Spiritual Blindness

Man, if you have a Bible, we’re going to be in John Chapter 9. You could turn there with me. This morning, we’re going to take a look at the whole of that great chapter. It’s about 41 verses long, so it’s a lot. Because of its length, we aren’t going to take any deep dives into any of the specific details of this great account. Instead, what we’re going to do is really focus on one theme as we take a 10,000-foot view of Jesus healing a blind man. And also as he’s healing a blind man, you’re going to see that he exposes blindness in people who can actually see. Blindness is the subject of today’s text, and it’s also ubiquitous in the theme seems of the Bible. Blindness is used in the scriptures to express what this idea is, is if you’re blind, you’re ignorant of divine things. The term spiritual blindness is used as a figure of speech to define a person’s hopeless condition and sinful nature. People in the Bible are called blind because they, one, willfully reject God’s revelation. Two, because they have an inability to see the truth of the Gospels.

And then three, that they reject the plans and the purposes of God himself. In fact, blindness is how Israel is described and how their Apostasy is described in Deuteronomy 29. The Bible says that they are blind. Dim-eyed is what Isaiah calls the same Israelites in Isaiah 6, verse 10. Jesus charges the Pharisees with their unbelief and he says, You are blind guides for the blind. And according to Paul, it is Satan who blinds the eyes of the world so that they will not believe. Blindness is a pretty common theme in the Bible, so it’s no surprise that the Bible uses it as an object lesson often to rather the Bible heals blind people as an object lesson to describe what it’s like. Because an inability to see physically is a perfect parallel to those who cannot see spiritual realities. And so, again, it’s no coincidence that Jesus, as he comes on the scene, he heals a lot of blind people. We’ve already read a couple of these accounts, but Jesus heals two blind men in Galilee in Matthew Chapter 9. Jesus heals a blind man in Bethesda in Mark Chapter 8. There’s a blind beggar named Bartimaeus and his friend in Gerico, they heal them.

That’s found in all three synoptic Gospels. In fact, it was Jesus’s ability to heal the blind that was used as proof to John the Baptist that he was the Messiah. Maybe the most famous account of Jesus healing the blind is the one we’re going to read this morning in John Chapter 9, as Jesus heals a man born blind in Jerusalem. Again, the subject here is blindness, but I’d also like for us to notice that the text is full of irony. Blindness is at issue, but what unfolds is so interesting because the person who is actually blind in the story is not the blind one. The blind in the story are those who can physically see. They are truly blind. We’re going to look at this text together. We’ll pull out some parallels to our own lives, and then hopefully by the end of it, I’ll leave you with some ideas and thoughts about ways to consider your own blindness, whether or not you can see, or whether or not you have been blinded by the rulers of this dark world. John 9 is where we’re going to be. We’re going to start in verse 1.

As they went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? In our story, we have just left the scene of Jesus’s rebuke of the Pharisees at the festival of Tabernacles in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. Jesus and the disciples are now traveling along the road. They’re getting out of Dodge and they’re walking in Jerusalem. As they’re walking, Jesus is with his 12 best friends and they’re traveling along the dusty roads of Israel and they see a man who is blind. He’s begging on the side of the road. Somehow, the disciples know that he was born blind. Maybe they could tell by his appearance, maybe he’s a famous figure in the city, we don’t really know. But either way, as they pass by, they use him as a springboard for a theological question. And what’s the theological question? Why is this guy blind? I’ll ask it this way because it’s a little more relevant to us. Why do bad things happen to people? That’s the question, why do bad things happen to people?

Why is this guy blind? Who did wrong to create the issue in this man’s life? Who sinned? Who messed up? Was it this man or was it his parents? It’s a reasonable question. It’s a question that all of us have asked. You asked the question, Lord, why is this happening to me? You’ve ever been so sick or so ill or so physically distraught that you’re like, Man, what is happening to me? What did I do that produced this in my own life? This is a question that many of us have prayed for. I’d imagine if you were with Jesus, you might ask the same question. If you were with the creator of the universe and you could ask him one thing, maybe some of you would ask him, Hey, why do bad things happen to people? It would be a question that’s normal. In fact, the notion of the punishment of children for the sins of their parents is not outside of biblical orthodoxy. Exodus 20, and Deuteronomy 5 actually allude to this idea. That’s their question. Why is this guy like this? Why did this terrible thing happen to this man? And Jesus replies, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus said.

He begins by answering the question and saying this, It’s not really about sin. Sin is not the issue here. Just so we’re clear, Jesus is not saying this man has never sinned, and he’s not saying the parents have never sinned. That would go against the rest of the biblical narrative. But what he’s saying is this is actually not a question of sin. He uses this to pivot the discussion in a new direction and to pivot the discussion to talking about human ailments, human sorrows, and human suffering, stuff that we all faced. Here’s the pivot point. This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. See the disciples, when they saw the blind man, they looked at him very differently than when Jesus looked at the blind man. The disciples saw the blind man and immediately put him in the category of the needy. They made him inferior because of his physical disabilities. They think, Hey, who did wrong that made this man so broken? Who messed up that made him so battered? They think, Oh, a poor man with all those physical disabilities. But when Jesus saw the man, he doesn’t see the man for his blindness.

The tragedy is not that he is blind. Instead, Jesus says, Look, this is an opportunity for God to use this man’s life. His disciples asked about the causes of the blindness, and Jesus turns around the question and says, in effect, his brokenness is an opportunity for God to work. His blindness is an opportunity for God to display his works in this man’s life. Look, and I would say that the implications of this for your life are quite profound. If you have a disability, if you have an ailment, if you’ve got some messes in your life, that’s not something that proves that God is against you. That’s not something that proves that God is in judgment towards you. It’s not proof of the case that you have been somehow put in an inferior category. See, to Jesus, the man’s blindness was in fact an opportunity for God to show off his mighty powers. See, no matter what your mess is and what your pains are, the causes of that mess are actually less important than what God can do with it. Why am I sick is not an important question. Why am I hurt is not an important question.

The important statement is this is happening so that the glory of God might be displayed in my life. This is the attitude of a healthy man or woman when it comes to hardship and sorrow. It reminds me so much of the verse in Romans 8, verse 28, And we know this, that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. See, if you love God and you honor God, even in your struggles, if you hold fast to Jesus as your rock and your redeemer and your salvation, Gods purposes for your sorrows and for your pains and for your physical ailments and for your mental ailments will be a good purpose. But here’s a little caveat. This will make no sense. This will not be helpful if God himself is not your treasure or if his purposes are not what you desire more than anything in your life. If you value your physical life more than your spiritual life, this is not a helpful idea. Look, when we say God works for the good of those who love him, we have to assume that whatever God is about to do has a value that outweighs all the years of your physical pain.

Otherwise, this promise is good for nothing. By the way, the work of God isn’t just healing a broken body. It’s not about even the physical. God cares about the physical, certainly, but he also has what I call the butterfly effect of all your struggles. You don’t realize that the struggle you have today might actually save somebody 25 years from now. You don’t get it. You don’t understand it. But what you do if you’re a faithful Christian is you trust it. You trust it. I see this quality, man, this quality of trusting God in the midst of pain and sorrow. And some of the men and women right here in our church, I wish I could make a list of all the brothers and sisters who live like this, whose maybe their bodies are suffering, but they found the purposes of God in their sorrows. And they don’t try to explain it away. They beg God, certainly for healing, but at the end of the day, they know God is working for the good of their own lives. I think you guys are heroes to me and heroes to so many else here.

I literally started making a list of names and I was like, I don’t think I can do it all. But I want to tell you some of the names I came up with. Denice Janice, that woman’s a hero. Joe Sterns, that man is a hero. Dara Monocin, that woman is a hero. Clarelle De Charles, and Daniel Drittle, these people are heroes. Their physical bodies, and sometimes their mental capacities are they’re struggling, things are going on. But whatever, they live for the glory of their God. They don’t become bitter. They’re great examples to all of us. Let me just say this, if you’re disabled here, you’re not less than. You’re not less than. You’re somebody that God is going to use for an amazing purpose, either now or in the future to come. Amen. I was going to get emotional. I’m going to stop doing that. We’re three verses in, by the way. We have a long way to go. Let’s speed it up. Let’s speed it up. Verse 4, here we go. As it is the day, this is what Jesus says, we must do the work of him who sent me. We must do the work of him who sent me.

The night is coming. Do you feel that? Some of you feel that more than others of you feel that. If you’re 20 years old, you may not feel that. But if you’re 65 years old, you might feel like night is coming. When no one can work, while I’m in the world, I am the light of the world. You could do a whole sermon just on these two verses. But for now, here’s just a bit of encouragement for those of you who are legacy members of this church. People have been around for a long time. You, like Christ, will not always be here. I won’t always be here, but you get it. The night is coming. It’s coming for all of us. But here’s the encouragement. While you’re here, be like Jesus. Be the light, be the light of the world. Be the light of this church. Be the light of your family. Don’t let time fade your light. Don’t let physical struggle fade your light. Don’t let family issues fade your light. Don’t let retirement fade your light. Don’t let suffering fade your light. If you’re still here, you are as needed in this church today as you have ever been.

I mean that. If you’ve been around for a long time, don’t go, Oh, the young whipper snapper is going to take it on. We don’t know what we’re doing. We need you. And certainly, the night is coming. It’s coming for all of us, for some of you sooner than for others. But while you’re in this world, be the light of this church. Be the light of this community. We need you. The people clapping are the young people, I hope they are. Let’s get to the miracle. After saying this, man, just imagine the scene, right? Jesus is talking, he’s walking by the roadside. He sees this ma blind from birth. They say, Hey, who sinned? This man? Or his parents said He should be born blind. He goes, Looks, it wasn’t this man. It wasn’t whatever. It was for the glory of God. Night’s coming and I need to do the work. Then this happens. After saying this, he spits on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. Some of you are like, That’s gross. But there’s a reason and I’ll share it in a second.

Go, he told him, wash in the pool of shalom. This means sent. So the man went and washed and he came home seeing. Jesus bends down on the dusty road. He spits on the dusty ground and he forms mud. The mud is combined. It’s a little bit of dust and dirt and a little bit of saliva. He walks over to the man, puts the newly formed mud on the man’s eyes and he says, Go and wash. What else? Jesus says, We don’t know, but we know the man immediately obeys. He leaves and he washed and he goes over to a pool called Sent, and he washes his eyes. And as he does, the darkness fades. For the first time in this man’s whole life, he sees light. And all of a sudden he can see a little bit of the water and he can see his own hands. He’s never seen them before. And he can see the sun shining on his face and he looks back and he goes, I can see. And he goes home seeing. The story continues, but I want to just pause for a second and talk about mud.

Why mud? Two reasons. One is explicit in the text and the other one is implied. First, Jesus did this because it was against the Pharisees’ law. They had developed many applications to the Prohibition of Work on the Sabbath, and one of the prohibitions to work was kneading dough. The word for mud and clay is the same word as dough. Jesus is breaking the law against kneading dough by kneading mud. We’re going to see why this is important when we come back to it in a little bit. The second reason is I think more practical for you and me. It’s this, God uses normal things as a conduit for his wonderful work. Most of the wonders in the Old Testament and in the New Testament are done by normal things that God has put a little bit of his DNA in. You think about this story. I love this parable in Proverbs 21, verse 31, The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord. God is decisive in the victory, but he’s using earthly means. He doesn’t need the horse, but he likes to use the horse.

Just for a moment, ponder this in the bigger picture of life, what this means that God uses the physical world to do miraculous and marvelous things. We see this all the time. God uses food to sustain your life. He doesn’t have to. He could just breathe in you every single day. But instead, he uses food. He uses thousands of remedies to bring about human healing. He uses sleep. He uses penicillin. He uses riboflavin or whatever it’s called. He uses radiation, sunshine on your skin, and he uses cough syrup that goes down your throat. Unless you think that his marvelous mysteries are somehow dampened by the fact that he uses earthly things, I would just say to you, if you dug deeply really into any of these things. You went 50 layers down. Why is penicillin effective? Down and down and down and down and down and down up to the subatomic particle level. What you would find is that the answer and the explanation is always God. And if our hearts are alive and we are humble and worshipful when something amazing in our lives happens, let’s say a doctor heals your body, you’re not going to stop praising the doctor.

You’re going to stop praising the one who made the doctor. You don’t stop until you see God at the bottom of it. It’s no small thing to believe that God uses human means or rather earthly means to accomplish marvelous things because you begin then to turn that conversation onto spiritual things. And you realize that the parallel for spiritual salvation is very clear here. Jesus uses men and women like you and me to bring about his salvific work in people’s lives. Look at this verse. It says Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So it’s a passage about salvation. Then he says this, How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? Okay, so belief is what saves. We’re digging deep, right? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? Okay, so they need to hear before they believe before they bring salvation. And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? This is digging deep.

Salvation is from God, absolutely. But just like the mud, God uses us as a conduit for his healing. We, in many ways, are mud mixed with saliva. Lest you think you were the salvation bringer, you are not. You are simply the mud Someone one time, preaching a sermon, said you are a cockroach. And that idea is present here. You’re a little bit of mud mixed with the DNA of Jesus. Because of you, you could have more of an impact than you could have ever imagined. Man, a simple invitation to church could save someone’s life forevermore. A simple social media share, for those of you watching online, could change someone’s life forever. Just a little bit of impact done by a human being. All of a sudden, a little bit of mud, a little bit of the DNA of Jesus can change people’s eternity. Jesus heals this man, and after he heals the man, five conversations follow. Five conversations. We’re going to speed through them. There are five talks. The first one is the beggar and his neighbors. So the beggar, the blind man, has now, all of a sudden, can see how he knows how to get back home, we do not know, but he makes his way home.

And as he gets home, a conversation ensues about him without him. His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, Isn’t that the same man who used to sit and beg? Some claimed that he was. Others say, No, he only looked like him. But he himself insisted, I am the man. So they’re having a conversation and the man hears they’re having a conversation about him and he goes, No, I am the man who was blind. The people continued the conversation, How then were your eyes open? They asked. He replied, The man, they called Jesus, made some mud, put it on my eyes, and told me to go to the Salom and wash. So I washed and then I could see. Where is this man? They asked. I do not know, he said. They’re asking about him. They’re talking about him. And here’s what we know. The man doesn’t know much, but he has a story to tell. Hey, I want to say this for those of you who are new. You may not know the book, chapter, and verse. You may not be able to explain kenosis. You may not be able to explain what the Holy Spirit does or how the Holy Spirit intervenes in people’s lives.

You may not be able to explain some of the deep theological ideas of the Bible. But let me tell you what you do have. If you become a disciple of Jesus Christ, you have a story. You have a story about how Jesus impacted your life. This man is going to continue to repeat this story again and again and again. He’s not even going to understand how it all happened, but he is going to share his story. He starts off by saying, A man named Jesus healed me. And what we’re going to see is as the progression continues, he moves from man to prophet to messiah. His faith builds as he shares his testimony. We move on to conversation number two. First, we had the beggar and his neighbor. Now we have the beggar and the Pharisees. Everyone in town is just amazed. What the heck just happened? This is a miracle, unlike any miracle anybody has ever seen. And so they bring this man to the religious leaders and they’re like, look, check this guy out. Check him out. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now, the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was the Sabbath.

Therefore, the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. The man repeats his testimony. He put mud on my eyes, the man replied, and I washed, and now I see. Some of the Pharisees said This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others asked, How can a sinner perform such signs? So they were divided. Then they turned again to the man, What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened. What are you going to say? Give us an explanation. You heard that he broke the sabbath. Explain to me what this man did. The man replied he is a prophet. Here, the Pharisees asked how this could have happened. They’re divided. They asked the beggar again in verse 17, How did he open your eyes? And his answer is, He’s a Prophet. He’s not an ordinary man. I thought he was an ordinary man, but now listening to you two fight over him, I’m realizing there’s probably something a little more special about this man. Maybe he’s a Prophet. Move on to the next conversation. The beggar had a conversation with his neighbors. The beggar was then brought to the Pharisees.

And now the Pharisees are going to call in the parents to confirm that he was in fact born blind. They still did not believe that he had been blind and that he received the sight until they sent for the man’s parents. Is this your son? They asked. Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see? We know he is our son, the parents answered, and we know that he was born blind. But how he can see now or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him. He is of age. He will speak for himself. We find out why, and it’s really because the parents are afraid of being thrown out of the synagogue. We’re not going to talk a lot about this, but basically being thrown out of the synagogue means everything is taken from you. Your livelihood, your whole life is taken from you. And so they don’t want to say anything that’s going to get them in trouble. They’re a little afraid. And I don’t think the whole point is to be disparaging of the parents. I think it’s to explain how intense this persecution must have been for this blind man to share his own testimony.

But then the parents confirmed that this is the guy born blind. The story is then trying to move our hearts in a direction that we’re looking at the Pharisees and going, why can’t the Pharisees just admit that this guy is good? Because that’s the tension, right? Why can’t the Pharisees just go, yes? He opened the eyes of the blind, just like the Bible said the Messiah would do, and we should just worship him. But here’s what you discover about the throughout the entirety of the Bible, but especially right here. The religious leaders don’t have space for Jesus in their ideology. They’re too filled up. They’re too filled up. Why do they keep asking again and again and again and again and again and hear the same story again and again and again and again, even though they should be convinced of Jesus’s credibility? It’s because they’re too blinded by their own previous religious beliefs. They don’t have space for Jesus. Their lives are already so filled up that if God were to tell them anything new, they would never be convinced of it. Look, I’ll tell you this, the thing I most fear about people who are religious, like all of us here, is that we would become like this, that we would miss the Holy Spirit trying to inform us of things, that we would stop letting the Bible be alive and active in our lives.

That we would shut all of that down because we don’t want to embrace anything, anything that God can teach that doesn’t fit our previously held worldview. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have conviction. We should have deep conviction. No one should be able to sway us from salvific things. But, man, there should be a part of us where we go, I don’t know everything. I’m not God, and so I want to be taught constantly by God and his word. Look, and if you’re new here, I want to tell you this, we try our hardest to try to teach the Bible. We don’t have a creed. We don’t have a series of beliefs that we hold. We don’t have an official liturgy. We just try to be open to Jesus’ teachings because we don’t want to be so deeply rooted in tradition that we can’t be swayed by God and his word. And so that’s the way we all should be. That’s the way I should be. That’s the way the elders should be. That’s the way everyone here should be. Again, we should have conviction. But those convictions, if they’re not about salvation, should be pretty loose because God is teaching us constantly, and we should believe that his word is alive and active.

By the way, I think the point here, again, as I mentioned, is not to be hard on these parents, but it’s to just express how difficult it is to hold the testimony in the midst of opposition. So next conversation, we moved from the beggar and his neighbors, that was our first conversation, to the beggar and the Pharisees, to the beggar and the blind man’s parents. Now the beggar and the Pharisees take two. This is my favorite one. I love this so much. Verse 24, A second time they summoned, the man who had been born blind, gives glory to God by telling the truth. They said We know this man is a sinner. Give glory to God and say that Jesus is a sinner. They have no room for Jesus. So if they say he’s a sinner, then they can dismiss his thoughts and they can just move on. They can move on. They could dismiss his whole thoughts. They don’t have to accept him. They’re not going to accept him because they’re going to be shown to be the ones who are, in fact, blind. Here’s the man’s response. Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know.

One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see. I don’t know anything. I don’t understand how he does what he does. I don’t know anything. I haven’t really studied it out. In fact, I haven’t even had a conversation with the guy. All I know is one thing, I was blind and now I see. Man, can’t this be our simple testimony? I don’t get it all. I don’t understand God’s sovereignty. I don’t understand how God works for the good of those who love him. I don’t understand the nuances of all the things about the redeemed man. I don’t get it all. But one thing I do know is I was blind and blind, and now I see. One thing I do know is I used to be a luster and I’m free. One thing I do know is I was addicted and God broke the chain. I don’t know how it all works, but I was selfish and now I’m free to give to others. I was cruel, I was greedy. But one thing I do know, God changed my life. I may not have the doctrinal understanding of how it all happened, but let me tell you, it happened.

Ask my family. I was a different man before I met Jesus. This is his testimony. It’s simple. I want to say you have that same testimony. You don’t have to be all caught up in all the difficult doctrine teachings. What you can present to people is simply this, I was blind and now I see. Let me just say something else. If you are still blind, if you have not changed, it might be an illustration that the working power of Jesus really hasn’t taken root in your life. You may need to get some help. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Get help so you can change and become the type of person that Jesus calls you to be. Let’s get back to the story. Look, I don’t know if this guy was a sinner. The one thing I do know, I was blind and now I see. Then they asked him, What did he do to you? How did he change you? What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered, I already told you and you did not listen. Why? Do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciple too?

Now Christians sometimes just say the craziest stuff. Have you ever gotten into a fight with your family because you were too brash? This is this guy. Look, I already told you, you have no room for him. And what is this proving? Now we start to see who the blind really are. Who is the blind? It’s these guys. Then they hurled insults at him and said, You saw this? You are his fellow disciple? We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from. This man answered. Now, that is remarkable. You don’t know where he comes from? Yet he opened my eyes. Now he’s a preacher. We know that God does not listen to sinners. I don’t even know if that’s true, right? He listens to the Godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of the opening of the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. This guy, the preacher, all of a sudden, right? The student becomes the teacher. The student becomes the teacher. He’s like, Look, let me just tell you, God listens only to the people.

And by the way, I don’t even know if that’s true. Matthew 7 says that people could do miracles who are not in the faith, but whatever, this guy has a sermon to teach, and he’s trying to convince them. Look, what are you doing? What are you doing? Why won’t you listen? Why are you so blind? You have no room for Jesus in your heart. You have no room for Him. To this, they replied, You were steeped in sin at birth. You are a cripple. You’re disabled. God thinks you’re less than others. That’s who you are. Man, back to hurling insults. Jesus already solved this problem, but this is what the world does, right? The things that Jesus heals in us, the world tries to remind us of. How dare you lecture us? And they threw him out. They threw him out, not of the room, but of the whole synagogue system. This leads us to the last conversation, Jesus and the beggar. This is the first time Jesus has spoken to this guy. Jesus initiates the conversation. The man has been threatened and cast out of his lifelong religious community. But Jesus seeks man and finds the man to strengthen man.

Jesus heard that he had been thrown out, and then when he found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? Who is he, sir? The man asked, Tell me so that I may believe in him. Jesus said You have now seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking to you. You were blind at the start of this, but now you can not only see physically, but you can see spiritual things. You’ve seen him. Then the man said, Lord, I believe. Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. Jesus said, for judgment, I’ve come into this world so that the blind will see, and those who see or those who think they can see will become blind. Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, What? Are we blind too? Jesus said, If you are blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. This is the last thing we hear in the story. What’s the point of the story? Jesus is saying, Look, I have come to give people who think that they can see, to rebuke them, to challenge them, to push them towards better righteousness, to replace their old, broken, phony religion with something that is true based upon Jesus Christ.

Those who are broken, despised, disfigured, distressed, those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted, I will elevate to allow to be called children of God. That’s the point of the story. Here are four questions for you. Who are you? Are you the blind man who can now see, or are you the person who says you can see who is actually blind? I’m going to give you four questions to ponder. Number one, do you praise Jesus for what he’s doing in life, even when it’s hard to understand? I’ll say this, the spiritually blind often only praise Jesus when things are good. But when things turn bad, they become cursors of Jesus. But those who worship God, who can totally see praise God in the good and in the bad, do you praise God even when it’s hard to understand? Second question, do you find your faith in Jesus deepening or weakening in the midst of threats and danger? When the first sense of trouble comes, do you embrace Jesus or do you push him away? When someone says, Wait, wait, wait, wait, You believe that? Do you go, No, actually, I don’t believe that.

Or do you hold on to the testimony that God gave you? Number three, this is particularly important, I would say, for those who have tight family relationships. Does your faith falter or flourish when your family is fearful or unbelieving? When your family is against you, do you grow in your faith or does your faith go away? And the last one, do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony? I was blind, but now I see. Do you defend him? When people are talking bad about Jesus Christ in your workplace, or in your school, do you defend him or do you just stay quietly on the sideline? I’ve learned that the ones who can truly see are people who are willing to defend the cause of Christ always and always to the point of brutality and even death. Here’s some encouragement to leave you with. These are three thoughts to leave you with. God has wise, good, and Christ-exulting purposes for everything that has happened to you. Whatever it is, man, God is doing something. God wants to do something in your life. Number two, Jesus uses you as a conduit for change in people’s lives.

The last thing that I want you to say, I want to say to you about related to this text is this. Jesus sought out this rejected blind man, this nobody, this beggar, and he is seeking you out right now. Maybe to strengthen you, maybe to call you back, maybe to call you for the first time. Let’s sing together. We’re going to sing Amazing Grace because of the context of this song.