Sermon Tone Analysis

Follow the Lord to the Fullest - Part 1

The Gospel of John

John 9:35-10:9

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - February 22, 2017

(Revised October 13, 2019)

BACKGROUND:

*For the last three messages we have looked at the wonderful story of Jesus healing a blind man in John 9. Tragically, that man had been born blind, but nothing is too hard for the Lord!

And this man was completely healed as soon as he did what Jesus told him to do.

*Tragically, most of the Pharisees already hated Jesus enough to kill Him, and they couldn't stand more evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, so in vs. 13, the healed man was hauled before the council of the Pharisees.

They tried their best to find a way to deny his miracle.

And when this man stood up to the Pharisees, they cast him out of the congregation.

*That put him in a terrible situation, because John Gill explained that it meant "he might neither hire, nor be hired.

Also, the other people did not trade with him, nor did they employ him in any business, unless in very little, just to keep him alive.

Being put out of the congregation also meant that his possessions could be confiscated."

(1)

*This healed man was in a horrible situation.

But then Jesus found him and gave him the greatest miracle of all: The man believed in Jesus, and he was saved!

*Please listen to this part of the story in vs. 35-39:

35.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?''

36.

He answered and said, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?''

37.

And Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.''

38.

Then he said, "Lord, I believe!''

And he worshiped Him.

39.

And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.''

*With this background in mind, let's read John 9:39-10:9.

And as we read, we will see some great reasons why everybody should follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

MESSAGE:

*Has your turn-by-turn driving app ever let you down?

Oh yeah.

A lot of us have been there.

The last time I remember, we were going to a lakeside condo some friends had offered us for the weekend.

We followed the directions step by step, and we arrived at our destination.

There is was, -- across a hundred feet of water.

It would have been perfect if we were in a boat, but it took us another 15 minutes to pull in the driveway.

*When it comes to the way we should go, things and people will let us down.

We will also let ourselves down.

There is only one perfect person to follow, and His name is Jesus Christ.

Jesus will never steer us in the wrong direction, and our goal in life should be to follow the Lord to the fullest.

Tonight's Scripture helps us see why.

1. FIRST: FOLLOW JESUS BECAUSE HIS STANDARDS ARE SUPREME.

*Jesus Christ has the authority to set the standards for everyone in the world!

We can see this truth in vs. John 9:39-41:

39. . .

Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.''

40.

Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?''

41.

Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains."

*Jesus Christ is the Judge of this world.

He sets the standards, and we must submit ourselves to Him.

The Lord's judgments are always true.

And if Jesus says you are spiritually blind, you are most certainly blind!

*But what does that mean in these verses?

William Barclay explained that "Jesus came into this world for judgment.

Whenever a man hears God's truth about Jesus, if that man sees in Jesus nothing to desire, nothing to admire, nothing to love, then he remains spiritually blind.

*But if he notices in Jesus something to wonder at, something to respond to, something to reach out to, then he is on the way to God.

The man who is conscious of his own blindness, who longs to see better, who longs to know more, is the man whose eyes can be opened, and who can be led ever more deeply into the truth of Christ.

*The man who thinks he knows it all, the man who does not realize that he cannot see, is the man who is truly blind and beyond hope and help.

Only the man who realizes his own weakness can become strong.

Only the man who realizes his own blindness can learn to see.

Only the man who realizes his own sin can be forgiven."

(2)

*Those Pharisees were blind in the worst way, because they rejected the judgment of Jesus Christ.

Our great Savior is the Judge of all.

And we should follow Jesus because His standards are supreme.

2. ALSO FOLLOW JESUS BECAUSE HIS WARNINGS ARE WISE.

*Sometimes people don't like warnings, because they tend to be negative, and we don't like negative things.

But many times, a negative warning can make a positive difference in our lives.

In fact, negative warnings can save lives.

*Would you put poison in a Coke bottle?

Never!

That would be a horribly foolish thing to do, because people need to be warned about the danger of the poison.

Well, God cares infinitely more about people than we do, so He gives us wise warnings about the most dangerous things.

[1] FIRST, JESUS WARNS US ABOUT REJECTING HIM.

*We see this warning when Jesus responded to the Pharisees in vs. 39-41:

39. . .

Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.''

40.

Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?''

41.

Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains."

*"Your sin (or your guilt) remains."

That's just three words, but those three words have a devastating impact for all eternity.

Jesus told those Pharisees, "Your sin remains," and their sin remained because they were rejecting Jesus Christ.

*They had fooled themselves into believing that they were good enough to stand before God on their own virtue.

The Pharisees refused to admit their sin and see their need for the cleansing that only Jesus can give.

Everybody needs to admit their sin, and let Jesus wash their sins away.

How?

By believing in Him, by believing what Jesus says about our sins and about Himself, by believing that God the Father sent Jesus, His only begotten Son, into the world to die on the cross for our sins, by believing that Jesus also rose again from the dead, and by receiving Him as Lord and Savior.

[2] THAT'S WHY JESUS WARNS US ABOUT REJECTING HIM.

HE ALSO WARNS US ABOUT SPIRITUAL THIEVES AND ROBBERS.

*That's what the Lord did in John 10:1, when He said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."

Jesus was warning His listeners about false teachers.

That included the false Messiah's who had tried to deceive the Jews.

It also included the religious rulers of the day who rejected the Lord.

*William MacDonald and John Phillips explained that sheepfolds in Bible times were enclosures where the sheep were sheltered at night.

They were made of stones or thorn-bushes, open to the sky and entered by one opening that was used as a door.

In this parable the sheepfold referred to the Jewish nation.

The thieves were people who stole by sneakiness, and robbers were those who used violence to get what they want.

*By this time, many false teachers had come to the Jewish people, professing to be their spiritual rulers and guides.

They were self-appointed messiahs, and they did not come the way Old Testament prophecies said the Messiah would come.

These false teachers climbed up some other way.

They were not true shepherds, but thieves and robbers.

*That's also what the religious leaders of Israel had become.

Their pride and desire for power, their false interpretation of God's Word, and their hateful determination to oppose Jesus all marked them out as false shepherds.

They did everything in their power to hinder the Jews from accepting the true Messiah.

They persecuted those who followed Jesus, and eventually they put Jesus to death.