Blinded By...

How would you describe worship music to someone who is deaf?

Discuss Dacie and how her and her twin was born with very limited hearing.

How would you describe color to a blind person?

Describe the different ways.

How would you describe faith to someone who is spiritually blind?

Roman’s Road? Show them scripture?

Today, we will go onto Chapter 9 in the Gospel of John. And guess what...Christ is still at the feast of Sukkoth.

He just finished telling off the religious leaders and they are at a point where they want to stone him.

Does this phase Christ? Not in the slightest. He just walks by them, and sees a blind beggar. This is where we start our verses for today. But before we read Let’s pray!

John 9:1–7 CSB

As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do 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.” After he said these things he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.

The first thing we see...get it...sorry bad joke

Blinded By Legalism

We spoke about the second “I Am” statement...I am the light of the world.

He has complete power over darkness and gives light. Healing this blind man shows this power and His prerogative over healing.

I want you to be very aware that at this point, the legalism does not come from the Pharisees, but from Christ’s own disciples.

They are going back to what they were taught at a young age.

They ask “Who sinned him or his parents?”

This very question gives us a glimpse of legalism in life.

Legalism is the attempt to earn God’s favor through our own righteousness.

It runs under the idea that you can gain favor with God through your good works.

I will get blessings if I say enough prayers, if I support so many charities, if I am nice to the pastor (some of yall are already out), if I cook meals for the homeless...the list goes on.

But I have bad things happen cause I did not please God or I did something bad...oh no I better start praying more, I need to go to church more, I need to do this or that cause God is mad at me.

The disciples looked at this man and thought someone must have done something wrong or this would not have happened to this man.

They were taught that even babies in the womb could sin or some even believed in reincarnation and thought the baby may have done something bad in a former life, so he or his parents made God mad and He caused this because of that anger.

Many people struggle with this legalism.

Have you ever thought to yourself “Why God? Why did you do this to me? Have you not seen everything I have done? I was even nice to the pastor!”

When you miss the bigger picture, God has a plan for everything.

Many of you read my wife’s post this week on facebook, if not let me read some of it to you.

So we discussed Dory's famous "just keep swimming" phrase and I told the kids that I love Nemo because 1. he's orange, and that's my favorite color, and 2. Nemo has one good fin and one funky fin, and I have one good arm and one funky arm. Went on to say that during all the surgeries and stuff to make my arm better, I had no choice but to keep moving forward, to "just keep swimming", and as I'm talking I am hit with the realization that not only was God right there with me during "the arm thing", but that "arm thing" was actually His plan from the start. I talk a whole lot about God's plans and purposes for me, my kids, my family, but it took almost 30 years to see "the arm thing" as God's plan. Not His backup plan, not something He whipped up on the fly. I was always meant to have a broken chicken wing. I can't adequately or cohesively explain just what that does for me.

Let me say, my beautiful wife has done many great things in her life and she has done many ...a great many...bad things in her life. Was it because she did bad things that her are is the way it is...no...was it God’s plan yes.

Can I explain why? No.

I can say this, sin entered this world because of man and it will continue to be in this world because of man, but that did not catch God off guard.

WE serve an all knowing Lord, there is no plan B in His book.

We struggle when bad things happen, but we must not get to a legalistic view that we made God mad and we deserve the whooping we are getting now.

Or I was a good boy and I am getting the Godly candy I deserve.

We must always see... it is only and always for His Glory, not about us.

Blinded by first legalism...second

Blinded by Religious Traditions

I am not the biggest cheerleader for traditions.

We have some traditions at our house. I always cook Thanksgiving at our house. It is tradition.

We always have gumbo on Christmas.

We always open presents the whole month December and we have sofa presents on Christmas day.

What makes not a cheerleader for traditions is when it goes from tradition to we’ve always done it that way!

Let’s look at a big chunk of our text today...

John 9:8–34 CSB

His neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit begging?” Some said, “He’s the one.” Others were saying, “No, but he looks like him.” He kept saying, “I’m the one.” So they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.” “Where is he?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he said. They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. Then the Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” he told them. “I washed and I can see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” And there was a division among them. Again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes?” “He’s a prophet,” he said. The Jews did not believe this about him—that he was blind and received sight—until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” “We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents answered. “But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him as the Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue. This is why his parents said, “He’s of age; ask him.” So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” “I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?” They ridiculed him: “You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’s disciples. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man—we don’t know where he’s from.” “This is an amazing thing!” the man told them. “You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.” “You were born entirely in sin,” they replied, “and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out.

I truly dislike when tradition becomes religious rules that take away from the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Want to know why I dislike it so much...it is because religious traditions put God in a box and says He can only fit within these parameters.

If we do not sing 3 worship songs, the Holy Spirit will not move!

If we don’t eat on fifth Sunday, if we do not partake of the Lord’s Supper...did we even have a fifth Sunday. Was God even there?

In the text for today, we see the Pharisees are not excited about a blind man getting his sight...they are calling Jesus a sinner because he broke religious tradition by healing on the Sabbath.

You can get your sheep out of a hole on the Sabbath, but do not heal on that day.

I love how this man answers the Religious Leaders when they tell him to renounce Jesus to call him a sinner.

He says throughout history no has ever heard of opening someone’s eyes when they were born blind...if he ain’t from God he could not do these things.

Religious traditions have a habit of stifling the Holy Spirit.

It is my honest opinion, the reason we do not see the amazing movements of the Holy Spirit anymore is because we have told him that he is not allowed in our traditions, in our rules and regulations, in our church, in our home and in our lives if he doesn’t stay in the box we created.

Blinded by legalism and blinded by religious traditions...

It is time we open our eyes.

I asked at the beginning, “How would you describe faith to someone who is spiritually blind?”

Let’s look at what Jesus said.

John 9:39 CSB

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”

Christ came to this world to die for our sins so that we can see, and to draw the line between those who now see and those who are spiritually blind.

Those who see the light and those who prefer to stay in the darkness.

Those who are willing to follow him and those who think they are their own god and follow themselves.

The greatest trick the enemy has done in this world is to get people think they are god and to misinterperate the bible so they can say they are godly.

To blind the church with legalism and religious traditions.

To break free from this is simple.

Worship, prayer and bible study.