Arrogance of Tradition and Position
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 11 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Healing a Blind Man
Healing a Blind Man
Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
I have previously talked about the miracles Jesus performed,
Including a time when Jesus healed a blind man.
At that time, I focused on the disciples’ question of who had sinned.
Today, I want to look at some of the aftermath of this particular miracle.
First, we see people who are surprised to see a blind man who can see.
Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, “Is not this he who sat and begged?” Some said, “This is he.” Others said, “He is like him.” He said, “I am he.” Therefore they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?” He answered and said, “A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I received sight.” Then they said to him, “Where is He?” He said, “I do not know.”
The people saw a man who was blind that can now see.
So they had some obvious questions:
Is this the same guy?
Where is the man who gave him is sight?
Exactly the type of questions you’d expect.
Then they brought this recently healed man to the Pharisees.
Which is where I want to focus our attention today:
They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
You see, Jesus had once again healed on the Sabbath,
And the Pharisees took the Sabbath, or more accurately, their interpretation of the Sabbath, VERY seriously.
And Jesus had not only healed, but made clay, on the Sabbath.
And this did not sit well with the Pharisees!
Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
This quickly escalated into a heated theological debate.
The Pharisees say this man cannot be from God because He did not keep the Sabbath,
At least not within their traditions.
Others ask how can He be a sinner and do such signs?
While the healed man says Jesus is a prophet.
But that wasn’t good enough.
But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
When something seems to good to be true, we tend not to believe it.
The Jews did not believe that this man had been blind,
So they called in his parents and ask them.
Not just whether or not he was blind, but how he received his sight?
Parents, imagine being called into court to explain how your son did something you did not witness?
Now imagine, this is an obviously hostile court, which we will see shortly.
How would you react?
His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.”
The parents start out with what they know.
That this man is their son,
And that he was born blind.
Then they start to hedge,
We don’t know how he sees or who opened his eyes,
He’s of age, ask him.
They just punted the question back to their son.
Why?
His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
The Jews had already made up their mind.
Anyone who confessed that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.
More than just being kicked out of church, the synagogue was the center of life in any Jewish town or village.
It would make them a pariah.
They wouldn’t be allowed to worship Yahweh.
They wouldn’t be able to buy or sell.
They would be outcasts.
Think of the woman at the well, but probably worse!
All because the Jews had already made up their mind that Jesus had not come from God,
And any evidence to the contrary had to be suppressed or destroyed.
But a wonderful thing happens when you’ve truly been touched by Jesus.
BOLDNESS!
So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.”
“We already know that Jesus is a sinner… give glory to God and agree with us!”
Think of the arrogance of that statement.
We’ve already decided,
And God is on our side.
We cannot possibly be wrong,
Because God is on our side.
This man must be a sinner,
Because he disagrees with us,
And God is on our side.
We hold these offices as Pharisees,
So we must be right,
Because God is on our side.
Which reminds me of a proverb:
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Compare this with how the healed man reacts to this new information.
He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
“If He is a sinner or not, I do not know. What I do know is I was blind, but now I see”
Did this verse inspire John Newtown when he wrote the hymn Amazing Grace?
I once was blind, but now I see?
A simple statement to stand up to the arrogance this man was being asked to join.
But neither he, not the Jews, were going to stop there.
Then they said to him again, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
If, as Albert Einstein said, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, what does asking the same question over and over again expecting a different mean?
Were the Jews attempting to intimidate this man into changing his statement?
Was this a predecessor to the Spanish Inquisition?
Convert or die!
Or simply the attempt to exercise their position to get the outcome they wanted?
I don’t know, but the man’s response is priceless!
He answered them, “I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?”
Talk about BOLD!
“You want to hear the story again? Do you want to become His disciples?”
This is NOT a man who is afraid of the Pharisees.
Would you be this bold in front of your church leaders?
What about a government official?
This man has been touched, healed, by God,
What can the Pharisees do in comparison with that?
Then they reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from.”
You ignorant little peon!
You follow this Jesus fellow, we follow Moses.
And we know that Moses talked to GOD!
As for this Jesus fellow, who knows where He comes from!
Again, the arrogance of their traditions.
We follow Moses, so we cannot be wrong.
The same Moses who killed an Egyptian because he knew he was called to save his people.
The same Moses who was not allowed to enter the promised land because of the arrogance of claiming he could perform a miracle.
You follow this Jesus fellow,
Why He has no pedigree for us to follow.
He isn’t one of us.
Now it’s time for this man to “flip the script” on these Jews.
The man answered and said to them, “Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
Sometimes, there is nothing so satisfying as calling out someone’s foolishness,
Well, maybe proving it.
What a marvelous thing your ignorance is!
We know that God does not listen to sinners, yet this man healed my of blindness.
Since the world began, no one has opened the eyes of one born blind,
That is until this man.
So if God does not hear sinners, but only those who worship Him,
And this man performed a miracle that has never happened before,
He must be from God, or He could do nothing.!
Tell me that doesn’t sound like a “suck on that” moment?
This uneducated man has just turned the tables and destroyed the argument of the Pharisees, with their own assumptions.
They answered and said to him, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” And they cast him out.
No one said standing up for God or the truth would not cost you everything.
The Jews simply dismiss this man as a sinner,
Because he challenged, with proof, their assumptions.
So they threw him out of the synagogue.
Tell me, do you think this man would trade his sight for membership in a church?
Would he trade his encounter with God for the approval of men?
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?” He answered and said, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him. 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.”
When Jesus heard what had happened to the man, He tracked him down.
Remember, during his first encounter with Jesus, he was blind. He hadn’t seen Him.
So Jesus introduces Himself, and His mission.
“For judgement I have come into this world”
So that the blind may see, and the sighted blinded.
Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
If the Pharisees were blind, they would not be accountable,
But they have read and studied Scripture,
Therefore, they have not excuse for their ignorance.
In their arrogance and ignorance, they teach others,
And as James said:
My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.
Seeking Truth
Seeking Truth
I want to close by talking about seeking the truth.
The Jews were convinced that God was on their side.
Which reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln:
“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
The Jews, especially the Pharisees, were convinced that they were right,
That God was on their side.
And even though they had the Scriptures, they placed their traditions and what they had been taught above what God actually said.
Compare that with how the Berean’s reacted:
Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
For the last two years, we’ve been told to “follow the science”.
Well the scientific method involves taking a hypothesis, testing it, then changed the hypothesis based on the results.
The Jews and Pharisees had a hypothesis,
Jesus was a sinner because He broke their rules about the Sabbath.
When the man was given his sight, that was a test,
Could a sinner perform this type of miracle?
But rather than questioning their hypothesis, the Jews simply stated that they must be right, regardless of what the test says.
Why is this story so important today?
We all encounter people and events that question our faith and traditions.
How do you respond?
Do you dig in your heals, or do you consider the possibility that you may be wrong?
Do you listen to others, or merely stop up your ears and dismiss the contradiction as sin?
Do you go back to Scripture to see if it is true, or do you insist that your traditions are true?
Do you assume that God is on your side, rather than making sure that you are on God’s side?
How you respond to challenges to your faith shows whether you are a disciple of Jesus or of the Pharisees.
