Sermon Tone Analysis

We are in John 9 this morning.

I encourage you to open your bibles and look at this passage with me.

We read through this whole passage last week, and started by looking at verses 1-3.

Today we are going to focus on verses 3-5.

Let’s pray and then begin looking at this passage.

Prayer

Why was this man born blind?

As Jesus and his disciples were leaving the temple after the people there were ready to stone Jesus for claiming to be the great ‘I AM’, God come into the world.

As they were going along, they saw this blind man.

The disciples got distracted by the theological question, “Who sinned that this man was born blind?”

They were distracted with the philosophical questions concerning suffering.

Jesus gave them the answer…

Last week, we focused on not getting distracted with the philosophical questions, and realize that God is at work through suffering.

He has a purpose.

Today, we want to look further into that purpose, and what Jesus has to say about it in the following verses.

First, in this verse, we want to make sure we understand what God wants to do.

I think the key here is to understand what is meant by the word ‘displayed’.

What does it mean that God wants to display His works in this man?

The word that John used here can be understood or used in ways similar to these English words.

Notice the primary ways is it translated into English is with the words ‘appear’ and ‘revealed’.

The sense of the word is for something that was not there to come to light, or show up.

For example, Jesus appeared to his disciples after He rose from the dead.

In this case, it is not someone appearing, as much as something coming to light that was not understood.

Or, in other words, God was going to reveal Himself as He does something with this man.

That God might reveal Himself

Why was this man born blind?

Because God wanted to reveal Himself.

God was going to do something with this man So that people might know Him better.

God wants people to know that He is the God who sees our suffering, and wants to give us aid.

He wants us to see His power which can even give sight to the blind.

He wants us to see that Jesus is the God He claimed to be.

God is going to reveal Himself through this man.

That is great!

But as I thought about this, I began to wonder, why now?

Remember, this man was born blind, and now he was an adult.

That means he lived his whole life into adulthood as a blind person.

That had to be hard.

It had to be hard for him and for his parents.

Not only did he have to struggle to live without sight, but he and they had the stigma of being sinners because of his blindness.

God could have stopped that from happening.

God could have made him see from the beginning.

But if He had, would anyone have noticed?

Would anyone have seen what God wanted to reveal?

God often reveals Himself through suffering

No.

If this man did not suffer all those years, and then have Jesus restore his sight, no one would have noticed what God was revealing.

This is sad, but true.

When without suffering, we tend to not see our need for God.

No one would have seen God’s hand if this man was born with sight.

They would have expected that.

It would not have been a miracle.

It took the man being born blind for people to see the miracle of God giving him sight.

However, God did not do it right away.

He didn’t do it shortly after birth.

He didn’t do it while he was just a boy.

Can you imagine how long the parents prayed for their child to see? How long did this man ask God to give Him sight?

We do not know.

But put yourself in his place.

Would you and I have prayed and asked God to remove the suffering?

I believe we would.

Jesus had been to Jerusalem before.

The man apparently lived here, so Jesus could have healed him on His previous trips.

Why didn’t he?

Why did He wait until now?

God reveals Himself in His time

Though this man and his parents may have wanted to see the healing come before, God waited until now because God intended to reveal Himself, not only to this man, but to the disciples, the priests, the pharisees and the crowds in Jerusalem!

God had a lot of revealing to do, and He knew just the right time to do it!

So, the answer to the question that Jesus gave His disciples was that God wants to reveal Himself through the suffering in His time.

He does this because He knows the audience He is trying to reach!

He isn’t just revealing Himself to this man, but to others as well.

The disciples were some of those He was trying to reveal Himself to!

They needed to know that God allows suffering not just as a result of a person’s sin.

God allows suffering to reveal Himself!

Well, Jesus had more to teach His disciples, and he went on from there.

There is a very important word that stood out to me here.

It starts with an ‘m’.

Do you see it?

We MUST do the works...

What does the word must mean?

It is necessary.

It cannot be left undone.

Jesus basically was saying that it was not an option.

While it was day, we must do the works for which God sent us into the world.

For Jesus, He was going to to the work He was sent here to do.

He came to seek and save the Lost.

He came to teach and lead us into Truth.

He came to show grace and truth.

He came to reveal the Father to the world.

He came to make the way for us to become children of God, by dying for our sin and rising again.

What if Jesus didn’t do the works?

Would God have been revealed?

No.

God reveals Himself through His servants!

God has already revealed Himself through Creation to this world.

In Romans 1 we see taht God’s wisdom and power is manifested to everyone through His creation.

However, a lot of people do not see that.

So, God sent Jesus to reveal Himself more clearly.

So, Jesus knew, He needed to to the works of God, or this man’s blindness would have been wasted.

God would not have been revealed!

Jesus knew what He needed to do.