Latest / Collierville Radio Network / Admonition Podcast - John 9 - Logan Pate - September 13, 2026

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Admonition Podcast - John 9 - Logan Pate - September 13, 2026 · Collierville Radio Network

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Good afternoon.
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I I've met quite a few of you this morning.
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~ for those of you that don't know me,
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I'm Logan Pate. ~ beautiful wife is Laura Sue and her two girls,
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~ Remy and Quincy.
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~ just started over at MSOP.
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~ today we're gonna start out over in John 9.
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That's gonna be mostly where we're where we're reading out of today.
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we'll float around from there a little bit.
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Set up here.
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Mm-hmm.
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Then naturally coming from MSOP,
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I'm gonna be mostly out of the ~ King James Version.
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So ~ I have a couple scriptures that will be over in the New Standard.
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But and as Jesus passed,
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he saw a man which was blind from his birth,
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and his disciples asked him, saying,
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Master, who did sin? This man or his parents?
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That he was born blind. Jesus answered,
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Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents,
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but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
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~ today we're gonna talk about,
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we're gonna have seven different points to make.
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~
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There is a question that naturally rises
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with our pain and suffering. maybe not all of us,
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but I would dare say a lot of us have at some point
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in our life begged the question,
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why? Why me,
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why now, why the suffering?
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Why would I God put me in this position?
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~ there's a lot of questions that come from that,
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from misunderstanding, from the suffering we feel,
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the guilt.
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Going back to the text, the disciples see the blind man and immediately assume that
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there must be a reason rooted in guilt.
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Someone must have failed, sinned,
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or been at fault to cause such suffering.
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We often assume suffering to be something to escape.
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Something to explain away, and sometimes that God must
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be displeased with us. But Jesus reframes this entire conversation.
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He does not explain suffering as punishment,
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he reveals suffering as purposeful grounds for God's work.
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As we get into this, we are going to go over these six major points investigating
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~ Jesus' stance on pain.
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the first point to I have to make Jesus rejects
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the theology that blames the broken.
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John 9 2 through 3.
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~ going back to
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Our original ~ text here,
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and his disciples asked him, saying,
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Master who did sin, this man or his parents,
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that he was born blind. Jesus answered,
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Neither has this man sinned nor his parents,
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but that the works of God should be made manifested in him.
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This statement is no small correlation.
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It's a the theological earthquake.
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Jesus dismantles the idea that all suffering is a direct result
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of personal suffering.
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Sin. ~ We can find confirmation in that
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in multiple places throughout the scripture.
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~ All throughout Job chapter one and two,
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Job suffers not because of his sin,
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but because of his faithfulness.
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~
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In Luke thirteen, one through five,
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Jesus rejects the idea that tragedy proves guilt and that
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we are all guilty.
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Let's see.
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Luke thirteen, one through five,
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there were present at the person some that told him of the Galileans,
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whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
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And Jesus answering said unto them,
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Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all Galileans,
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because they suffered such things.
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I tell you, nay, but accept ye repent.
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Ye shall all likewise perish, or those eighteen upon whom the tower
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of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above
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all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
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I tell you, nay, but except ye repent,
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ye shall likewise perish.
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This gives us the ideology that we're all sinners.
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It doesn't it doesn't matter whether one
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of us has greater sins than the other.
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My point number two, suffering can exist long before purpose is revealed.
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This was the blind man from birth.
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He was blind from birth.
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a lot of people don't really take the time to think about what that truly means
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~ when reading that text. We get a lot of the time focused on
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the actual miracle of
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Of Jesus healing him, which is absolutely not to be ignored.
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But looking at his history also gives us the gravity
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of the situation. ~ the blind man
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has never seen color. He's never looked upon the face of his mother.
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He's never seen the faces of them or those around him.
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And he's never had memories of sight.
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He was blind from birth. He never remembered what it
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was like to see the trees,
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see his family, none of that. ~ and nowhere in
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the text does it suggest he understood why.
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God's purpose was unfolding in him from before he was even born.
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Supporting scriptures for that God works in all things for good.
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~ Romans eight twenty eight.
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Romans eight twenty eight And we know that all things work together for good
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to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
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If you look at also Isaiah 55,
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8 through 9, God God's ways are higher than ours.
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And then Psalm 139,
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16, God's plans precede our awareness.
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Psalm 139, 16.
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We'll flip over there real quick.
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Thine eyes did see my substance,
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yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written,
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which in continuance were fashioned,
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then as yet there was none of them.
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And knowing and nowhere in the text the uncond comfortable truth
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we we face ~ with with that recollection
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is that purpose does not require our understanding to be real.
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~ our suffering,
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we don't have to understand it for God to have purpose in it.
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~
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The blind man he had no idea what was the purpose of his suffering until that moment
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Jesus talked to him and called on him.
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~ he spent his wh whole life wondering.
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And God isn't going to wait for us to understand before he sets
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his plan into motion. The blind man's suffering
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was meaningful long before he was healed.
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My third point: Jesus enters the pain.
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He does not just observe it from a distance.
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When we drop down a little farther in John nine to verse six,
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when he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle,
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and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.
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Jesus could have spoken healing him from afar.
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He didn't have to get his hands dirty.
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He didn't have to go to him. He didn't have to lay hands on his eyes.
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But instead he he kneels, he gets his hands dirty,
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and he touches our place of pain.
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In Hebrews four fifteen, we see how he sympathizes with our weakness.
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Hebrews four fifteen for we have not on a high priest which cannot be touched with
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a feeling of our infirm infirmities infirmities,
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sorry, but was in all points tempted like as we are,
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yet without sin.
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And John one fourteen
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John 1.14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
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And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
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of the Father, full of grace and truth.
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Suffering is not proof that God is absent.
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Sometimes it's proof that He is near.
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Working in deeper ways than we can than just what we can see.
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a lot of the time we we get into that mentality that
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when we're going through suffering,
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it's because ~
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God's absence, it's that we can sometimes feel like it's a reflection on our faith.
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that there's a problem with us or with our situation.
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~ and there's there's instances where ~
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We just don't understand. There's some really rough things that people
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go through and I'm sure a lot of you have been through that
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we just can't find explanation for sometimes.
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but ~ the point number four,
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healing does not require difficulty,
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it redirects it. The miracle did not end the man's hardship.
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After he was healed, he didn't just
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go on through his life having a perfect life.
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~ once he was healed,
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he was actually questioned. He was doubted by those around
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him and not only doubted, but he was pressured to deny Christ.
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And in John 9:34,
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They knocked they actually kicked him out of town for his faith,
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even though he was he got healed.
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Everyone had seen it. His neighbors that had known him since since birth,
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that had known he was he was blind,
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you know, there was it was impossible.
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For to see him with sight, and yet they still found a way to blame Christ,
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and ended up kicking him out of town.
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John 934.
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They answered and said unto him,
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Thou wast altogether born in sins,
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and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.
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Verse 35. Jesus heard that they had cast him out.
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And when he had found him, he said unto him,
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Dost thou believe in the Son of God?
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He answered and said, Who is he,
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Lord, that I might believe in him?
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And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him,
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and is he that talketh with thee.
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And he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him.
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I couldn't imagine being in that situation being
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healed in a manner that was you know,
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n never expected, ~ going through your whole life with the expectation and
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probably the hopelessness that it's never going to be fixed.
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that there's no there's no way out of it.
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It's something that this is this is what it is.
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This is my life and I need to,
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you know, find a way to make the best of it.
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And being confronted with such
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a feat of healing and then
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Asking who is this Lord that you sp that I've heard
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of that you're able to do these things through
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and finding out that he's standing in front of you,
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that the one that was able to completely change your life
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to to
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shift your entire existence to have him standing right in front of you.
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I could not imagine what that must have felt like for him.
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And I want you to notice his response
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to those that did have skepticism in John 925.
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Just a second to get over there.
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He answered and said,
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Whether he is a sinner or not,
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I don't know. One thing I do know that though I was blind,
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now I see. Then they said unto him,
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What did he do to you?
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How did he open that your eyes?
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And he answered them, I told you already,
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and you did not listen and
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Why do you want to hear it again?
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Do you also want to become his disciple?
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Then they reviled him and said,
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You are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples.
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We know that God spoke to Moses as for the fellow,
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as for this fellow, we do not know where he is from.
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And the man answered and said to them,
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Why, this is a marvelous thing.
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that you do not know where he is from.
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Yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know
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That God does not hear sinners,
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but if any one is a worshipper of God and does his will,
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then he will hear them. Since the world began,
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it has been unheard of that any one opened eyes of one who was born blind.
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If this man were not from God,
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he could do nothing. And they answered and said to him,
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You were completely born in sins and
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and are you teaching us? And they cast him out.
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There is a lot of power in testimony
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if it is about the power of Christ and not centered on ourselves.
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God often allows for our suffering so that our faith
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is not just theoretic but visible
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and more deeply meaningful. A daring invitation
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to shift the view suffering as assignment.
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Jesus says in 9 4, I must work the works of Him who sent
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me while it is day.
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Suffering does not pause God's mission,
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it advances it. I personally ask you today,
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when you go through suffering,
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to try and shift your manner of this thinking,
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from why did he do this to me,
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to what can I do for him? How can I
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be used to spread the glory of God through my suffering?
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Suffering is not just something to endure,
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but something through which God intends to work through us,
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to deepen our compassion, to mature our faith,
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and to point others to faith.
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Turning over to James chapter 1,
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verses 2 through 4. James 1,
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2 through 4, count it all joy,
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my brothers. When you meet trials of various kinds,
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for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
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And let steadfastness have its full effect,
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that you may be perfect and complete,
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lacking nothing.
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God doesn't give us a rejection of pain,
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He gives us a rejuvenation of the soul.
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I do not recall ever learning from
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the scripture that our lives were going
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to be without transgression or without pain,
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without suffering.
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The life of a Christian is
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not the easy path. It is
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the straight and narrow. It is something that not many people choose to take.
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And it is a choice. It's something we have to choose to take.
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And it's not an easy road.
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It's it's something that takes work,
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takes ~ effort and takes perseverance.
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A little bit later, Jesus finds this man again in John thirty five thirty eight.
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The man does not just receive sight,
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he received revelation. He says,
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Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him.
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Our physical healings fade with time.
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Our sufferings come and go,
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healing comes and go, but our spiritual sight lasts forever.
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This miracle
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Points to the Gospels in John eight twelve.
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Jesus is the light of the world.
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In eight twelve,
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Jesus spoke.
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Jesus again unto them saying, I am the light of the world.
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He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,
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but shall have the light of life.
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And every believer is a form of this blind man who has been seen
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by Christ and rejuvenated. At one point or other in our life,
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we answered
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the call to Christ and to be baptized,
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to put on his blood.
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And up until that point.
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We were blind going through life,
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going through our suffering without understanding,
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without purpose. and that blood that that
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He gave us and He shed for us was the blood that opens our eyes.
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The blind man didn't choose his suffering,
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but God chose how it would end.
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Some of you still may be in the middle of his story,
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asking yourself why, and still waiting for clarity,
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whether it's with or through God or not,
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but
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God wastes nothing. He doesn't waste tears,
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he doesn't waste time, and he doesn't waste pain.
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He works through all of these things.
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And one day we may look back and realize what you thought
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was meaningless suffering was actually sacred ground for God's glory.
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The world may be looking at you.
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You may be looking at you, wondering why would God do this to me,
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but God works with purpose. He doesn't just patronize us.
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We're not ants under his magnifying glass.
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We're his children. We need to trust him,
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find his glory and purpose in times of hardship.
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And if you have not found him in your life yet,
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I ask what you're waiting for.
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If there's something holding you back.
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Because this entire time, through our suffering,
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through all of our decisions, our shortcomings,
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he has been there waiting for us with open arms.
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Just as the just as he waited for the prodigal son.
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He waits for his children. And if you have not answered
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his call to come forward and enter his kingdom and
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be part of his body, we ask that you come forward now as we stand and sing.