem so small in comparison to the joy that they now feel as they hold their child. But this time, something had gone wrong. Mom was the first to notice that there was a problem. She went to her husband and voiced her fears. ¡§Honey, have you noticed that Johnny just has that blank stare when he looks at you? When I walk into the room and stand over him, he doesn¡¦t even react to my presence until I say something. Is there something wrong?¡¨ Dad just tells her that she¡¦s an over-protective mother with her first child. There¡¦s nothing wrong. This was the child that they had prayed for. How could there be anything wrong? And yet, in the back of his mind, there was something gnawing at him, things that he had noticed. He kept telling himself that things would get better. But they didn¡¦t. Finally, there was no way to deny it. Their son was blind.
There were no social programs in those days to give financial aid to the family or to give job-training to the boy. The support group that most people would have drawn upon during those days, other family members and friends, suddenly seemed very distant. The usual joy that friends and neighbors would have expressed about an addition to the family was replaced with hushed whispers and conversations that abruptly ended whenever parent and child walked into the room. At the very time that they desperately needed the love and support of their community, the community walked away and deserted them. They didn¡¦t mean to be so distant, but they really didn¡¦t know how to help. They were afraid that they might say the wrong thing. They couldn¡¦t give the child his eyesight, so what was there that they could do? They couldn¡¦t make the hurt go away. Every time that they saw the mother and child, they were reminded of their own helplessness. So rather than take a risk of looking like total idiots, they played it safe and kept to themselves. After all, wasn¡¦t there a chance that if they spent too much time around them that this family¡¦s bad luck might rub off on them? They had seen it happen before. One of their friends had tried to help his brother who had lost his job working in the fields, and before you knew it, their friend had lost his job too. Tragedy is like a disease, they thought. If you get too close, then you can catch it too. So they were going to stay as far away from it as possible. But the most compelling reason of all for them to stay away was because there must be sin in the family. Either the parents had done something really awful, and they were now reaping the consequences, or the son, even before he was born, had done something to deserve God¡¦s wrath. God¡¦s judgment was on this family. It was obvious. If you got too close, then you might be caught in the lightning bolt of God¡¦s anger, or you might be stained by the sin. So they stayed away.
Most of us have probably been there in one of two ways. You¡¦ve gone through some type of heartache in your life. You¡¦ve lost something. It was someone that you loved, or it was your job, or it was your childhood, or it was a dream, or maybe it was your marriage. You needed support more then than ever. But the people who should have supported you were suddenly no where around. You felt so alone. There was no "light at the end of the tunnel¡¨. There was only darkness.
Then again, you might be the neighbor. You saw someone who was hurting. But you didn¡¦t know what to say, so you said nothing. You were afraid that if you got involved in their pain, it might rub off on you. You thought that their pain was God¡¦s judgment on them, so you should just leave them alone to feel the whole weight of it all. Who were you to alleviate pain that God was bringing on them? So you left the hurting people to hurt all alone just as the neighbors did to this family and their son.
The boy grew into a man. His blindness prevented him from doing the things that seeing people took for granted. He couldn¡¦t understand their world, and they couldn¡¦t understand his. But he learned to cope. Never having seen, he didn¡¦t know what he was missing, so that helped to dull the pain of the blindness a little bit. But it didn¡¦t help to dull the pain of the accusations. He had never gotten over the way that people talked to him and his parents. They were so judgmental. Maybe he heard the question that Jesus¡¦ disciples asked of him on the day recorded in John 9.
2. Some people are blind to the cause for their blindness ¡V vs. 3
¡§Who sinned?¡¨ Every time he heard that question, it sent chills up his spine. ¡§Their blaming me for something that happened even before I was born!? How could it be my fault? And their attacking my parents! I love them so much! If I could see to punch their lights out, I would! How dare they say those things about my parents when they don¡¦t even know them.¡¨ But somebody had to be at fault, didn¡¦t they? And I must be at fault somehow because the bad thing has happened to me. Bad things like this just don¡¦t happen for no reason. Right? My marriage is or has broken up, so I must have been a bad wife. I got beat up by my dad, so I must have been a bad kid. I lost my job, so I must have been a bad employee. My kids have rebelled against God and are in trouble with the law, so I must have been a bad parent.
Everything that happens in our lives has a reason behind it. There are at least 4 reasons for the things that happen to us. They are sin, Satan, sanctification, and to show. Repeat those after me ¡V sin, Satan, sanctification and to show. [I don¡¦t usually like to use big words like sanctification, but it was the only ¡§s¡¨ word that I could think of]
ƒá Sin ¡V I had a friend in college that whenever he got into a dispute with another friend, or there was something painful going on in his life, the first thing that he would do was to get down on his knees and ask the Lord to search his heart to see if there was sin that was causing this painful situation. There are problems that you go through in your life that are created by the sinful actions that you involve yourself in. When a woman gets pregnant by a man that she is not married to, that is a result of sin. (Gal 6:7-8a NIV) Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; . . . If you choose to live a life of sin, then you will have to deal with the painful consequences of that sin. In this category, I would also include bad choices. Not all bad choices are sinful, but all sins are bad choices. If I choose to go out here and buy a car that costs $40,000 with an interest rate of 11% for a loan duration of 8 years, I would consider that to be a pretty bad choice. It may or may not be sinful depending on what my motivation was for buying that vehicle. But regardless, I will be reaping the consequences of that decision for at least 8 years if not longer. Sometimes the pain that we face is a result of our own actions. That¡¦s why the Psalmist said in (Psa 139:23-24 KJV) Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. The first thing that I need to do when there is pain in my life that I don¡¦t understand is to search my own heart and life to discover whether or not I have caused my pain through my sin or my own bad choices. If there is sin, then Jesus offers forgiveness. If I have made bad choices, then I can do as Paul did and leave the past behind, learn from my mistakes and find wisdom from God to not repeat the same mistakes.
ƒá Satan ¡V Earlier this morning, in our Sunday School hour, we talked about the fact that Satan is the enemy of Jesus Christ. Since we as Christians have declared our allegiance to Jesus, that makes Satan our enemy too. Satan hates you and me, and he is going to do everything he can to weaken us in our faith and make us miserable. I believe with all my heart that there is a spiritual battle that takes place every day all around us. (Eph 6:12 KJV) For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ask yourself, ¡§This thing that I¡¦m going through ¡V is it an attack from Satan? Are Satan and his forces using it to try and make me ineffective in my walk with Christ and cause me to stumble?¡¨ If the answer is yes, then you need to make sure that you have on the armor of God spoken of in Eph 6:13ff. The Bible says in James 4:7b ¡§Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.¡¨
ƒá Sanctification ¡V Sanctification is the process that we go through in life that makes us more and more like Jesus. It is a purifying process. One of our most favorite verses is (Rom 8:28-29 NIV) And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son . . . The things that we go through in life, good and bad, will allow God to break us, melt us, mold us and shape us into that beautiful artwork that He originally intended for us to be. Sometimes that can only happen through pain. (Prov 17:3 NIV) The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart. Just as gold is purified through fire, so we must be purified through trials that God allows into our lives.
ƒá To Show ¡V There are times that God brings pain into our lives to show us and the world that He is the one who is all-powerful, worthy of all the praise and glory, and that we are totally dependent on Him. Do you remember the story of Job? In one day, Job lost all his money, all ten of his kids, all of his possessions, all of his friends, and the support of his wife. On the very next day, he lost his health. His suffering fits into a few categories here. The attacker that brought about his suffering was Satan. God used the attack to purify Job and show him some areas of his life that needed some cleaning. But the original cause of the attack was that God wanted to show Satan that there were people who loved Him so much and were so committed to Him that they would continue to serve Him even when God took His hand of protection away from them. Satan saw, and God received glory. In Paul¡¦s life, God brought some type of physical problem on him, and asked the Lord to take it away. God refused, telling him that God¡¦s grace was sufficient for him. God gave Paul this pain to show him that no matter how far he came in his spirituality and no matter how much he was able to accomplish for God, he was always totally dependent on God¡¦s grace and power to successfully life the Christian life. Sometimes God brings pain to show us our weakness without Him and to show the world His glory.
That was the case in the life of the blind man that Jesus encountered that day. Look at the last part of verse 3 [read it]. Had he not been born blind, then there would have been no opportunity for Jesus to work a miracle in his life, and there would have been no display of God¡¦s power. How do you respond to a need, a hurt, a pain in your life? Can I make a suggestion. Respond to it with joy, because a need is an opportunity for God to work a miracle. A need is an opportunity for God to show His power in your life and in His world.
3. Some people are blind to the solution for the blindness ¡V vs. 4-7
Maybe that man overheard the short conversation between Jesus and His disciples. He heard the stinging accusation of the disciples and he heard some other words of Jesus that he didn¡¦t fully understand, and then he heard someone spit on the ground. That was nothing new. People often spit at him for his attempts to beg money off of them. But then he felt something. He felt Jesus touching him and smearing mud all over his eyes. After Jesus finished, He told the man to go wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam. As I thought about this passage, I began to wonder why the man obeyed Jesus. There is no record in the text that Jesus promised the man that if he allowed Jesus to put mud on his eyes and go wash, that he would receive his sight. For him to journey to the pool would mean great risk. Jesus and this man were probably near the temple inside the walls of Jerusalem. The Pool of Siloam is outside the walls. It would have been a relatively long journey for the man. The man was usually very careful and slow in his journeys, but his excitement about the possibility of seeing would have caused him to move a little faster than was safe for him. He did not know what he might face along the journey. There were bandits outside the wall. People would see him along the way and laugh at him. ¡§Ha, ha! Look at the blind man. Somebody is making fun of him by putting mud on his eyes! What a joke!¡¨ But he didn¡¦t let them stop him. He got a lot of bumps and bruises along the way, but he made it to the pool of Siloam. What made him go? I think the thing that made him go and endure all the risks and all the ridicule was the gently loving touch of Jesus. No one had touched him with such love and kindness in so very long. They had all avoided him. But Jesus touched him. Somewhere deep inside him, he knew that anyone who could look past what others saw and love him enough to touch him that way could only have good in store for him. Look at what happened at the end of verse 7. [Read it].
If you were to go back and examine all the healings that Jesus did in the Scriptures, you would discover some interesting facts. One is that in almost every instance, there was physical touch between Jesus and the person who needed healing. Jesus wanted to get intimately involved in the lives and the pain of the persons that He loved. A second thing that you would discover is that Jesus sometimes healed immediately, and other times, He healed through a process. Finally, in every case, faith in Jesus resulting in action was always necessary before healing could come. Jesus could have healed this man¡¦s eyes immediately, but He put mud on them and told him to go wash. Why? Because the going and the washing was an evidence of the faith that the man had in Jesus.
In our pain, in our blinding pain, we want healing from the hurt, and we want it now. We¡¦ve endured the pain long enough. But Jesus comes to us and says, ¡§I¡¦m sorry. I can¡¦t heal you yet. I can¡¦t take away the blindness yet. You haven¡¦t done what I told you to do yet. Your faith isn¡¦t strong enough to cause you to obey me.¡¨ ¡§But Lord, what have you told me to do that I¡¦m not doing?¡¨ Let¡¦s start with these:
(Exo 20:1-3 NIV) And God spoke all these words: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me. I can¡¦t even allow my own comfort to be my God. Have I been serving God faithfully even in the middle of my pain?
(Mat 5:44 NIV) But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Do you love those who have created your pain? Have you prayed for them?
(Rom 12:19-20 NIV) Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. Do you seek the destruction of your pain-giver, or do you actively work toward their comfort?
(Phil 4:4 NIV) Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! What is your attitude toward the Lord right now?
(1 Th 5:18 NIV) give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Have you thanked the Lord for the situation that you are going through and are you allowing your pain to make you better instead of letting it make you bitter?
Be faithful to God when He has allowed so much pain in my life? You¡¦ve got to be crazy. Pray for the guy who fired me? You¡¦re nuts! Reach out to the man who ruined our marriage when she leaves him too? No way! I¡¦m going to be rubbing it in his face. Rejoice that I don¡¦t have the money to pay the rent? Give thanks that my child is facing surgery that might end his life? Those all sound ridiculous don¡¦t they? But they are all tests of the amount of faith that we have in Jesus Christ. We have faith that He can heal us. That¡¦s great. But do we have enough faith to do what He requires us to do? ¡§But I don¡¦t want to do anything! I just want to sit here and let you heal me!¡¨ It doesn¡¦t work that way.
Jesus placed a requirement on the blind man. He told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. Couldn¡¦t he have made it a little easier? There were other places that he could have washed that were closer by. The level of difficulty showed the level of faith. But look at the result again. Vs. 7b ¡§. . . so the man went and washed, and came home seeing.¡¨ He did what Jesus told him to do, and he was healed. Some of you haven¡¦t received healing yet because you haven¡¦t obeyed, and you haven¡¦t been washed.
4. Some people are blind to the changes that will take place when they can really see ¡V vs. 8ff
Everything changed in his life when this man received his sight.
ƒá People responded differently to him ¡V his neighbors responded with skepticism and surprise (vs. 8-12). ¡§Is this the guy who grew up near us and used to sit and beg? Naw, it can¡¦t be him!¡¨ The Pharisees responded with disbelief and prejudice (vs. 13-34) ¡§Jesus couldn¡¦t have healed you. He¡¦s s sinner. God doesn¡¦t listen to sinners.¡¨ His parents responded with fear (vs. 20-23) ¡§If we admit that Jesus healed him, we¡¦ll be branded as radicals.¡¨ Whatever their belief about what happened, everyone wanted to be around him now. He was the center of attention because of the miracle God did.
ƒá He responded differently to people ¡V he wasn¡¦t the begging blind man on the side of the road anymore. Now, he was a bold, blatant witness. [read verses 25-34] Jesus had not only healed his eyes. He had healed his sense of worthiness in the eyes of God.
ƒá He responded differently to life ¡V new joys and adventures awaited him. But there were also new responsibilities. He was going to have to get a job. He couldn¡¦t sit on the side of the temple and beg anymore. People might give to a blind man, but they wouldn¡¦t give to one who was perfectly able to work. The release from his blindness didn¡¦t mean a painless, carefree life. But it meant that God loved Him, and if God could empower Him to overcome his greatest pain, then he could trust God with all the other pains that would come too.
ƒá He responded differently to Jesus ¡V later on that day, or maybe even several days later, Jesus and the man had another encounter. Look at it in verse 35 [read verses 35-38] A seeing man responds to Jesus differently than a blind man does. A seeing man responds with worship and with sacrificial obedience.
When a blind man receives his sight, everything changes. Nothing remains the same.
CONCLUSION
I want everyone to bow your heads and close your eyes. Most of you in this room have accepted Jesus Christ as your savior. You have had your eyes opened to the fact that you are a sinner, that Jesus died to pay for your sin, and that without accepting that payment, you would die and spend eternity in hell. You¡¦ve trusted your eternal soul to Jesus. But have you opened your eyes to the fact that you can trust Jesus with your everyday life? Have you trusted Him for today? Have you entrusted your finances to Him? Have you entrusted your job to Him? Have you entrusted your marriage to Him? Have you entrusted your kids to Him? Or are you still blind to the fact that He is the only one that can heal your pain in all those areas? In order to receive healing, you have to be obedient. Is it worth it to you?
In a moment, the music is going to begin to play, and I¡¦m going to give you an opportunity to get rid of your blindness and allow Jesus to do the seeing for you. We sang earlier ¡§open my eyes, Lord¡¨. Do you really want Him to? If He does, He might show you some sin that needs confessing or some bad choices that need correcting. You will have to be willing to be thankful for your situation and commit to following Him with all your heart even when the pain is still with you. If you want healing and are willing to be obedient, then when we begin to sing, you come and kneel at this altar and let the Lord remove the mud from your eyes and wash you so that you too can go home seeing.
For some of you, the spiritual blindness has not yet been removed. You are still blinded to the fact that you need Jesus as your savior. The job of the Holy Spirit is to convict of your sin, to cause you to see yourself the way God sees you. Satan wants to keep you blinded. He wants to keep you begging for scraps, when the Father wants to give you an abundant supply. If you want to come and meet the Light of the world, Jesus, then you come to me. I¡¦ll take God¡¦s Word, the lamp unto my feet, and the light unto my path, and I¡¦ll show you how Jesus can touch and change your life.
