INTRODUCTION

Well today is week number five of the series I’ve been preaching on called, “Miracles”. Since the start of the year we’ve been diving into several of the miracles that Jesus performed as recorded in the gospels and learning some pretty incredible things from these miracles. At least I have anyway.If you have your Bibles, would you turn to John 9. We’re looking at John 9 this morning. Our story begins with a guy who was born blind, and interestingly, he was born into a culture that blamed him and his sin for his blindness.

1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
John 9:1-2 (NIV)

I want you to do something for me - I’ve had so many great comments about how some of you folks love the interactive nature of these messages lately that I’m going to add some more interactive stuff today. So follow along okay? Here’s what I want you to do: I want you to close your eyes. Now, imagine yourself going about your daily activities every day this way. The alarm goes off, but your sudden blindness does not prevent you from being able to smack the snooze button. You’ve been doing that in the dark for as long as you can remember! However, things change when you roll out of bed. You go to the dresser or the closet to pick out your clothes for the day, but since you can’t see, you can’t tell the colour of the clothes you picked out. For all you know, you may be wearing two different socks or an orange scarf with a red blouse. Unfortunately, those of you who know me well have probably seen me wearing clothes that look like I can’t see when I’m getting dressed.

As you vacuum later that day, you hear a screech and a “thwoop”, and you start to wonder, “Did I just vacuum up the family gerbil?” You start preparing your sandwich for lunch that day and then you wonder if you grabbed the can of tuna or the can of cat food…

Now imagine yourself trying to do your job without being able to see - let alone getting to the place you work!

Okay, now open your eyes. Some of you may need to punch your neighbour in the shoulder to wake them up. You have my permission to do so.

Now, in doing this exercise I was in no way intending to poke fun at people who are blind. But, I wanted you, for just a minute, to imagine what your life would be like if you had never been able to see…

The interesting thing in this story is that there are really two kinds of blindness that are shown. There is the physical blindness that is obvious in the blind man’s life and then there is another blindness that is just as devastating. It is a blindness that is caused by not having the right perspective. See, God looks at things a little differently than we do.

We live in a world that is a bit blurry at times. A blurriness brought on by not really seeing as God sees. For me it’s stuff like this: Having a father die suddenly of a rare disease that came at Him out the blue and not really getting the chance to say goodbye the way I would have liked to. That was tough. Things were kind of blurry for me during that time. I remember a while back getting the call to go to the hospital because I was the chaplain on call and a young girl had been in a serious accident linked to someone who was driving drunk. I arrived at the hospital and saw her on the operating table, blood everywhere and being hooked up to the machines that would hopefully keep her a live long enough for the transport to London. Life was kind of blurry when went into the room to be a “pastor” to the parents of this girl - people I didn’t know. Add to that list all of your stuff, all of the things you are struggling through, the things you don’t understand, and we live in a world where there are often more questions than there are answers. Where we want to know why? Why does this happen?

As we look at this story this morning, I’m praying that the power of God will help us to see what He wants us to see during those times? When we don’t understand why this is happening - what is His perspective - what does He want us to see?

If you are taking notes, I want you to write this first thought down. When life gets blurry, God wants us to see through our obstacle illusions.

God wants us to see through the “obstacle” illusions.

The disciples when they came across this blind guy, they saw the obstacle. He was blind. But notice, they didn’t say, “Jesus is there anything that we can do for him? Is there any hope? Jesus could You heal him?” They didn’t say any of that! All they said was, “Who could we blame?”

You are blinded by an obstacle illusion when the obstacle leads you to the place of hopelessness. When there’s nothing else to do but find someone or something to blame. But Jesus, He saw through the obstacle. He saw to the other side, and He responds,

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened …
John 9:3 (NIV)

Say it with me, this happened so what?

…so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
John 9:3 (NIV)

Jesus saw through the blindness. He saw purpose in it.

An obstacle illusion is a lot like an optical illusion. [SHOW PICTURE OF RAILROAD TRACKS ON POWERPOINT SLIDE]. Take for example, these railroad tracks. Let’s say we are going to stand right in the middle of these tracks and look at the horizon as far as our eyes can see. What do our eyes tell us these rails are doing? They are telling us that they are getting…what?…closer together right? Now, if we were to actually walk down these railroad tracks, would we find any point at which they actually come together? No. But if you do, it’s time to get off the train, for sure. But no, we wouldn’t. It’s an optical illusion. An optical illusion is when what you perceive or see doesn’t equally what actually is.

Let’s say you get a doctor’s report and you are reading it, and you think to yourself, “Life, as I know it, is over.” Is it really over? Or, could there be a purpose? Maybe you are single and you have been praying, and praying, and praying, and praying for God’s best, that person to become your spouse, and no one comes along. Or the few that do, turn out to be duds. Duds, and you find yourself in a place of hopelessness. Or maybe you’ve got this vision for something you really believe God wants you to do and you share it with others and start working on this dream and no one shares the excitement you have and the difficulties just seem to big to surmount.

Let me make it clear. I’m not saying, in any way, that the obstacles we face in life are not real. They are very real. I’m also not saying that the pain associated with these struggles in life is not real. It’s very real. However, the moment you find yourself in a place of hopelessness, if there’s nothing to do but find blame, you’ve got to get a different perspective. You’ve got to see through it.

Why are you facing what you are facing? Maybe, so that the work of God might be displayed in your life! How many of you today would honestly say, “You know what? There is a mountain, an obstacle in my life that I am facing that I wish I wasn’t.” Come on, be honest? Say, “Yeah, that’s me.”

Let’s think of it this way for a moment. Have you ever been driving along enroute to something pretty important and ahead you see that there’s construction being done on the road your traveling? What’s the first thing you think? “Oh great, now it’s going to take me longer to get there…” Right? It will take longer because usually when there’s construction they have these signs up that point you to a what? A detour right? The thing about detours is that they aren’t the route you planned to take but they end up still getting you where you want to go. Did you hear me?

What if, when life throws us a curveball, when we face those obstacles, and man - we face a lot of them. What if, it’s not a dead end? What if that’s not a stop sign? What if it’s NOT the end of the line? What if it’s, perhaps, a detour? Listen closely - God will get you exactly where He desires for you to go, but you may not take the route you thought you’d be traveling in the process. When things get fuzzy and life throws you an obstacle, see through the illusion of hopelessness. There is always hope.

Time for the second observation. If you are taking notes, write this down too. When life gets blurry, God wants us to see His response to our obedience.

God wants us to see His response to our obedience.

If you’ve been paying attention during this series you may be thinking to yourself, “Man this is the fifth week in this series. It seems like I’ve heard that specific point in the last four messages!” You think? Maybe there’s a trend here. Maybe, just maybe, that breakthrough we’ve been asking God for is in standby mode. Why? Because we are not obeying something He has asked us to do.

Listen, God wants us to see His response to our obedience, so this is the part of the story that becomes very interesting. You’ve got this blind guy, and he overhears the disciples discussing who’s fault it is that He’s blind. Is it sin? Is it his parent’s sin? It’s an argument that the blind guy has heard before. And then, Jesus walks up to him and doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t say, “Hey, I’m the Son of God. You’re blind. I can fix you.” He didn’t say any of that. Instead the blind man hears this, [make a spitting sound]. “What was that? Was that…did somebody spit next to me?”

Now, I don’t know how much saliva it takes to make mud out of dirt, but I’m going to guess it’s probably more than just one spit (which is altogether gross by the way). So Jesus, knowing more than I know, spits in the dirt, mixes saliva and dirt together, makes mud, smears it on the guy’s face and over his eyes.

“All right, dudes are talking about how it’s my fault that I’m blind, and now some stranger just put mud all over my face.” I’m the blind guy. I’m thinking, “My life bites.” Doesn’t it? I mean this is not a good day for him right? Then, Jesus speaks, and what does He say? Look at verse 7 - come on what does Jesus say, “Go”!

“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). …John 9:7 (NIV)

What is crazy is that the man went, just like that. Instantly obeyed. Scripture tells us he went and came home seeing.

I think it’s interesting, from my perspective, that when Jesus said go and wash, you notice the guy didn’t say, “Yeah, I’m going to have to pray about that for a while, but I’ll get back to you.” Or he didn’t say, “You know, that really sounds kind of Old Testament to me, so I don’t think that applies to me.” He simply, immediately obeyed, and as a result - he who could never, ever, see now understood what blue was, and understood what a tree looked like, because he instantly obeyed even though he probably didn’t fully know why. Take another look at this passage. Is there anywhere where Jesus told the blind man that if He did this he’d be able to see?

What has God told you to do that doesn’t make sense? Maybe 6 weeks ago, when we looked a the miracle of Jesus calming the storm and I first talked about obedience, there was something that connected and you said, “I know God is asking me to do this…” and yet, here we sit today and you still haven’t done it. Listen, I’m telling you this in love, delayed obedience is disobedience. We ask God why? We say, “Why can’t You give me a breakthrough?” And I ask you, have you obeyed? Have you done what He’s asked you to do, even it, and especially if, it doesn’t make sense? God wants us to see His response to our obedience. Life gets a lot less fuzzy if we will just do what He asks us to do in our relationships, in our walk with Him, He wants us to see His response to obedience.

Number three, the third observation I want to make. Please write this down. God wants us to see our blind spots.

God wants us to see our blind spots.

There was a group of religious folk, called the Pharisees, and they knew this guy. They knew that he was blind from birth. They passed by him every single day begging for money in the temple courts, and when they heard that his eyes were opened and he could now see, they flipped out. So the man was brought before the Pharisees and they began this inquisition of questions. “Who did it? When did they do it? How did they do it?” And the guy is just standing there, “Are you guys for real?” And he responds to them. Now, check this out - I love this. In verse 30,

30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
John 9:30-33 (NIV)

Essentially saying, “Are you guys kidding me? Yesterday, I was blind. Today, I stand before you and I can see. I can see your faces, I can see! And you are asking me who, what, when, where, and how?” These Pharisees had a blind spot. They were so focused on the law and the fact that this was done on the Sabbath, they couldn’t see that the Son of the living God just healed the guys eyes.

It reminds me of a story I heard once with the famous characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson…

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine, they lay down for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. “Watson, look up and tell me what you see.” Watson replied, “I see millions and millions of stars.” “What does that tell you?” Watson pondered for a minute.

“Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Why, what does it tell you?” Holmes said, “Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent!” (quoted in the message “Blind Spots” by Ernest Flores)

Sometimes we are blind to what is going on right in our midst. What is your blind spot? What have you become so focused on in your priorities that you can’t even see what is right in front of you? Where are you so fixated that you’ve lost sight of the things around your life that are absolutely the most important? So many times things don’t go the way we want or the way that we think they should go that we miss out on what is actually happening around us. God wants us to see our blind-spots.

When life gets blurry, God wants us to see through the hopelessness of our obstacles. He wants us to see His response when we obey Him - when we just do what He says. He wants us to see our blind spots, and it is at this place in this story that Jesus once again appears back on the scene.

So, the guy doesn’t give the Pharisees the answer they are looking for and they get pretty upset with him. They kick him out of the temple. Jesus heard about this and went to find him.

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
John 9:35-38 (NIV)

And the man responded what? Come on folks, say it with me, “Lord, I believe.” There it is again! “Lord I believe”

As a human race we tend to be so fixated on that which is fixable, on that which is tangible, on that which is quantifiable, and we look at a story like this and we think, “How incredible that this guy, who’d never seen, ever in his life - his eyes are healed, and now he can see colours and shapes, and everything that God has made. That’s amazing!” And it is. But the guy eventually died. It was a miracle, but it was only for a time. But what happened when Jesus came back to this guy, what we just read, was something that lasted forever. It’s eternal. It’s amazing that God has the power to change and heal a body, but how much more amazing is it that He can change a heart, and take someone from death to life, from being lame to being healed, from being blind and able to see? And that happens here, in all of us.

The reason this is so powerful, and it just kind of gets me, is because every single one of us is born blind to the things of God. We can’t see Him for who He truly is because of our sin, and we can’t see things as He sees them. It’s not until a moment like this story, where we have this face-to-face encounter, and we fall in abandonment to God and say, “I believe. I believe that Jesus, You are the Son of God,” and we live a life of abandonment to Him - in that moment our eyes are truly opened to who He is, and who we can be in Him.

This leads me to the last observation. If you are taking notes, write it down. The truth is that believing is seeing, not the other way around.

Believing is seeing (conclusion)

If you read through this story in scripture you’ll notice that something happens as the story goes on. In verse 11, the man refers to Jesus as “The man they call Jesus.” In verse 17, he calls Jesus a prophet. In verse 27, he is someone who has disciples. In verse 33, he is a man from God, and finally, in verse 38, he refers to Jesus as Lord. So Jesus didn’t just give the man his sight. He gave him INSIGHT. Seeing the truth with your heart is even more important than seeing the truth with your eyes.

I want to finish with this story:

In the eighteenth century there was a boy named John Newton who was born in London. John was the son of a Godly, Christ-following mother and a God-hating father. When John was six years old, his mother died, and he instantly became embittered at the God that she loved. I mean, if God was so good, as she would always say, why would He take her from him? Do you see the fuzziness in John’s life? The obstacle? And so, at age eleven, John Newton joined his father as a merchant sailor, and he grew and festered in his hate for God. He lived in direct rebellion to the very nature of God.

The obvious career choice at that time for John was to become the captain of a slave ship. There were over six million slaves stripped from their homes and families in the Eighteenth Century in Africa, and John Newton was right in the middle of it. He personally ordered children snatched away from their parents, wives abused in ways we cant’ talk about, in front of their husbands, fathers taken from their kids. It is cruel, and it is godless, and it is as hateful as you can imagine.

John was on a voyage headed back to London, and they encounter a storm that he thinks is sure to end his life. Finally, he is going to get what he feels he deserves, but he doesn’t die. Instead, he finds a book on that ship and he begins to read it. The book is called “The Imitation of Christ.” And in the pages of that book, he began to see for the first time, Christ. In the midst and in the distance between who he is and who God is, John recognized that as hateful and as sinful as his life had become, the power of the cross is so much more powerful. That day, John became a follower of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t too much longer after that John Newton wrote a song, and I’d like to finish this message by quoting the first line from this well-known him. If you know it, say it with me..

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound - that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.”

I was blind, but now I see. Let’s pray.