Faith Is...The Evidence Of Things Not Seen - [John 9]

Gratitude for Spiritual Sight in Christ

Dear God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us here this morning. Lord, we ask you to illumine us by your spirit as We dig into your word and Lord we pray that you would apply it in each and every one of our lives.

This evening as we hear from you in Christ name. We pray. Amen. Are your? Optical faculties working. I See most like all of you here. I think are able to see so you have vision and either with the help of eyes or Glasses.

I think all of you can see that there is a guy here up standing and speaking now for those of you who are younger I Want to make sure that what you are seeing connects with what's in your brain, you know sometimes when I was young I had the faculty of Looking and directing my gaze at an object.

But my brain is a little disconnected from what my eyes were sending me. So this evening in case you're a little distracted Pay attention because I think the story that we are going to hear from John chapter 9 is a gripping story.

So even if you are very young, I want you to pay attention and then there are some sci-fi advocates who Who would claim that even though we are seeing things that seem to be real, you know. That can't be because we are just a brain in a vat and there are some sensory Impulses being sent to it.

But you do see I am standing here. The eyes that God has given you enables you to see reality as it truly is. You have physical sight and today in our passage We're going to be looking at two types of sight that are very closely connected physical and then there's going to be the spiritual sight and Typically in an evening service we have people who all know the Lord and I'm going to talk about the sight that you have and Sometimes we as Christians having walked in this path many years Tend to sometimes not appreciate the sight that we have and as we look at the life of this person who gets new sight I want us to just look back and Rejoice in the sight that God has given you so my purpose this evening is that you would worship God with gratitude for the spiritual truths that you now see by faith in Jesus Christ and As your heart wells up with gratitude.

I want you to also Resolve to stand by faith In the calling that God has called you to or whether you have adversity or whether you do not. So let me ask you or ask yourself. What are some things that you know today that you didn't know before?

What are some things that you now see that you didn't see in the past? I'm gonna give you some very simple questions that will You probably will shake your head. But I want you to think back at the time when you didn't know this to be true.

Think about questions like this. Who is God? Who is God and as you look back? Did you before you came to know the Lord? Did you know him as your creator? Did you know him as the Holy God? Did you know him as the God before whom you were accountable?

Did you know him as the God? Whom you ought to be praising with all of your being. If you can look back at the time when you didn't know that and now you take it for granted that you know All of these things We should be grateful for that.

What are some of the other things what is the source of your pain and joy? What are things that you want to run away from on this world? And what are things that you run to today? Is that different than the objects that you used to think were?

Problematic and the sources of greatest joy for you or something even bigger. Why on earth are you here today? Where did you come from? And where are you going? Do you know that? If you do I want you to rejoice With me because it is only by the agency of the Word of God and by the Spirit of God that has worked in you to Give you that vision to see things that are Otherwise unseen in this world.

So turn with me into your Bibles to John chapter 9 and You're going to pick up one event where Jesus gives sight or restores sight to a blind man and we're going to see how that translates into spiritual eyesight as well.

The context of John chapter 9 it's it's best for us to take a slightly bigger Frame of reference we could probably go through all of John, but I'll just pick from John chapter 5. So you have a sense of what's happening when Jesus gets into the scene in John chapter 9.

In John chapter 5 Jesus comes down to Jerusalem and he heals a man who was a paralytic and then that once again is in the Sabbath and there is a confrontations with the Jewish authorities at the question his healing John chapter 6 you have the Feeding of the 5 ,000 and that happens up in the north John chapter 7 and 8 happened once again in the south and Once again, John Jesus is teaching and just in John chapter 8 Verse 12 Jesus has said one of the I am's he's in 812.

He says I am the light and He gives a extended teaching in the contrast between light and darkness in John chapter 8. So John chapter 8 7 is in the feast of tabernacles that happens sometime in September and the next chapter John chapter 10 is the feast of dedication which happens in December so you have like a two and a half month time frame between John chapter 7 and 10 and right here in the Probably closer to December is when this John chapter 9 event occurs.

It happens right after Jesus has taught about the huge dichotomy between light and darkness and That is between himself and Satan and he also talks about the children of the light and the children of the darkness.

So Jesus was already taught about this and here John chapter 9 is almost like an illustration of who this Light is and what light he gives to those who are his own. So Jesus first will remove physical darkness or Blindness in the eyes of this one particular person and Through that process you will see how he also restores or grants spiritual eyesight to him and as we will see In in in the in the gospel of John we have a lot of symbolism.

John uses a lot of symbols or Jesus uses symbols, but John brings out those symbols to earn for us to understand what the truth is. So the question you ought to be asking me is Okay, John 9. I see we've heard read a man whose eyesight was restored.

Can we really draw the parallel there to say that there was spiritual eyesight restored? I Couldn't unless if the text itself said that to be the case and John will do that. We will see in the beginning of John chapter 9 an event and right at the very end Jesus will explain what has happened when he restores eyesight.

It wasn't just physical but it was spiritual also. So you had to be careful when you look at a text of scripture and then you try to draw an application from it if the text does talk about Spiritual connection to a physical event then we should be able to draw that and and learn from it.

And I like I said John does that extensively throughout the gospel of John? So tonight what we are going to do is we are going to look through the eyes of faith of The man born blind. So John 9 is a very big passage.

Obviously, we won't be able to go through very Detailed very deep into each and every verse. We will cover through the whole swath, but primarily from the perspective of the man who was born blind, but has now received his sight and My purpose here is that you and I who have received salvation Who have had our eyes opened we can?

Identify with this man in terms of what has happened and then feel encouraged this morning this evening in terms of what God has done. And what we ought to do in our own walks with the Lord and in two weeks from now I'm going to come back and we look at the same passage and that time we will look at it from the eyes of Everyone else who was blinded through this event.

We will see the through the eyes of unbelief that the same event that Jesus has done will Blind those who thought they were seeing so we will not focus more on the eyes of disbelief. But rather we will look at the eyes of faith and as I've titled it.

This is the evidence of things not seen so the question like I said that I want you to be asking yourself as we go through this passage is What changed in my own spiritual eyes, and how does that prompt me to act toward God and toward others.

One more caveat before we get into the passage. This passage is heavily talking about the blind man who has eyesight. You don't see Jesus throughout this passage. You will see Jesus acting right in the beginning.

There will be some teaching and then you'll see Jesus right at the very end and it would seem almost like this is a story about the blind man rather than about Jesus, but It is not and I'll try to draw out how Jesus is the main person that is behind this whole event rather than the blind man and The context like I said right from John chapter 5 to John chapter 10.

There is a broader context of Jesus doing miracles, maybe specifically in the Sabbath and there is An antagonism between the Jewish leaders and Jesus. So when the Jewish leaders are going to see the blind man, they're going to see the man behind the blind man.

And they are going to respond in hate towards Jesus. So let's look at this passage. I have eight questions that I will Use to get into this passage. The first question is what caused your sight or what caused your sight of faith?

And we will see that in the verses 1 through 7. Before I read it think about your blindness when you were once blind spiritually. What caused you to see. In this event, we are going to have something specific that happens that is connected to the physical and then that's that Physical event is going to be connected to the spiritual and I'm going to look at primarily the spiritual aspect.

When we apply it in our own lives. It begins with a very interesting section and Maybe I'll use that as a jumping board for us this evening you see when you look around the world today, there is a lot of pain and Suffering right, all you had to do is turn on your TV watch the news read the internet and there's tons of suffering out there and we as humans are.

We want to know why why is there so much suffering and if you ask anybody on the street each person has his own Idea of what this the reason for all suffering is. If you asked a Buddhist he would say well.

You know, I know that pain is a problem and I need to somehow get past this pain and you know deal with pain. If you look at Hindu, he would say, you know This is why there is suffering and this is the way we think we need to get past it.

But the Bible has a very it has the true reason why there is pain and suffering and This is the question that the disciples are going to ask Jesus when they look at suffering and we'll read that in verses 1 through 7 As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth.

I'll be pretty tough if you were born blind and never got to see anything All your life you can't do much in those days if you were blind. And so his disciples whom were following Jesus they asked him rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind.

They want to know the reason the cause of suffering and pain. Jesus answered it was not that this man sinned or his parents but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Let's let's Open up this disciples questions for a moment.

So they they can see a physical suffering that this man is going through he is blind blind from birth and They see a physical suffering and they say there must be a spiritual connection to this. There they didn't they weren't a naturalist in the Jewish first century.

In Jerusalem, they understood there was a God they knew that these were not random acts there was some purpose to all of these things and if there was pain and suffering then Sin must be somehow involved.

Were they right? Yes, because our God is not a wicked Ogre who just sends pain and suffering to everybody just because he pleases it pleases him. So they know that God is a God of love and he is our creator.

And so there is Suffering and it must be connected in some way with sin so far so good now. This is where the disciples stretch themselves a little bit further now, they want to know what specifically caused that suffering.

So that suffering ought to come from either this man, you know, if he did something wrong then his he should face the consequence for the sin or maybe it was his parents because. You know, it's kind of hard to be sinning before you're even born, right?

Although there were some Jewish people who thought that in the womb you could have sinned and therefore you could have Gotten the consequence right after you were born so it's either this baby in the womb that sinned or it is his parents because we do have in the Old Testament some of the Concepts of sin being visited the curses of the consequences of sin visiting upon their children.

So, where is this? I want to know. I want to know the mechanics. I want to know the process by which this particular suffering has come to pass and Jesus basically says Hold your horses, you know, there are certain things that you cannot know.

It is true that it is through Adam's fall that sin and suffering have Entered the world and because of this mess that our world is in we do have suffering which is in a myriad of ways. That we really can't explain and Jesus says there is something else you ought to be looking for and what is that?

This has happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Jesus is not saying here that God deliberately made this man blind. So that he can wait all these years and eventually receive his sight.

This man Was blind and yet what God has to do in this particular moment is going to showcase the power. And the goodness of God in a world of suffering and sorrow. So let's look at verse 4. He says we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day night is coming when no one can work.

Jesus here is on earth three and a half years and while he's here. He is Executing the work of God. He is the light he has spoken about in John 8 12, and he is now going to do the work of God while he's here.

There is going to come a time when he's going to be put on the cross and crucified and there is going to come night. But while he is here, he must do the work and he says in verse 5 as long as I am in the world I am the light of the world.

Having said these things he spat on the ground and made mud from saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him go wash in the pool of Siloam. Which means scent and so he went and washed and came back seeing.

We've already seen that the sin Was the cause of suffering all across in the world? But this particular man's suffering could not be so linearly tracked to whatever Sin this man or his parents did now.

Another way of looking at this whole Issue is is this fate? Let's sort of ask a broader question. Is the event that is happening in the lives of this in the life of this blind man ruled by God? By laws that are set in motion and just automatically happening if you want to See why I'm asking this question think like a Pharisee a Pharisee had rules.

He said, you know You do these things and you're pleasing to God and you do these things and then you are Getting certain things as a result and so the question that is being asked is are there a certain set of rules that are in Governance of this universe that is bringing to pass all these events.

So rabbi teacher Jesus is what rule is in effect here that is causing this to happen and Jesus is going to turn them around on their head. This has nothing to do with specific rules or laws in motion but it has to do with a God who loves and cares and is in the world and Deeply cares for the person who is going through that suffering it.

It is true that God reveals himself What he what he what pleases him through the law that was revealed in the scriptures. But what had happened was the people were so fixated on the law that they added to it.

They figured out a lot more ways in which these laws could operate the mechanism of how they think God operated that soon enough they had cut the God of this universe from how things were working in life and when Jesus Say something about this person for us.

We want to look at what it means to the elect you and I as Christians know that when suffering happens to you sometimes it can be a consequence of sin, but none of the sufferings none of the trials that come your way are Just a set of random laws that happen just because it had to be so every single suffering every single trial that comes in your way is Purposeful.

God puts them in your way for his express purpose. He allows them that he may showcase his glory in your life. A couple of examples Genesis 50 20. You know the story of Joseph the brothers throw him into a ditch.

He gets into prison. He's suffers a long time, but ultimately God uses him for his purpose. There was a there was a cleansing process that happens in Joseph's life. But eventually God raises him up and Showcases his goodness to the nation through this one man first.

Peter 4 19 those of us who suffer according to the will of God we want to commit to God our Creator because he is faithful to us. Now in this particular case in verses 4 and 5 Jesus says something more he says I am the light of The world and I have come to do the works of him who has sent me.

What does the word light mean? The word light primarily here refers to the revelation that Jesus brings into the world. He is the one who reveals who God is to us. He is the Word of God who has who is here to reveal God to us.

He is also light in the sense that he is pure and holy. But here in the specific sense it talks about the revelation of God. And the way in which Jesus ministers is also unique. In verses 6 and 7 we see that he spits on Dust make some clay Anoints this man's eyes and then he says go and wash.

The man goes and washes and he is healed. There are many who speculate why Jesus would do this. In fact if you look at many of the healings of Jesus when it comes to blindness some of them have to do with spit some of them have to do with him putting his hands on their eyes and Every single way is different.

There is no particular method for For healing the eyes of a blind man and when you think of blindness as well. Did you know one of the marks of the Messiah we heard this morning he would Set the captives free and he would Give sight to those who were blind.

In fact when John the Baptist is in prison he comes his disciples come and say are you the one or is there someone else who is. And one of the things Jesus says is the blind have received their sight and Jesus here is demonstrating his Messiah hood in terms of this Relieving or our healing of the blindness.

In fact, if you look at the Old Testament, you don't have any blindness like this. You have temporary blindness that would get Both imposed and then removed but here you have Jesus very uniquely ministering In removing the blindness.

Now if the story ended right here everybody would have been happy, you know, the blind man would have been happy the Pharisees wouldn't have cared as much and there wouldn't have been any conflict. But this is not where the story ends.

In fact where we think the physical suffering ends May actually be the beginning of a lot more suffering to come in the life of this man who has Received his sight. So think back at your own faith think back at your own sight before we move on to the next section.

We have God in the flesh Jesus Christ Involved in the life of this one man who was caught in suffering and his direct agency gives life gives sight to this. This this man who was once blind and when you were once in darkness There was only one person who was able to Give you the light of life and that was Jesus Christ himself.

And whatever the way in which God worked in your life to grant you faith I'm sure is unique just like how Jesus put us put this fiddle and the mud on this on this particular man's eyes. But we can always look back and thank God for what he has done.

I want to make one more note before we move right here. This man is not saved. All he has received is physical sight. In fact here we had to go right at the end of the passage to see that this man genuinely has Recognized Jesus as Lord and bows down and worships him but through this process God has done something in this man's life and this is going to Snowball as his understanding of who Jesus is grows and eventually he will worship him as his God.

Testimony of the Healed Man

So the second question that I want to ask as we get into verses 8 through 12 is what did you testify in? Faith when you came to know the Lord, what was it that you said? I testified to this. You see when Jesus gives you sight you are a different person.

But there are many many claims to healing, you know, some of them are real some of them are sham. What exactly is it that you went through? Let's look at what happens in this person's life and then we will we will make that connection.

In verses 8 through 12 We read 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 he is like him and he kept saying I am the man so they said to him how then are your eyes opened and 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 received my sight.

They said to him. Where is he? And he said I do not know. So what's the proof of the healing? Most of us want evidence we want data. We want to look at things. What is the proof that the blind man was healed it is a person you have the man here.

Who's who's saying I was blind and I can see now. Now now think about the question. There are two groups of people here in verse 8 one is the neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar. Beggar.

Obviously as a blind man. He had no other profession that he could get involved in and so he was begging when Jesus finds him and heals him. So there are two groups those who knew him a little better.

Possibly because they lived close to him neighbors see him all the time and then those who probably walked by as he used to beg and and they've seen him and. And sometimes when you see a person With a certain defect all their life.

You pretty much associate those things together. You know if if you had a paralyzed man, um, I mean take stephen hawking, you know, if you have stephen hawking working on new Very complicated things in his wheelchair and all of a sudden he's comes here and he's walking and talking about the lord.

It'll be a little difficult for you to connect the two people together, right because all you can associate is with that defect that he always Had. So these people look at this and say well, you know, this can't be that person and they doubt it because.

This is not natural in our world. If you had a person who was born blind There was absolutely no way for that person to receive their sight. So even if he looks a lot like that person. There is really this is not natural.

There is really absolutely no way this person can be like him. So we would even discount what we see. Because it does not fit our worldview and. And so what is the evidence that can be presented to convince you to think otherwise about this man?

And that is the testimony. So this man says I am he i'm the one who was blind and I now can see. All right, he talks like him he sounds like him. So tell me more how exactly did you get your sight, um.

We want to understand how this can happen because this is inexplicable to us. The man is very concise but very clear jesus did this. He spit made the clay put it on my eyes and he said this go and wash in the pool of siloam.

I just obeyed and I got what I what he promised. Uh, and his emphasis here is not that I went and washed and I received my sight. Look how good I am. That's not the point. I mean the whole passage reeks with this Jesus this and he calls him the man they call who is called jesus.

He did these things and he told me to do this and I went and I received what he promised. Uh, there is there is an emphasis on this person who did this miraculous work in in his life. And also I want to just point one more thing what exactly does he attribute Jesus to be the man called jesus if you think about it.

He has actually not seen jesus yet. He has heard him when jesus commanded him. He probably heard about jesus because jesus has been in the area before doing other great things. But all he knows is The man called jesus.

This is what others have been telling him, uh about jesus so the the neighbors and those who knew him say well. Enough. Okay. I your testimony is good as far as it goes now. We need to get to the source of the miracle.

We want to get to jesus. Where is jesus? And the man says well have no clue. I Just received my sight. I haven't found him yet and and many a time when you and I, uh If you can think back at the time when we got saved, there's probably not a lot you knew about the Whole beauty of this man called jesus in his Attributes in his glory and his power.

But he has done something in your life and he that is all you can testify to that. God has worked in my life um. You could you could say that I am changed he I'm the same person in one sense, but I was once blind and now I see and for some of you who've Probably grown in a christian home and maybe became believers very young.

It may be hard to look at that distinct faces of you know being blind and acting in blindness. But you can see that you now see and you can rejoice in that goodness that god has done so when you think of what you testify to is that God has changed me and how he has changed you and how he has grown you is cause for great joy.

Opposition from the Pharisees

Question number three what opposition to faith did you meet we see this in verses 13 through 17. You see when you live by faith in jesus christ. You're not living by sight. You're not living for just practical reasons you live by faith in jesus christ.

The world is not going to love you. We see that begin in verses 13 through 17. You can almost see the drum rolls as the tension is going to mount in verse 13. We read they brought to the pharisees the man who was formerly who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a sabbath day when jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight and he said to them He put up he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see.

Some of the pharisees said this man is not from god for he does not keep the sabbath. But others said how can a man who is a sinner do such signs and there was a division among them. And so they they said again to the blind man What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes and he said he is a prophet.

When you think of verse 13, uh, what why do you think these people took the blind man to the pharisees? Did his neighbors hate him so much that they wanted to have him in trouble. Now think about it. Here is a once in a lifetime or once.

In an event that has never ever happened before in history, uh, if you were a leper and you were healed of your uh, Leprosy, what were you supposed to do in the old testament? You would go to the priest have him examine you make sure That you were actually truly healed and then give an offering and here you have Something even greater something even more marvelous that has happened and the people can see this is not just some Doctor physically who has given a new pair of eyes.

There is some spiritual connection. Jesus has been going around teaching. He's been doing miracles and proclaiming that he was. He was the messiah and uh. This thing needed someone who is more capable to examine and see what was actually going on.

And they bring them to the pharisees. This is although this is in the jerusalem environments. This is probably uh, um a synagogue, uh. A teaching place where there were qualified men pharisees who would expound expound the law.

So they are they bring them to them saying can you figure out what exactly is going on? But of course the problem here was not just that there was a miracle that happened. But uh that miracle happened on a particular day, which the pharisees do not like and that was the sabbath uh, and so for the for the pharisees, even though this was a tremendous miracle.

It doesn't fit their system and there is a problem that needs to be dealt with but they can't outright reject what has happened because here is something that is Supernal it is remarkable. So how do we deal with this?

So thus begins the inquiry into the event. So the pharisees come together and say let's now try to find out what exactly happened. Is this of god or is it not? Their purpose their stated purpose is to seek the truth they want to know what happened.

But are they coming here truly wanting to learn or are they coming here with a Predetermined mind you see right here in the pharisees camp. You have a group you have two camps. You see this in verse 16.

The some of the pharisees were saying He's not from god because he doesn't keep the sabbath and others said how can a sinner perform such miraculous signs? And if you think about it If you were a pharisee, what would you be doing?

You have a man who comes and does a remarkable miracle that is just blows your mind away. But he is doing it in opposition to what you currently believe. What is the right way to deal with this now, let me put you in the pharisees mind in the pharisees minds they have the What they believe is the word of god and they had Accrued to the word of god things that They had written to it.

But for them the word the old testament and everything else that they had written had become so Inseparable that they could no longer see the difference between the bible and their editions. So they now have the revealed word of god what god has declared from eternity past and Revealed through his prophets.

They have it on this side and then they have experience Of what they have actually seen and now Which would you weigh more heavily would you put experience over scripture or would you say scripture trumps experience?

For those of you biblically trained you should know the answer the bible trumps experience all the time. So what exactly was the problem here? It wasn't the word of god that they were relying on but it was on their false Tradition that had been added to the word.

So that's the that's the struggle that these pharisees are going through. And so those who say jesus is a sinner they claim uh that the sabbath is more important does does god honor the sabbath absolutely, but What exactly did it mean to dishonor the sabbath?

We will see that as we get closer, uh into this text and then there are others who said he's he can't be a sinner because they see a mighty work of god in this person's life and they say This is this can be true.