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Reading John 9:1-11 where Jesus healed a man born blind "that the works of God might be displayed in him." Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Jesus and his disciples passed a man who was blind from birth, and his disciples asked, who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus replied, neither, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
When we understand the text.
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Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the Gospel of John, and today we jump into Chapter 9. I'm going to start off here reading verses 1 through 11. The Apostle John wrote, As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. He anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.
So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, Is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some said, It is he. Others said, No, but it's someone like him.
And he kept saying, I am the man. So they said to him, Then how were your eyes opened? He answered, The man called Jesus, made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and I received my sight.
The disciples asked Jesus when they saw this blind man by the side of the road, they asked him who sinned that this guy would be born blind. Did he sin that this evil would come upon him or did his parents sin?
Now, the disciples were trying and asking this question not to blame God with wrongdoing that that God would cause something evil to happen to a righteous person. God wouldn't do such a thing. They're looking at the blindness that has happened to this man as an evil thing that has been done.
So they're they don't want to blame God with wrongdoing. They're trying to avoid that. So they're trying to say, Who actually did the wrong here? Was it him to be afflicted with this thing or did his parents do something evil?
And therefore, this guy has been afflicted with blindness because of something his parents did. But in asking the question in that way, the disciples are inadvertently accusing God with wrongdoing because they see the blindness that this man has is something evil.
And so therefore, since he's blind, God did do something evil to this man, a man who who did not sin to deserve it. But Jesus clarifies to them that it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
And then Jesus performs this miracle, spitting into the ground, creating this mud that he puts on the man's eyes, a small amount of mud. But it was the power of Christ through this miracle that he performed that gave the man his sight.
Now, why he sent him to the pool of Siloam to wash. But still, it was Jesus that did this miraculous thing. Maybe he wanted him to go to the pool of Siloam so that he would then have to come back and would not be able to find Jesus.
And so all the people would have to ask, well, how did you regain your sight? And through all of this, God would be glorified by the fact that Jesus, the son of God, had performed a miracle in this man.
So he was born blind by the providence of God so that the power of God through this miraculous performance of Christ might be displayed in him. And the disciples would know that he is the light of the world.
He is the one who gives sight to the blind. My friends, all of us are born in blindness. Every single one of us. We are born with a spiritual blindness. We are born in the sin of Adam. We have received his sin nature and we grow up rebelling against God and his righteousness, wanting to do things our way, not wanting to do things as God has commanded.
We want to do everything contrary to what God has said. That's in our nature to do that. No one seeks after God, as it says in Romans chapter three. No one does good. No one is righteous. Together, we have become worthless.
But it is only when the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon us, when we hear the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed and the Holy Spirit regenerates our heart to hear it and understand it. And we are washed with water, as it says in Ezekiel 36, as it says in Titus three, five.
We are washed with the water of the Holy Spirit, cleansed just as this blind man's eyes were cleansed, that we might see, that we might see what we were blind to see before. And that is our sin and God's righteousness.
And we see that we have sinned against God and what we deserve is wrath. But through Jesus Christ, by faith in Christ, we are given the righteousness of God. We are cleansed of all our uncleannesses. And this is the power of God that Jesus displayed in the miracle that he performed with this man.
And it is a miracle that he does in the life of every believer once blind. Now I see, you know, the song Amazing Grace, you know, this beautiful, wonderful line. We have it memorized. Anybody who's ever gone to church knows the song and sings it.
I mean, people, it's in movies for crying out loud. We know the song Amazing Grace, one of the most popular hymns the world over. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see.
And that's the miraculous power of God in every believer. Once a wretch, we've been saved by the grace of God. Once blind to realize our sin, what we had done, what we deserved. Blind to see God's righteousness and holiness and that we had blasphemed his character with all of our sinful works.
And now it is by faith. God has given us sight to see the definition of faith. Hebrews 11, 1. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, the conviction of things not physically seen, but we see with our mind's eye, with our heart.
That is what kind of sight, the spiritual sight, the Holy Spirit, the miraculous power of Christ has done for us all who believe in him. So this miracle that was performed here in John chapter nine was to show us that, that Christ is the one who gives sight to the blind as prophesied in the book of Isaiah.
So once again, we go back to chapter nine, starting in verse one, he passed by, saw a man blind from birth and his disciples asked him, rabbi, which means teacher, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind?
And Jesus answered, it was not this man who sinned or his parents. As we read in Romans chapter eight, all of creation has been subjected to futility by he, God, who has cursed creation. Why? Because of our sin.
You go all the way back to Romans or I'm sorry, Genesis chapter three and Adam and Eve sinning against God. They were removed from paradise. Worst of all, they were removed from the presence of God and all of creation was cursed.
Eve was told that she is going to feel pains in her body, the labor pains that she would experience as a result of the sin that she had committed, listening to the created thing rather than the creator, listening to the serpent rather than God.
Adam, because he had thrown his wife under the bus and blamed God, the woman that you put here with me gave me some of the fruit and I ate it. God cursed the ground and no longer would the ground yield its fruit for Adam, but it would yield thorns and thistles and he would find no meaning in the work that he did.
It would be meaningless to him and from the dust of the ground he was created and to the dust he would return. And this is the lot of every person. The ground, the earth has been cursed. No matter what we do, no matter what kind of work we do, no matter what materials we try to store up for ourselves, no matter what treasures on earth that we hoard for our pleasure, we can find no meaning in them.
We will always be wanting more and we will never be satisfied. And this is all part of the curse. It's all part of the curse of creation. And likewise, as the curse was given upon Eve, that she would feel the aches and pains in her body.
So we all feel the debilitating effects of death that come upon us slowly. The wages of sin is death, Romans 6, 23. And so all of us who have sinned, we've been subjected to futility as all of creation has.
And we feel the effects of death upon our body, creeping upon us slowly as we get further and further along in life. Now, for some, this happens faster than others, but it's still all a result of all of mankind's sin.
It's not because of a particular sin. You did this, and so therefore you're going to be afflicted with this. Now there are certainly ramifications for sin. There are certainly going to be consequences for the sin that we do.
Give you an example of this. The Oscars were just last night, and one of those movies that was praised with all sorts of wonderful Oscars was a film called Bohemian Rhapsody. And it was a movie, a biopic about Freddie Mercury, who was the lead singer of the legendary rock band Queen.
Freddie Mercury was an openly gay man and lived a very, very perverse and drug-fueled lifestyle. He died of AIDS at the age of 45. And yet the actor who won the Best Actor Award portraying Freddie Mercury in this film, he said, these are exactly the kinds of stories that Hollywood is looking for, glamorizing this man's story that you can live such a perverse lifestyle, ended up dying as a result of the consequences of what he riddled his body with, being so into drugs and into this sexual perversion.
Galatians 6, verse 7, do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one sows that he will also reap. So there are certainly consequences for sin. When a person has sin, they will reap the consequences of that.
Therefore, we should walk in righteousness that we would not have to face the consequences of such destructive sins. Even worse than the kind of destruction it might do to the body is the destruction that it does to the soul.
The apostle Paul said in Romans 16, 19, for your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. Don't even experience that evil to know how bad it is.
Instead, walk in righteousness. Do what you know is pleasing to the Lord because you love God and he has called you to it. So again, there are certainly consequences for such destructive behavior. But this is a man here in John chapter nine who was born blind.
Rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind. Instead, it is by the providence of God that this man would be afflicted with this, that the power of Christ might be displayed through him.
And and not only is this man cleansed of his blindness physically, but cleansed of his blindness spiritually as well, that his eyes would be open and that he would see Jesus Christ, the son of God, for who he is.
And we'll see that more as we continue the story here in John chapter nine, as we go on this week to to read the narrative further for the man eventually calls himself a disciple of Jesus Christ. And again, this is the miraculous work that's done in every one of us.
I once was blind, but now I see in John nine, verse four, Jesus said, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. So he's talking about doing the works of the father, and he includes the disciples in that work.
So it's not just Jesus, one man who is doing this, but the disciples are also doing this work during Jesus earthly ministry. We must work the works of him who sent me the father while it is day. The time that Christ is with them is day and he says night is coming.
And that's a reference to his crucifixion, his death when no one can work. So you consider that from the time that Christ died, his crucifixion on a Friday to his resurrection on Sunday morning, there wasn't any work that was being done.
There wasn't a going out and a proclamation of the gospel. No one was being healed. None of those kinds of things were being done because the disciples were kind of clueless as to what was going on. They thought that Jesus was going to be the guy who was going to free them from the tyranny of Rome and they put him to death.
What are we to make of this? Because they did not understand the words of Jesus when he said, I'm going to be turned over and they're going to put me to death. But do not fear. I'm coming back in three days.
I'm coming back. And they didn't understand that. So Jesus came back on Sunday, rose again from the grave and then commissioned his disciples that they would go out and be as lights in the world, taking the gospel into a dark place.
But in the meantime, in the immediate time frame in which all of this is going on. OK, so Jesus says we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
Now we've seen several statements that have come about over the course of of the Gospel of John with Jesus making references to himself as I am. And we've had absolute I am statements. As a matter of fact, we had like three of them in John, chapter eight and John, 824.
Jesus said, I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. A few verses later, verse twenty eight. Jesus said, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he.
And John eight fifty eight. Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was I am. So that's where we have the most I am statements in one place in John, chapter eight, which was the chapter we just finished up last week.
We're going to have one of the most pronounced I am statements coming up in John, 18, five when they come to arrest Jesus and they ask him, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says to them, I am. And when he says that, everybody falls down.
They are knocked off their feet because of Jesus claim to be the great I am to be God himself. But then we also have some metaphorical I am statements throughout the gospel of John. And here's seven of them.
Jesus making a reference to himself as being the bread of life. I am the bread of life. That was in chapter six. I am the light of the world, which we have here in chapter nine. And he also made that same statement in chapter eight.
He says, I am the door to the sheep. That's coming up in chapter ten. He says, I am the good shepherd. Also in chapter ten, I am the resurrection and the life. The statement he makes to Martha in chapter 11 before he raises Lazarus from the dead.
I am the way, the truth and the life. The statement that he makes to his disciples in the upper room in John, 14, six. And he says in chapter 15, verse one, I am the true vine. I am the vine and you are the branches.
So these are some of the metaphorical I am statements that Christ makes. So here he says, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.
So we went and washed and he came back seeing. So once again, I say this to you, that we will experience suffering in this life. There is nothing in the Bible that says that you being a Christian won't have to endure suffering as a matter of fact, if we are to understand the words of Christ in the sermon on the Mount, particularly in Matthew chapter seven, life is harder because you follow Christ.
Jesus said, enter through the narrow gate for wide is the way that leads to destruction and many will find it because that's the easy way. But narrow is the road and hard is the way that leads to life and few will find it because that's the difficult path.
So it is in Christ Jesus that we would actually be taking on a tougher road, facing ridicule and persecution because we would love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. As the apostle Paul said in second Timothy chapter three, those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while imposters and deceivers will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But we must place our trust in Christ, knowing that whatever happens to us in this world, he is going to deliver us and anything that happens, even if the world might perceive it as bad, there is some ultimate wonderful purpose that God is working this toward.
Romans eight 28, God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And the apostle Paul talks about in second Corinthians chapter one, the kind of affliction that they were undergoing for the sake of the gospel.
OK, this is the apostle Paul. Consider what the apostles suffered for the sake of Christ. And you think your life is going to be better? You're not an apostle. You weren't called in the grace of God to that work.
But yet it was still a wonderful plan that God had for their lives. He does have a wonderful plan for your life. It might be to be persecuted for the gospel. So Paul and his missionary brethren were being persecuted.
And Paul says, second Corinthians, chapter one, verses eight and nine. We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction that we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. And then it's later on in chapter twelve when Paul is given a tormentor of Satan to harass him and he pleads three times with the Lord that it should leave him.
But in second Corinthians, twelve, nine, God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And Paul goes on to say, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
In James, chapter one, starting in verse two, we read, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
And first Peter, chapter four, verse twelve, Peter says, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
And I've quoted to you already from Romans eight. It's in verse eighteen that we read, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
So hold fast, Christian, this trial that you are enduring is to make you rely all the more on God who raises the dead. You have this assurance, no matter what anyone does to you in this life, they cannot take away the love of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Amen.
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