Light To Sight

INTRO

So happy and honored to be here.  Pastor Tai(Jack Tai(2) and I connected last year as I overheard he and some brothers talking about church planting in Plano. As we chatted and met more I was so excited to hear about a healthy multiplying Chinese church here in the Dallas area.

Good morning Joy Church. (Use Chinese here) to introduce myself.

I understand that you have been going through the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John if you remember why John wrote the Gospel(?)… John 20:31: that we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing we may have life in His name. The way the apostle John does this is by giving us 7 signs and 7 I Am statements in the book of John, which both occur in Chapter 9. John could have chosen many other miracles to include in his account, but he chose these 7 to show something unique about the divinity of Jesus Christ, and who He is. Remember that every miracle in the Gospels and the Bible is meant to point us towards Jesus. It can be such a temptation to focus on the miracle or the supernatural work of God in our lives alone, without remembering that all of this is meant to point us toward the worship of Jesus! Chapter 9 is no different. In the same way we saw through the feeding of the 5000 that Jesus not only can satisfy our physical hunger, but our spiritual hunger, here in chapter 9 it is showing us that Jesus is our cure for spiritual blindness. He heals not only our physical eyesight but He heals our spiritual blindness. When I was younger I remember I went to the eye doctor and I went to have an eye exam, I was about 20 years old. Up until this point I didn’t wear glasses or contacts. So I go to the eye doctor, I’m there with my girlfriend who I want to impress and he does the first test with my right eye. I try to read the letters on the wall as confidently as I could and after the first test I said, how did I do? He said “that eye is pretty bad.” To which I said, oh that’s my bad eye(no joke), so we did the other eye and you know what? That eye was even worse! I had been driving, traveling around the world with faulty eyesight trying to navigate with deficiencies in my eyesight. And this is true for most of us as well, John shows us here in Chapter 9, that without the light of Christ, we don’t see things clearly or as they ought to be. We don’t understand rightly without the light of Jesus. And as we look at verses 1-12, we are going to look at one area, where I think it is the easiest to mis understand not see clearly, and this is in the area of suffering. One of the biggest questions people have, Christians and non Christians alike has to do with what is God doing when we are going through suffering? Where is He? (Include some quote here?) We are going to look at 3 things really quick in our time together about God’s work in our suffering: 

The Main Point today is this: Through the power of Jesus we are sent to do the work of God in a suffering world. We are sent to do the work of God in a hurting world. We can move from speculation to participation with Jesus in our suffering.

Christ Perceives Our Suffering(He sees it):

Verses 1-2 “As He 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?”

John first begins to describe this man to us. He says that this man was “blind from birth”. In Jewish culture having birth defects was mostly believed to be due to some sort of sin, which we will get into in just a moment. John includes this phrase “from birth” because he wants to emphasize to us how great of a miracle this will be. Later we see in vs 8 that not only was this man “blind from birth” but he lived a life where he used to “sit and beg”. Any of you ever had to beg for something(grades in college, or finances in college) It’s a shameful place to be in. This is not a life you or I would ever choose. This was a hard life, a life full of suffering. What’s important about verse 1 is John says that as Jesus passed by He saw him. This story takes place right outside of the temple, during a large Jewish feast and celebration. This man was not permitted to enter. Yet in his most vulnerable place, and the place of his deepest suffering Jesus sees him. It’s important to remember this point, that in the seasons of our deepest suffering, in the moments where we feel that no one sees us, or we feel forgotten, or maybe cast out due to family tension, Jesus sees you. God is the God who sees.  The Psalmist reminds us of this in Psalm 139: “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

So the point here is that Jesus is not ignorant to the grief of our suffering. Christ perceives your pain. He knows it. God is not a God who is distant from our suffering, but He enters into it, and we will see later, not only does he enter into to it, but He takes it upon Himself. 

Now when the disciples see this man, what is there first reaction? Speculation. This is what is everyone’s natural tendency when we encounter suffering or our friends, we always want to ask questions. We become like Job’s friends. Questions are wrong, but notice that in their speculation they reveal something about why they believe this man is suffering: 

Why did they react this way?

They believed that suffering was directly related to individual sin. They believed hat good people are blessed and bad people are suffering because of God’s judgment. This view was even that parents with kids who are born with disabilities were seen to be at fault. Later we will meet this mans parents, but can you imagine the shame that his parents and this man lived with because of this predominant view? There are huge problems with this view, and Jesus will correct it, but this is how much of us if we are honest view our relationship with God. Instead of trusting in the Gospel, we view our relationship with God as transactional. I am going through a hard season because God is mad at me, or if I do good things He will bless me. This is how most of Taiwanese would operate in relationship to idols, but that’s not the God we serve. Maybe some of you here in this room are walking through chronic illness or a dark season and you attribute that to God being angry with you. But Jesus is going to correct this view! the Bible also contradicts this view, there were many people who were righteous who suffered, David, Job, and most of all Jesus. 

Illustration? Think about this how Jesus isn’t ignorant of our suffering. He’s aware.

“People who make a difference in the world are not those who have never been hurt. They are those who have been hurt, healed, and then set free to serve others.”

Christ Performs His Purpose in our Suffering

Vs. “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, the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, “ I am the light of the world.”

So as the disciples are speculating about the why of suffering, Jesus moves from speculation to explanation of not necessarily the cause but the purpose of suffering in a believer’s life. What word do you see repeated in these few verses? “Work”. Right, Jesus makes clear that this mans suffering wasn’t due to individual sin of this man or his parents, and instead moves towards the purpose of suffering: which is? To display the work of God in someone’s life. Now this is a confusing things to consider. How can my suffering display the work of God. How are the works of God made manifest in my life when I am suffering? The declaration from Jesus that the work of God could be made manifest in a man whom society had cast out and had judged as unworthy of coming into the temple, would have been a real shocker for the disciples. The word work here that John uses in the Gospel of John always refers to the works of Jesus that display the character and nature of God the Father. If you remember, in John 1:18, John 14:9), here it is no different. Jesus is saying that in this mans suffering God is going to display His work. In a moment we are going to see how it occurs in this mans life, but this point causes us to consider our own suffering. Do we believe that even when we can see God active in our suffering, we still believe He is doing His work?  There isn’t always a clear answer when it comes to our suffering, but we can be sure and hold onto the fact that God can and will do a good work in the midst of it. Sometimes I believe God does His best work in the midst of our seasons of suffering.  I’m not a great cook, but I love to eat. While we lived in Taiwan, there was a breakfast dish called Fantuan. In this fantuan was the combination of some weird ingredients. You had rice, egg, I would add cheese, youtiao, but then they would add pickle relish and rou song! Who would ever think to add an ingredient of rou song would be good in a breakfast dish?! Yet without the rou song, the fantuan loses something. This is the same way that God uses suffering our lives. When we think of a fully formed believer one of the last ingredients we would throw into that process would be suffering, but if we look at the Bible and our own lives, God uses suffering as a primary ingredient to make us into the image of Jesus. Ask yourself this question, how has suffering in your life drawn you closer to Christ? Can you see how He has changed you, made you more humble, made you more dependent upon Him through seasons of suffering? Share my own story in 2021. Moving from speculation to participation in our suffering. Doing the work God has called us to do. 

John, Volumes 1 & 2 Biblical Explanations for Trials and Suffering

“I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness.”

Jesus says he is the light of the world. As long as we follow Him we have Him. The light of the world. That even in seasons of darkness that are difficult that are hard, we have the light of the world leading us. Trust him even when it hard. One of the easiest things to do in the midst of suffering is to turn inward, but Jesus says in suffering and our of suffering we are to be doing His works, and even if we are in a season of darkness we can trust the light of life to lead our way.

We have a limited amount of time on this earth. Jesus is calling us to live with an urgency. Notice how many times He refers to “works”.

Finally we see 

Christ Is the Answer to our Suffering

Verses: “Having said these things, he spit on the ground and 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 he went and washed and came back seeing.”

The end result of this mans suffering was that God’s glory was displayed through his healing. Let’s walk through these verses a little bit. First of all, why did Jesus use clay? Any thoughts? There are several interpretations as to why Jesus uses clay, the first being that in Jesus’ healings it seems that He never uses the same pattern for healings, which protects us from believing that healing can come if we simply follow some pre described method or plan! The second being that Jesus in taking the clay, is pointing back to creation as if to say, “I know that your life has been broken by the fall of creation and sin, but I am able to re create something new.” And then finally, this miracle happened on the Sabbath, and as you will see in later weeks, making a paste out of clay on the ground was considered “work” which will flare up the Pharisees self righteousness. In whatever interpretation you take, the beautiful thing is that God displayed His glory by healing this man’s ailment. Later in the chapter the people will say this kind of thing has never been done before and only God could do a miracle like this! God is able to perform things in our lives that seem impossible to us. God is able to recreate in our lives and hearts that which was broken by the fall and the sin of humanity. Ultimately this mans story ends in his healing. Notice what Jesus tells him to do. “Go wash in the pool of Siloam(which means Sent) So he went and washed and came back seeing. Several things should stick out to us in this text. First, why does Jesus ask him to do something before his healing? The context of this miracle takes place in Jerusalem the heartbeat of God’s people and the Pharisees. While the Pharisees have seen miracles and heard Jesus’ preaching they are unable to see Jesus’ glory. Yet this man without seeing Jesus, obeys Jesus simply based upon His word. This is the faith that Jesus seeks to find in His people. A faith that simply takes Him at His word. Martin Luther said once: “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.”  We aren’t saved by our obedience, but faith in Christ leads us to obey Christ and take Him at His word. Through this God’s glory was displayed through this miracle. These miracles are always meant to serve as a reminder that there is a new kingdom coming, a new creation that God is building for us. These miracles should remind us that one day Jesus will “wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore..” This is the kind of work our God does. He is a redeemer.  Those of us who are walking through hard seasons, trust that God is doing a good work, and He will complete it, either here in this life or when we see Him face to face. We can trust this truth, how? Because we see God’s glory displayed in suffering most clearly and ultimately on the cross where Jesus, not only entered into our suffering, but took the curse of our sin upon Himself, so that we might be saved from eternal suffering and judgment. And then Jesus’ suffering didn’t end with death. There wasn’t a period after the cross, He rose victoriously, reminding us and declaring in fact, that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” Notice by the end of the story he moves from witnessing Jesus to worshiping Jesus. The answer to all of our suffering is Jesus. He fulfills every desire, every broken area of our heart, Jesus is the cure.

Our bad things will turn out for good. Our good things can never really be lost. And the best things are yet to come. 

壞事終將化為祝福，

美好的永遠不會失落，

最好的，還在後頭。