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The Gospel of John | John 9 · Bayside Davis Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bayside Davis podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are now listening to our current teaching series in the Gospel of John.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: In John 8, verse 12, Jesus made one of the greatest statements in human history.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I am the light of the world.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then in John 9, Jesus, through the writing of the Apostle John, illustrates what it looks like for Jesus to be the light of the world.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: This definitive statement now takes on reality and practice in the life of Jesus in John chapter 9.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And really, it's built around one story, which is great because last week, John chapter 8, had a lot of different stories.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's built around one story, and it's the story of the healing of a man who was born blind.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a remarkable story because I believe that in all of the stories of Jesus healing people in the Gospels, there's only one account of a person that was born blind that is healed.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the story that we pick up this morning.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: John chapter 9, verses 1 through 7, the healing of a blind man.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 1.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: As he, Jesus, went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me just fill in the gap here.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had just made some definitive statements about his identity being God.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I am twice in the Gospel of John chapter 8.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a statement of deity, it was the most important name that God gave to Moses.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: This was the self-designated name of God in the Old Testament.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same name that Jesus calls himself in John chapter 8, verse 12, and John chapter 8, verse 58.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And at this statement of deity and identity, the religious leaders pick up rocks to stone Jesus.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: They were going to throw rocks at him and try to kill him.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where we pick up in verse 1.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: As he went along, he slipped away from the temple grounds, verse 59.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, blindness was a common problem in the ancient world.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this man had been blind from birth.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about Jesus' statement, I am the light of the world, and the reality of Jesus seeing a blind man in this text, in this story, as he transitions from chapter 8 through chapter 9, the reality is that blindness is the inability to perceive light.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a lot of reasons that people are born blind, or that people become blind.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to get into all of that, the science and medical reality behind that, but if a person is born blind, they have an inability to perceive light, whether the light exists in that particular moment or not.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus comes here and he notices this man.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're like, God, I've got this medical condition, I've got this condition from birth, and nobody sees me, but notice it's not that just Jesus saw him, but that Jesus saw him, if that makes sense.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: He really gives his attention to this man.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: This man or his parents, that he was born blind.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to make two observations.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: First, there's only one recorded instant in the Old Testament of a person being healed from blindness.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: You remember the story of Elisha when the armies were coming to get him, and Elijah prays to God that God would blind the armies, and the armies were blinded.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then Elijah prays to God that the armies would see, and then the armies saw.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of an interesting instance because Elijah prays for their blindness and then prays for their sight.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the only recorded instance of blindness being healed in the Old Testament.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: But in the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, Jesus heals blind people over and over and over again.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Matthew chapter 9, verses 27 through 31, Jesus heals two blind men in Galilee.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 12, verses 22 and 23, Jesus heals a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute in Capernaum.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 20, 29 through 34, Jesus heals two blind men near Jericho.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 21, the next chapter, verse 14, Jesus heals the blind and lame person in the temple in Jerusalem.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verses 22 through 26, Jesus heals a blind man in Beth Seda.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: In Mark 10, 46 through 52, Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that story near Jericho.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, verses 35 through 43, Jesus heals a blind beggar near Jericho.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I illustrate this just to show you the contrast between the Old and New Testament.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is someone different.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just some normal prophet or religious leader of the day.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is doing stuff that no one has ever seen before.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a man born blind, and the disciples are having a discussion that really is irrelevant.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they thought it was quite relevant.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But can you imagine being this man?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every day of your life not being able to see anything that a normal person who has sight can see.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: The color of flowers, the beauty of the ocean, the grandeur of mountains, the lifting of the SpaceX rockets, the future reality of the Tesla robots.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of these things that you can see.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: The perspective of, I fly a lot, the perspective of flying tens of thousands of feet in the air and seeing planet Earth from that viewpoint.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every day that we see, somebody is living that cannot see you.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty and grandeur and technology and perspective that sight gives us.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this man is blind, and Jesus sees him, and the disciples ask an irrelevant question.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Rabbi, teacher, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the people you're training in ministry, as Jesus would find out, are not quite seeing what you want them to see.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was common for rabbis in the ancient times to view suffering as a direct cause-effect relationship between sin and their particular suffering.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so the disciples had heard this, they had assumed that this probably or maybe was relevant in the man who was born blind, and some rabbis even said that you could sin in your womb.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting perspective.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: As Job's friends were there and they come to Job after a number, a series of cataclysmic, life-changing moments of suffering and loss.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there Job is weeping and in pain and in grief, and his friends said nothing for a few days.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then they started talking.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then they started judging him for his suffering as though his suffering was a result, a cause-effect relationship of some hidden sin that God was judging in his life.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this was a theological error because at the end of the book of Job, God rebuked his friends, as God should do to us if we have the same perspective about people.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I just want to say that if you have been a Christian or not a Christian and you've come into a church and they've judged you for some aspect of suffering in your life, not even knowing you or knowing your story or knowing your situation, but they place judgment on you as though your suffering was a direct consequence of your sin.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to say that is so relationally and spiritually damaging and hurtful, and should never be a reality in any church.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to say I'm sorry.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is wrong, that is unhealthy, that is not good theology, that is terrible Christian relational practice, and this should not be how we think about suffering in this world.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: As the disciples were picking up the error of generations of rabbis, and now they were not seeing this man for what he needed, they were seeing this man as a moment of theological judgment, which Christians can do sometimes, and we shouldn't do it in these types of relational settings.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of suffering, some of you are gonna suffer today about two o'clock.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Argentina, thank you, versus Spain.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna be friends for a couple of hours and then we'll be we'll we repair the ruptured relationship.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: In this event called the World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bigger than the Olympics, bigger than football, like fake football.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like it should be like throwing the ball, not football.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get it, but so it's the it's real American football, but not real world football.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: We call it soccer, they call it football.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's some football players in here, so don't judge me for saying that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: We love you.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We just need a name that correlates with the world, but maybe that's because we're Americans and we just do different things.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So some of you are gonna be suffering because you're really into soccer, or as the world calls it, football.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because Messi is going to dominate and Argentina's gonna win.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, nevertheless, don't hate on me.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, no persecution in this place.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But some of you are gonna be suffering later today.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Football players, is there a better name for football than football?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've thought about it before.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know there's some football players in here, but you're gonna have to tell me.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe football is the best American name and we just keep it soccer.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, how many of you are going for Spain?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you don't care?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's cool.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And how many of you are going for Argentina?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're friends today.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Back in the Bible.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, here's Jesus' answer.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I want you to notice in verse 3 and 4 that Jesus rejects the disciples' assumption.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 3.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is breaking decades of wrong thinking around suffering.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Neither this man nor his parent sinned, said Jesus, but this happened, so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Night is coming when no one can work.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: While I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is Jesus saying here?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, he's saying this man's blindness is not a cause-effect result of his own sin or his parents' sin.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't this great?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like breaking through bad theology and bad Christian practice.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if you notice here in verse 3 a kind of wonky statement that makes you question the purpose of how God designed this situation.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Neither this man nor his parents sin, but this happened so the works of God might be displayed in him.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is an interesting technical sentence that assumes by first glance that God created this man to be blind so that Jesus could come on the scene and God could be glorified and his works could be seen.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the case?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because many people have read this and thought, oh, okay, so this man is born blind so that Jesus could come on the scene at this moment and he could be glorified by healing this man.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just say that's not what this technical, confusing uh sentence is saying.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: This sentence, uh obviously, this is an ancient language that the Bible was written in, the New Testament, Koine Greek.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so this sentence contains some like translation issues that can be easily led to misunderstanding.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: At first glance, it sounds like God caused this man's blindness specifically so that he could come on the scene, heal him, display his power and his glory, but this is not what this text is saying.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let me try to make sense of this for you.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: You probably aren't even thinking about it, but because I thought about it, I want to make it make sense for you.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be a little technical, but we'll try to make it make sense.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, I want you to notice when Jesus says, but this happens so that, notice that purpose clause there.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Write this down if you're a note-taker, if you're not a note-taker, write it down anyways.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can become one today.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose clause so that points forward to the healing and the display of God's work, not to the cause of blindness.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people look at that purpose clause as like, oh, it's the blindness that leads to the glory of God, and that's what God is saying.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, the purpose clause is focused on the healing, not the blindness itself.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a little too technical, it's okay.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the original Greek text has no punctuation.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's part of our problem sometimes in translating these uh texts into a current modern language is that there was no punctuation.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just read a more natural and uh grammatically accurate reading of verses three and four.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is how I believe it should be read.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sin, but so that the works of God should be revealed in him, we must do the works of him who sent me.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I am here in this moment to do a work that's gonna change this man's life.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Third, God does God did not cause this man to be born blind in order to show his glory.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, God's, I think there's some slides on all of this.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, God sent Jesus to perform works of healing so that God's glory would be displayed through this man's healing.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now say amen if all that made sense.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, they actually they teach this wrong.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: They read this and they teach, oh, some of you have these conditions that God directly gave you so that God can be glorified in some miraculous moment in your life.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what this is saying.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to deconstruct that so you never teach that or convey that when you read this, because that's a wrong reading.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's an ancient language, and it takes some technicality, and you guys know I I did six years of biblical languages, so I love all these technicalities, and hopefully it made sense.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is saying, it's through my work of healing that God will be glorified through this man's healing.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's the idea behind what Jesus is saying.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And notice, notice what he says at the end of verses four and five.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says, as long as it's called today, we must do the works of him who sent me.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Night is coming when no one can work.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: While I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is basically saying, I've got a time frame.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be on this earth forever.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And while I'm on this earth, I've got to be doing works that illustrate the reality that I am the light of the world.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a contrast in life between darkness and light, spiritual darkness and spiritual light, and I am bringing spiritual light to human beings.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And while I am living and breathing and doing life and teaching and doing miracles on this earth, I've got to stay in that pocket, so to speak, and continue to do what I've been sent to do while I am here, because there's gonna be a time shortly where I'm gonna be crucified and I'm gonna ascend into heaven and I'll no longer be here.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We think someday I can do ministry, someday I can serve God, someday I'm gonna follow Jesus.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, the reality is that when you compare our life to eternity, our life is very short.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Even somebody in our church this week had a serious medical situation.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it can remind you that life is fragile and short, and living for Jesus and serving Jesus and making a difference for Jesus here and now is what we're called to be and do.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not wait, not say when I'm done with this or when I have more time for Jesus.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, we make that investment now because we realize that we are not promised anything.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the days and the moments that we're living and breathing and have life now, and this is a beautiful opportunity to reflect what Jesus is saying here that there's a time frame that I'm not gonna be here forever, but while I'm here, I'm doing the work that I've been sent to do.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that God is calling you to do?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who is it that God is calling you to be as a follower of Jesus?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait for tomorrow.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Start today doing and being who God has called you to be.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 6.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: After saying this, this is interesting, he, Jesus, spit on the ground and made some mud with saliva and put it on this man's eyes.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, verse 7, go, he told him, Wash in the pool of Salom.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: The word means sent.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the man went and washed and came home seeing.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is so interesting.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Here you are, born blind, and you can't really see.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And here's Jesus, and he spits on the ground with the dirt, and he rubs it, and he makes mud, and then he puts it all over your eyes, and all of a sudden you're irritated.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're irritated because mud irritates the eyes.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So his eyes are irritated.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash it off because irritation leads to irrigation.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just make it up.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then once he washed it, it led to illumination.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you just make stuff up on the spot.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So he goes, his eyes are irritated, and then he washes them, and then all of a sudden he can.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is what the Bible calls a miracle.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Something out of the ordinary, something extraordinary, something that defies the laws, the laws of science and reality.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: He is doing a supernatural work in this man's life.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But question why mud and spit?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very famous pastor a couple years ago.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: He preached this text, and to illustrate it, he brought somebody up and he had dirt and he spit, and then he created mud and he put it in his eyes and it went viral.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was sharing this illustration.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus did.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: People were hating on this guy for doing a very famous preacher.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: They were hating on him for doing this, but I'm like, Jesus did it.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why mud and spit?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great question.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: I ask those questions when I read the Bible.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why did this happen this way?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a couple reasons.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's an allusion to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought about this?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: That God formed the first human being out of the dirt of the ground?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: By using mud made from saliva and dirt to heal the blind man, Jesus echoes the creation story.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: He takes the very substance that made the first human being and he picks it up from the ground and he rubs it in his hands and he puts it on his eyes, demonstrating that he is the creator with the power to bring new life and restoration.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's an allusion to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: A second plausible idea is that varied methods.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you read through every story of Jesus healing blind people, he used different methods.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he just laid hands on them, sometimes he spit in dirt, sometimes he just spoke a word.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: He used different methods.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the great thing about the different methods.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: One writer said, this kept people from focusing on the technique and missing Jesus in the miracle.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you saw one method over and over, you'd be like, okay, that's it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm gonna start my healing ministry for blind people, and then you just do the same thing over and over again, and it becomes about the method instead of about the master Jesus.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus would change up his method so that people wouldn't think there was some secret mystical method, but it was Jesus that was healing people through different methods.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Third, to point to him, the sent one.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is interesting.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to connect a previous story with this current story to make sense of what Jesus is doing.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: The pool of Siloam means sent.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: John brings that to the text.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It means sent.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was called the Messiah or the Christ, which means sent one.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's make this connection.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, the sent one, instructed the man to wash in the pool of Siloam.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: The act pointed the reader, us, to recognize Jesus as the sent one from the Father who sent the man to the pool of Siloam that means sent, because Jesus, the sent one, is the true source of healing.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of things that are happening in this beautiful story.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then, in addition to that, that's cool, right?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: That connection, that reality, drawing out those truths from the story, that's really cool.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in addition to that, the pool of Siloam was also the location of the water drying ritual that we read about in chapter 7, verses 37 through 39, when Jesus said, I am the living water.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: During the Feast of Tabernacles, there was this water-drying ritual that the priest did every single day, and they would draw the water from the pool of Siloam.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, I am actually the living water you're looking for.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: What is Jesus doing here?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus sends the man to the pool of Siloam because Jesus is the living water for this man's life.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's the source of his healing, he's the source of his satisfaction, he's the source of his spiritual life.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is the person that this man needed to be that needed to see part of me for his life to be transformed, not just physically so he could see again, but spiritually so his eyes could be open to God.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens next.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna blitz through the rest of this.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens next.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So from verses 8 through 34, there's a series of interrogations.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: You could call these the interrogations of the blind man.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: People didn't believe it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: How could this happen?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like here's a man, we've known him his whole life, even his parents, he was born blind, and he's seeing again.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they instead of rejoicing, they interrogate him over and over and over.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: The first interrogation is the neighbors interrogate the man in verses 8 through 13.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's read this.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: His neighbors, these are the people that live next to him.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And those who had formerly seen him begging asked, Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're in shock.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Some claim that he was.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Others said, No, he only looks like him.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's his twin.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't know he had one.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: But he himself insisted, I am the man.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: How then were your eyes open?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: They asked.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: He replied, The man.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: They called Jesus, made some mud, and put it on my eyes.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: He told me to go to Siloam and wash.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and I washed, and then I could see.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: What a great testimony.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I just did what this man, Jesus, told me to do.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where is this man?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: They asked.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, he said.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's another interrogation, verses 14 through 17.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees interrogate the man.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: The neighbors interrogate him, now the Pharisees.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 14.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath, which was okay, but not for them, because they had made all these rules and regulations that were religiosity around the Sabbath that God had not created.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an infraction of the religious rules of Jesus' day.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, therefore the Pharisees also asked him, How he had received his sight.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: He said, He put mud on my eyes and I washed it.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now I see.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Same, same testimony.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the creator of the Sabbath, they're saying, He doesn't keep the Sabbath.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't keep the false religious rules you've created around the Sabbath.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: But others asked, How can a sinner perform such signs?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Great observations.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they were divided.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: When they turned again to the blind man, what have you to say about him?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was your eyes he opened.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: The man replied, He is a prophet.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then another interrogation, verses 18 through 23, the Pharisees interrogate the man's parents.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: They go to the man.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now they go to the man's parents as though they're in trouble.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love this, parents?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your kid's in a situation and people come to you and ask you about it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his side until they sent for the man's parents.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is this your son?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: They asked.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the one who you say was born blind?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: How is it that now he can see?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know he is our son, of course, right?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like mom and dad, you know, you've seen him every day of his life.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: The parents answered, and we know that he was born blind.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: But how is it he can see now?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or who opened his eyes?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: We do not know.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: The parents, this is brilliant.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: The parents said, Ask him.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your kids get in trouble, and you're supposed to explain it.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: You go, ask your, ask him.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't there.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ask him.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: He is of age, he's a grown-up, he will speak for himself.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is great parenting advice.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: One-on-one in verse 21, by the way.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders who had already decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we would excommunicate them.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is why his parents said, He is of age, ask him.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: So they go to his parents, and his parents is like, Yeah, that's my son, and he was born blind, but now he sees, but you need to ask him.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the Pharisees then go back to the man.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Told you we're gonna go through this fast.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: In verses 24 through 34, and they interrogate him a second time.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 24.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: A second time, they summon the man who had been blind.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Give glory to God by telling the truth.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're using spiritual language like to convict him.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: They said, We know this man is a sinner.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: He replied, they're talking about Jesus.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: What a great statement! You come into church, your whole life changes, and people are like, You?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I don't know how to explain this.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: All I do know is I was like this, and now I'm like this.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was my story.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: You?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: This guy teaching a Bible study, leading a spiritual revival on his high school campus, this guy never! And I was like, I don't know.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't pick me.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: All I know is I was blind and God changed my life.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is a great testimony.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just pause for a minute?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: No one can deny the transformation that God brings in your life.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: They might argue with your theology, they might try to explain away the practical situation, but no one can deny the transformation that God brings to your life.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just share that story.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know the Bible, you don't know how to have to know theological words, you don't have to explain all the nuances of Christianity.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: For somebody to come to know Jesus, just share your story.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's all this guy did.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't know.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: All I know is I was blind, but now I see.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it happened.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't make it happen, but it happened.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this man, Jesus, did it.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's continue.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 26, then they asked him, What did he do to you?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: How did he open your eyes?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: What was the method?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: He answered, I've told you already, and you did not listen.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you want to hear it again?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want me to become his disciples too?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then they hurled insults at him and said, You are this fellow's disciple.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are disciples of Moses.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, Jesus, we don't even know where he comes from.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: The man answered, Now that is remarkable.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: We know that God does not listen to sinners, he listened to the godly person who does his will.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the blind man is saying.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: This was shocking.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: To this they replied.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: So this man just shares, he's getting bolder.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: To this they replied, You were steeped in sin at birth.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: How dare you lecture us?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they excommunicated him.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is what religion does.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: This man was born blind, and a miracle happened, and now he sees.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the religious leaders could not fit it into their theology.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they interrogate him, they interrogate his parents, they interrogate him again, and it doesn't make sense.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now this man is defending Jesus, so guess what?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: They throw him out, they excommunicate him from the synagogue, from the temple.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 35, Jesus sought the man out.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: This man gets thrown out, and Jesus searches him out.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's what God does.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then, who is he, sir?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: The man asked.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then the man said, Lord, I believed and he worshipped him.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, For the judgment I've come into the world so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and said, What?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are we blind too?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now you claim you can see.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your guilt remains.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: The religious leaders cast the man out, and Jesus seeks the man out.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus makes a really important statement.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, The man born blind received physical sight, and in the process of that gained spiritual sight.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: In stark contrast, in this last part of this story, the religious leaders who claim to see spiritually and possess deep spiritual understanding prove themselves to be spiritually blind by rejecting Jesus and the miracle.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: What a contrast.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 11, the man calls Jesus a man.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 17, the man calls Jesus a prophet.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 33, the man says Jesus is from God.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 38, as we just read, the man calls Jesus Lord.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I didn't grow up in the church.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have background knowledge about the Bible, Jesus, the Christian story, the cross, the resurrection.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I needed somebody to explain it and help me understand it before I believed.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what I did know is that in that season of learning and hearing and processing, is that I felt this draw to God in my life.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage us that sometimes it takes time for people like me who have no background in Christianity to learn more about Jesus and to understand who he is and what he did and what that means for your life.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, some people are like, it's my spiritual birthday.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea when my spiritual birthday is.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know kind of the region of it.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a process for me.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had no background.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was a first-generation Christian.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody in my family went to church.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so it took time for me to go from this is a man, a prophet from God, now I believe he is my Lord.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the progression of faith for this man.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: He did not see physically, then he saw physically, he did not see spiritually, then he saw spiritually.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a miracle and it's instantaneous, and you get saved, and sometimes it's a season that God is drawing your heart and you're learning and you're seeking and you're reading and you're hearing and you're being taught, and all of a sudden, in a moment, you say, I thought he was a man and then a prophet and then from God, but now I believe he is my Lord and Savior.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that some of you in this room today are in that process.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Keep seeking, keep learning, keep coming to church, keep asking questions, keep reading your Bible.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: God is drawing you to believe in Jesus for who he is and what he did.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then some of you were like me, you're at the end of that process.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: You understand now that Jesus is the Son of God.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was God in the flesh.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: He came from heaven to earth.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross to forgive our sins.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: He rose again from the grave.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Death could not hold him down because he is the embodiment and source of life.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's alive and he's saving and changing people's lives.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe today is the day that you say, I'm no longer calling Jesus a man or a prophet or from God, but now he is my Lord and Savior today.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: All I know is that God wants to open your eyes today.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just as he opened this man's eyes spiritually in this incredible, remarkable, miraculous story.