Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Leading up to this passage Jesus encounters this blind man.

Jesus gives him instructions as to what he is to do so he might see.

It took faith on the part of the man to do as he was insturcted and the end result is he regains his sight.

But the religious people of the day questioned him and were not pleased.

They could not see past the fact this blind man who the saw was blind because of sin now had his sight back.

THey could not believe that God could do such a thing because it did not work with in their belief system.

How often do you and I stuggle with our faith because it doesn’t work with our beliefs of how life works.

Or we see God work in the life of a person we have written off and we refuse to think God works this way.

What it comes down to is the question Jesus would ask the man who was previously blind but now sees.

There is two things happening here.

Jesus went and continues to seek and find the ones the world, the religious elite cast off.

Jesus asks each of us a simple question “Do you believe in the Son of God?”

Jesus went and continues to seek and find the ones the world, the religious elite cast off.

Jesus had compassion on this man who had a life changing moment in his life but all those around him could not get past their own beliefs.

They did not like to be challenged, they were comfortable in the way things were and they were not ready to consider anything else that might disrupt that.

They believed that sickness, trouble, everything that was wrong was a result of sin of a persons life or even their parents.

But Jesus tells us that there is another possiblity.

SO before you cast off a person consider what it might be that God is trying to do in their life and even ours.

But lets get back to what happens here.

This man has been changed by Jesus and now he is cast away.

But Jesus seeks him out.

It reminds me of the parable of the lost sheep found in Luke 15.

The world in fact many in the church miss the point of the gospel.

It is about finding that one that was lost, the one that was cast off, the one needing to be found.

Jesus found this man that was cast off and he wants him to see what really matters.

And it is what He really needs to see.

It is

Jesus asks each of us a simple question “Do you believe in the Son of God?”

Seems like a simple question but it what we need to ask ourselves each day.

When we face life.

Do you believe?

When the world turns its back on me.

Do you believe?

When the church can’t see what God is doing in your life.

Do you believe?

When God tells you to go even when everyone else says no. Do you believe?

It really is the question we all face.

Even the discples had to ask themselves the same questions.

Thomas struggled with this idea that was totally foriegn to his thinking.

Thomas was struggling to accept, to believe.

Thomas like many of us struggle to trust that God has a plan for us even if we can’t see it or feel it.

We struggle to believe.

RELIGIOUS OR CHRISTIAN?

By: Major W. Ian Thomas

There are few things quite so boring as being religious, but there is nothing quite so exciting as being a Christian!

Most folks have never discovered the difference between the one and the other, so that there are those who sincerely try to live a life they do not have, substituting religion for God, Christianity for Christ, and their own noble endeavors for the energy, joy, and power of the Holy Spirit.

In the absence of reality, they can only grasp at rituals, stubbornly defending the latter in the absence of the former, lest they be found with neither!

They are lamps without oil, cars without gas, and pens without ink, baffled at their own impotence in the absence of all that alone can make man functional; for man was so engineered by God that the presence of the Creator within the creature is indispensable to His humanity.

Christ gave Himself for us to give Himself to us! His presence puts God back into the man!

He came that we might have life - God's life!

There are those who have a life they never live.

They have come to Christ and thanked Him only for what He did, but do not live in the power of who He is.

Between the Jesus who "was" and the Jesus who "will be" they live in a spiritual vacuum, trying with no little zeal to live for Christ a life that only He can live in and through them, perpetually begging for what in Him they already have!

We can be religious, follow doctrine, quote theology, but we have never truly answered the question “Do you Believe?”

We must answer this direct question be religious doesn’t mean you believe in Jesus it may only mean you believe in your religion.

The Jews of Jesus’ day faved this same question.as

we do today.

What is your answer to him today?

prayer