2021-10-10 Sermon: John 9:13-41

Okay. Dylan times are good fats. Video editing time for the pastor. I have. So got to get to the sermon videos up online. If you haven't noticed on the face Life app, one of the great things about that is that you get the sermon recordings. So if you missed one or if you got a friend, you like. Hey, you got to your pastor John. It was great service or go. What was it about you go. I'll pay more attention, but you can get back on the face, Life app and you can stay at the voice recording there because we are getting digital around here. So for those who want to jump in and follow me along read, John chapter 9, if you want to turn in your Bibles either electronic or paper or both. I got a little bit of both up here. And cuz I'm I guess I'm in the in-between generation. Now, you know, I like kindle, don't get me wrong. But at the same time there's just something about Picking up that bible and end in, you know, I miscarried one of my pocket for years that a pocket Bible. And why would I carry my backpack? It out of Bible that I had at home and I would read all three of them. And so now I've got like this mini shelf section of myself with Bibles of Olga. Highlights of them. It was as if you haven't nobody's ever told you it's okay to write in your Bible. It's okay to highlight in your Bible. The things that God is bringing about in your life so you can go back and review them a man. alright, so I once was blind, but now I see.

Part 2.0, right last week. We met the man. The Jesus healed. That was born blind. And the The verses in chapter 9 1. 2 3 was the as he passed by saw a man blind from birth. Of course, the man, he didn't call out the Jesus. He didn't say Lord. Save me. He didn't have some dramatic entrance. He was just there. Struggling in life. And God said, I'm going to step into your life. And don't get me wrong. It's great. Whenever Jesus hears us whenever we can sail or I'm I'm struggling. I'm struggling with life. I'm struggling with something and I need you. But there's times that every we don't even say, Lord, I'm struggling and he still reaches into our life and blesses us and gives us things. We didn't even know we needed. Or maybe we need them, but we just thought that we would never be able to have him again. We just gave up trying thinking, it wasn't going to happen for us. But God, right. Amen, but God. So says, as inverse one-in-three, I'm just going to read this request is as he passed by and saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi who sing this man or his parents that he was born blind and Jesus answered. It was not that the man sinned or his parents with that. The works of God might be displayed in in See, your blessing is not intentional pain, whether you send or your parents send or whatever, have you? I mean, the amount of blessing, the Jesus portion to this man's life, had nothing to do with the amount of his sin. Had to do with God being generous. Not just good, you know, here there's a special from the movie, right? God is good all the time and all the time. God is good, right? Ladies, if you haven't found a man yet, go up and say that to him, you know. Hey God is good all the time, you know, and all the time, if he doesn't know the rest.

Just don't do it. Just don't just stop girls to, dude. I'm serious. walkway, that So he said you don't eat, he said it against that, I am the light of the world, you know, we talked about that last week and I jesus that I am the light of the world is 2.0 version because now he's going to be the light for this man. He's going to turn the lights on. Is there to do something that no other healer could do. And there were Faith healers. There have been Faith healers since Jesus that were legitimate healings that have happened, but there is only one God. There is only one Messiah. And one of the things that only God can do is to create something from nothing. There is no sort of big bang and all the sudden Adams appear that never happened before and they moved together and they form something that lives at. That's never happened. Nor do great study on it. Look up the term. Irreducible complexity. No scientist has ever explained it, and that's why they keep coming back to the Big Bang change to the wave thing, and then the truth doesn't change a man. So he said, I am the light of the world and we must work. The works of him who sent me while it is day.

So There's Something About the Name of Jesus because the seventh sign healing of a man. Born blind. He creates site. He doesn't just restore site. He creates site in someone who can genitive Lee and genital. Excuse me. Did not have the ability to see physically deformed.

In the power to create site.

It's amazing And You Know What's even this even better is that he hates that he spit some some dirt and makes mud He puts it on the Man's eyes, right? Remember last week. He has been using. The dirt of the earth to creates Genesis to create something that was not there. Since the beginning. God uses. The most humble means the things, the song me, seriously, if somebody were to go, you know, gets dirt and be like, here, let me do this. You know, what would you do? You would be all my really right now with his mother? No stop that. Stop that. But it's, it's a testimony to where the man was in his hope. He had not even hoped anymore to to have sight, but he allowed this man to come up and get mud from spit and dirt and put it on his face. Cuz he was willing to let God do whatever God had to do. In his life because of where he was. He said, Lord, okay.

That's just amazing. Show me an born. Blind part 2. This is one of The Parables. You only find in the Gospel of John.

And when you do find it, you also going to notice one that we've gone through, we talked about last week, briefly. You know, what is Mary in the water? Turn to Wine Miracle. We're going to get into one here in a couple of chapters where he raises Lazarus from the dead cuz that was another one of God's only Providence has your God, has the power over life and death and he did these things. So that we would know that he is not just a prophet, that he is not just a Healer, but that he is, God. The Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has promised, it will get into that cuz the great story. But for now is jumping 2. Verse 10, through 12. That's where we left off. Last time about chapter 9, it only reads this. So they said to him. How were your eyes opened course? This is the Jews talking to the man. That was born, blind. And he answered the Man Called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes. And he said to me, go to Salome and wash. So I went and washed and receive my sight. And they said, where is he?

Play Jesus wasn't trying to be a superstar about it. He came along. Just came along and said I'm going to have Glory by the act alone. I don't need to promote myself and tell you how cool I am, or, how good I am, or what good things. I can do, what good things I possess. He walked along the head Mercy. It's amazing. He does at and see it's a testimony also to the pool of Salome because you see the pool of Salome a few times in Scripture. We saw it just a couple of chapters ago. But the first time you see in scripture, you actually see it back in Second Kings and 2nd Chronicles. If you haven't read 1st Kings and 2nd Kings, and first prize was a second chronicles. They can't tell the same story, just from a little different viewpoint. All the waters that run as a west side of the city of the Kidron Valley. Hezekiah. If you remember that name that's from the book of Isaiah Wright. You said during the time of King Hezekiah, Isaiah the sound of a mouse prophet prophesied of these things and Stardust from he really step was from Isaiah, really stepped into his ministry. As a prophet was reading that time will Hezekiah was one of the good Kings. If you remember, they split this kid a kingdom split and they have some good and bad good and bad, a good and bad in the North and the South they were just horrible, most every one of them but one of the things he did was to take these Waters and bring them into the city. So he built an aqueduct was just basically just as big Channel tunnel to bring these Waters into the city because he's Waters were said to have healing properties.

So course, that made sense in Jerusalem. Well, I mean if you want if your note taker 2nd, Kings chapter 20, second Chronicles, chapter 32. Okay, he builds it. He brings it in and then Isaiah mentions it on three, separate occasions after 7/8 and 36 if you're taking notes. So even when Nehemiah comes back to the city, the first thing he does when he starts to work on the walls is to restore the gates and the water's flowing from the west side of the city. Why is that important Pastor John? Because jump for a couple hundred years and that seemed Aqueduct system that seem Waters of life that are flowing into Jerusalem for the people. Is where you see Jesus, walk up beside him in and say. Do you want to be healed? He says, yes, Teresa's pick up your mat and walk that same water, that he's sitting beside trying to get there so that he can be healed that God has used to heal so many people. And we talked about this state of being the house of grace and mercy, the same living water, the same life-giving water that God used in the house of grace. And mercy to heal the man on the mat and pick up his mat and work on the Sabbath. A controversy about what he doesn't, keep the Sabbath, is he did work, he healed somebody and juice is like if your oxtails in the ditch on the Sabbath, don't you go get it? I still didn't get it. Well, here's Jesus the rebel cuz he's trying to teach you another lesson. And if you've ever seen lessons happen more than once in your life, it's not,. I wish you would leave this alone. It's not. It is God trying to teach you something that you didn't get the first time. It's just a lesson. I ever repeated a grade. We had this guy nice. I did good all the way up through middle school, and I even jumped a little bit late, so I didn't get it cuz I know I found some other things to distract me. y'all ladies on quit that, you know what you're doing and God taught me a lesson and brought me back to where I needed to be to teach me that lesson again.

Well, that's what he's doing here because he's patient of people about Mercy. Has he reached down to this man? Who says do you want to be healed the messages to pick up your mat and walk? The same Waters. A couple chapters later. A man isn't even close enough to get to that pool. He can't see it anyway. So, he makes mud. Uses the same Earth used to create us and says now go wash in the waters that we blessed.

And be healed. And you will see the pool of Salome again. I promise, you'll see the same aqueduct. But here's the issue.

It was the Sabbath again.

The things that don't make sense to men. God uses the foolishness of men. I mean, I don't know about where you're at in life and what you've been through, whatever. Have you any 1st. Corinthians says that Grace is Simpson. The wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the Folly of what we preach to save those who would believe.

If you see people who are intellectuals, if you will have a harder time believing in God, because their intellect is the enemy of faith, and I hate to say that way because you doesn't mean that everyone who has faith is not intelligent. It just means that it gets in the way because there's some things that you just can't explain with a human mind. There always will be. God made it that way. Is called the mystery. Because it's designed to be accepted by faith. The thing that you think can't happen or you don't know how it happened and you give it to the the smarter people than me and they get to a point like a reducible complexity. Please, look, that up to get to this point where even they can't explain.

And of course, at that point, there's got to be some scientific anomaly going on you this mutation or whatever else.

But in John nine, in verse 13. We can get into the testimony of the man born blind and the contrast and where he is at and where his neighbors and he's telling them about what happened. And what happens when he gets in front of the Pharisees cuz remember those great that lovable crowd the Pharisees. They're always hanging around for some reason. The other. Real lovable, but you know, we got to love them right there. The people you like what you? Don't you love but you don't really like that much. You know, I don't usually I don't usually say you should do that. But these guys, this was free cuz they brought to the Pharisees, the man who had formerly been blocked number, but you just got done telling his friends. This guy put mud in my eyes told me to go wash in the pool. And now I'm Healed while they're bothering from the Pharisees, first 13, verse 14. Now, it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Of course it was. Is now the Pharisees have something to say about this. So, the Pharisees again, asked him how he had received his sight and he said to them, he put mud on my eyes that I washed and I see, And some of the Pharisees said this man, Jesus is not from God. For he does not keep the Sabbath. But other said, how can a man, who is a sinner do such things? News the division among them. So they say it again for the blind, man. What do you say about him since he's opened your eyes then why man says he's a prophet.

The Sabbath again. Why is she's doing this on the Sabbath? What is so important that he does this in? This is not just the second, it's happened before this and it does happen later in the scriptures that Jesus heals people on the Sabbath.

You see back in Hosea, you jump back into the Old Testament in the prophets in back in chapter 6 of Hosea. You know, God is talking to the people. He says, what shall I do with you or Efrain? What shall I do with you? Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud. Like the dude that goes away early. Therefore I have found them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth and my judgment Goes Forth as the light. For this is my desire. I desire steadfast love.

I desire the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

This is why Jesus is doing is trying to show them that. Yes, if you love God, you do want to live a righteous life. You do want to obey in. But that love has to come first. That's the motivation to live a righteous life that relationship with God. Once you see what Holiness is what you know that God is good all the time and all the time that God is good.

That motivates you to want to know him better.

And when you see what his Holiness is and you see the sin in your life that going off and doing Halloween night, doesn't make you happier. It just provides you fellowship with other people who are unhappy.

That was a true that God showed me about Halloween. Wasn't that I love the holiday. It was that I love the idea that I could be around people who were as unhappy as I was but trying to hide it, but you got a good face. We're all wearing black. We're all that party wall out, trying to find happiness in liquor and drugs and in party and in whatever. We're trying to find that thing and maybe we did find something close for a minute, but the next day, it wasn't there. No problems. We're still there. All the lack of love in the loneliness that I felt it all the other things that I was looking for in that Fellowship for 1 or 5 6 hour night. Wasn't there? The next morning?

Because when you try to counterfeit the love of God, when you try to counterfeit that generosity, that goodness, that piece everything, that comes with that. You might do it for a little while. It's not ever going to stink. And then you left again with the same problems you had the night before.

God's desire is steadfast love. Not sacrifice another words. Learn to love Mercy. More than obeying the Sabbath. Is what Jesus is telling him last time you told him. God made the Sabbath for me and not man for the Sabbath.

All this time. I was trying to teach him again because it may mean your Matthew he even gets on these people is like you people are blind. You straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. He says you are trying to worry so much about this little thing. Then you'll be the rules. Do you get the work perfectly? No, he healed. Okay, inhaling. Did he pick up his mat? Are you worried about that? Just healed, man. He just made a life. Beautiful again. From despair, from crippling life. He brought something whole. He brought someone to glorify God, to be able to help his neighbor to be able to feel like a whole man, again to be able to love completely. And you are worried about whether or not he picked up a piece of cardboard and walked off with it. Please. Get your priorities straight folks.

Casino even in the Sabbath day at me when you read the scripture about the size, of course, as one of the Ten Commandments, right. You remember the Sabbath. He says, remember the Sabbath to keep it. Holy six days. You should labor and do all your work. With the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God. See, they remember the Sabbath day. They remember the six days of work. But they forgot to keep it. Holy, they lost sight of what Holiness is. Holiness. Is that something you would Pain by following all the rules?

Holiness is knowing the heart of God. He says I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice. I desire you to know me. I desire the knowledge of God rather than a burnt offering.

I desire. You didn't know me and no, but relationship with me is more important than weather. You followed everything to the letter. Because we're not going to. We want to, and if you love Jesus, I hope that you want to. I do. But I feel regularly and sometimes spectacularly.

You know, honey, we'll have to talk about. This is a little off sweetheart. That's supposed to wait until I say something like hey, I messed up. Anyway, she keeps me going. And and I and I accept that because that's one of the things that God put her there for. Not always easy, but it is always necessary. So, what do you want for that? Amen? John 9 verses 18 to 23. Since the Jews. Did not believe he been blind. And had received his sight until they called the parents of the man that received his sight. And I asked him, is this your son? Who you say was born wide? How then does he now see? In the parents answered. We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but how you now see you that we do not know. Nor do we know who opened his eyes for ask him. He's of age. He will speak for himself.

These parents said these things because they feared the Jews for the Jews. Had already agreed that. If anyone should confess Jesus to be priced. He was to be put out of the synagogue there. For his parents said he is of age, ask him.

This is one of the biggest cruelties of early Humanity. It came from. It wasn't just the Catholic church. So used to do this and make came all the way down from Judaism, the thought of excommunication.

These are parents who are looking at their son, who is just made whole.

And if you haven't got the time frame involved, he's about forty. He's in his mid-to-late 30s.

He was just made whole and they are so afraid of these Pharisees that they won't speak up and say, I don't care about your rules. I care that my son is whole and you know, sometimes we look at the parents who say, you know, that's messed up right there. Why would you not speak up for your child? but remember this, The idea of excommunication back then it said that is translated here. And there is a Greek word. That's like 17 letters long and I could go there with you. But put out of the synagogue memes excommunicated, remember that up to this time, they're going through the prophets that got up to the time of Jesus. Excommunication meant that you were no longer allowed to take any kind of place in the religious rituals in this holidays or Yom, Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and all the others. You are no longer allowed to participate in these things. Why is that important? Cuz it's not just a party. Remember the where they lived at the time. The only way you could have tone for your sin. The only way you couldn't keep from going to hell, was that have a priest, accept the sacrifice that you brought put it on the Altar and bless that sacrifice. If the priest would not take your offering and bless it, you and your whole family. We're stuck with their sins.

So these parents likely had other children as well. And basically what they're doing is a poem in front of the Pharisees and the Pharisees are giving them the, the I, and I can imagine what that looks like from leave now. because if they speak up, In their mind them, and the rest of their family is going to hell, because these people are going to withhold the blessing of God from them.

As one of the biggest cruelties of the Pharisees in there later components, cuz there are other churches all the way up to the Middle Ages. That did that. Thank God for the Protestant Reformation. Amen.

But they would hold him families in their loved ones hostage their eternity hostage if you do not obey them.

So this is why in Jesus when he was preaching, if you go to another gospel, in Matthew about chapter 10 were about where we are in the same timeline and Jesus has a famous sermon, when he's preaching. He says, I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law gifts for mother-in-law in a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up his cross. And follow me is not worthy of me. For whoever finds their life will lose it and whoever loses his life. For my sake will find it.

And that's where the hardest things. Jesus is never said, because family is where it hits close to home, right? You know what I found.

And I'll see you about this the other days. I have a cousin who's currently going through some troubles and I was going to try to help him out some and I'm really not that close to several members of my family because I chose Jesus.

And they don't understand it. I don't understand why I don't speak the way they speak and do the things they do. That's created a gap. In our relationship, it's not one that I want. I would love to be able to have, but to be honest, I don't want to do what they're doing. And the way that they speak, I'm not saying I'm perfect, or I speak, but at the same time, there's no, I mean, if GT is not meant to be an adjective and adverb, or verb of prepositional phrase, and another part of the English speech is that that's, that's not where I'm at. You know, people are where they are. And I'm not saying that you're horrible because you are, where you are saying that. That's not me.

But you know, what else I found.

God is good. All the time. And he took and said, if you were willing to give me your life and pick up your cross and follow me. You will find life. And in finding that life. I was able to find my mother in a place where she needed. I was able to be the man that I should be the step up into the place of my grandfather in the step up into a place. Where the men of the family that you can look to to be dedicated God. Loving honoring their spouse, honoring their children, being able to be dependable. Those things that I never was.