Rev. David Holwick ZD Encountering Jesus in John
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
September 20, 2015
John 9:30-41
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I. Does your sight matter?
A. Praying for blindness.
Trevor Thomas hiked the Appalachian Trail in six months.
Most hikers do it in 5 months, at least the 1 out of 4 who
actually complete the journey.
Trevor doesn't apologize, though, because he is totally blind.
Ten years ago he had his sight but he had a disease that
doctors said would make him blind, just like Dawn Brady.
Eight months later, he was.
That eight months was a terrible limbo for him, so that by
the end he was praying for his sight to go so he could
start his life again.
He had had a career in corporate sales and had just completed
a law degree but those wouldn't do him much good now.
He became depressed and very angry.
A friend suggested that he take walks to get out of his rut.
His rehabilitation therapist thought it was a terrible idea,
but Trevor headed for the woods and found it helped him.
A young hiker he met at a store inspired him to do the
Appalachian Trail.
Believe it or not, there are almost no materials for helping
blind people navigate the 2,168-mile trail.
His friend spoke simple directions on his cellphone for each
day of travel.
Every hiker on the AT has a nickname and Trevor's was 0/0,
a reference to his level of eyesight.
He finished the trail and kept going, and by now has hiked
over 12,000 with his trusty dog.
Some people have accused Thomas of using hiking to run away
from his disability.
But he rejects this, saying that if he were given the choice
of being able to see again now, he wouldn't take it.
He says THAT would feel like running away from his problems.
When he completes a trail he has a sense of accomplishment and
remembers the sounds, the smells and the feel of the air.
Everyone else only remembers the view.
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B. Valuing sight.
1) Like most people, sight is the one sense I value the most.
a) My hearing could go, and taste and smells, but I
wouldn't want to be blind.
2) Have you ever considered your spiritual sight?
a) How much do you really see of the things of God?
b) According to Jesus, many religious people think they
see a lot, but they see almost nothing.
1> Could that possibly describe you, or me?
II. A man born blind.
A. Something bad must have caused this.
1) Tragic outcomes often make us ask, who blew it?
2) We have to pin the responsibility somewhere.
I think of Giles in rehab this week.
A strong man, an independent contractor.
People depend on him and he is helpless.
Right now he can't even squeeze your finger with his
left hand.
Why? In situations like this we often ask:
Have I done something wrong?
Is God cruel and mean?
3) Jesus takes a totally different perspective.
a) This is an opportunity to show God's greatness.
1> Sort of like a blind guy hiking the A.T.
b) Jesus spits, makes mud, tells the guy to go wash.
B. The man's healing begins his real problems.
1) Local religious leaders hound him.
2) His friends and family don't know what to do with him.
3) But he gains a new focus, and friend, in life.
C. His understanding of Jesus grows progressively.
1) Distant awareness - the man they call Jesus. 9:11
2) Religious awareness - a prophet. 9:17
a) A godly man who does God's will. 9:31
3) Ultimate awareness - the Son of Man (Messiah). 9:35-38
III. The two ophthalmological options.
A. Spiritual blindness.
1) Those who opposed Jesus thought they saw fine.
a) They were furious that Jesus considered them blind. 9:40
b) Their rigid religious views got in the way of God.
1> They resist acknowledging that something awesome
happened.
2> They nit-pick that it's a Sabbath violation. 9:16
A> Making the mud qualified as work.
3> They had Jesus pegged as a "sinner" and refused
to change. 9:24
c) Christian devotional writer Oswald Chambers:
"It is perilously possible to make our conceptions
of God like molten lead poured into a specially
designed mould,
and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads
of the religious people who don't agree with us."
(Disciples Indeed)
2) Does your religion get in the way of God?
a) We all know Christians who can compose great arguments
from the Bible, but all they really do is argue.
b) Could you be too rigid to see what God is really doing
around you?
1> Of course, people who oppose us may think anyone
with convictions is rigid, and wrong.
2> But it is still worth pausing to consider if it
could be true of us.
B. Spiritual sight.
1) It rises from God's initiative.
a) The man did not ask for sight; instead, Jesus
approached him.
b) True spiritual sight can only come from God.
1> You can't drum it up on your own.
2) It requires our faith.
a) Jesus asks if he believes. 9:35
b) God takes the initiative, but we must respond.
1> It is not something that comes to you automatically.
3) It recognizes Christ.
a) This man may have taken time to realize who Jesus was,
but he kept growing.
b) He didn't know much theology, but he knew what Jesus
had done for him.
1> Notice verse 25 - "Whether he is a sinner or not,
I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind
but now I see!"
2> It comes down to personal experience.
c) When Jesus approached him in the end (v. 35), the man
was eager to believe.
1> Is this something you have done?
4) It results in worship. 9:39
a) Believing is the beginning, not the end.
b) True belief will bring you to love God and seek out
others who love God, so you can praise him together.
IV. Spiritual sight can grow.
A. Salvation is absolute and instantaneous.
1) Our position with God changes in a heartbeat when we
become saved.
2) No one is 90% saved or 30% saved. You are, or you aren't.
B. Yet our vision of God is dynamic and changeable.
1) Some saved people have a much clearer view of God than others.
a) Our view can be warped by sin and selfishness.
b) We can choose to draw closer to God, or push him away.
2) We should be growing every day.
a) Sometimes bursts of insight can be overwhelming.
1> The president of the American Baptists once shared
his testimony.
He said that there were several times in his life
that God touched him in such a profound way that
it seemed like another conversion experience.
It was like he had been born again four times.
2> You can only be born again once, but I can see how
people can have new experiences that are very
powerful.
A> Think of your grasp of things when you were 5,
25, 55.
B> As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, in this life
our vision of God will always be a little
wavy, like a funhouse mirror.
b) Challenge your vision with new experiences.
1> Getting involved in a mission, or a justice issue,
can give you deep new insights about God.
V. How well do you see?
A. Have you seen Jesus yet?
1) The blind man was eager to believe.
2) He didn't care about the cost, just the truth.
3) He knew it was truth because he experienced it.
a) Have you experienced something real?
B. True spiritual sight sees forever.
When Kevin Tully was pastor of a Methodist church in Wynnewood,
Oklahoma, there was a man he knew who loved to read.
The pastor knew the man through the guy's wife.
She was a church member and attended fairly regularly.
But Bernie Miller was a man who had been too busy for church,
too busy for religion.
So though Tully had met him, he didn't really know him -- until
his illness.
When he was 55 years old, Bernie's diabetes caused him to go
blind.
Bernie later told the pastor that it was his blindness which
actually caused him to see.
In his words, it was because of his blindness, that he realized
he didn't have it all together.
And it was when he lost his sight that he began to see his need
for God's help and strength.
Just before he lost his sight, he began to read the Bible for
the first time in his life.
After he could no longer see, he asked others to read the Bible
to him.
One day, he told his wife of a wonderful change that had come
over him.
He said he truly felt different, and asked her if she thought
it was really possible that God might truly love him and
accept him, in spite of his past.
He told her he felt more at peace than he had ever felt in his
life, and wanted to know if this is what it meant to be saved.
She told him, "yes", and she began to cry - after all, this
moment is what she had been praying years for.
He started to come to church with his wife, and he even had a
favorite hymn -- "Amazing Grace."
All this happened in 1987.
One day at church, Bernie told Pastor Tully he'd been accepted
for an experimental form of laser surgery on his eyes.
The doctors thought it might be possible to restore his sight.
The surgery was done, and it worked! He has able to see.
The pastor still recalls that day -- Bernie had such a smile
on his face!
His eyes became more and more focused throughout that day, and
for the first time in three years, he saw his wife's face.
They had a simply wonderful day together, just looking at
things.
The next morning, Bernie Miller died of a sudden heart attack.
Now - is that a sad story, or a happy one?
Was Bernie healed, or not?
At his funeral, everyone stood and sang ...
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch like me ---
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see."
Christians don't really die. They instantly get 20/20 vision.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
The points in section III. B. are derived from Rev. John F. MacArthur, Jr.’s
sermon, “Spiritual Sight Or Spiritual Blindness?” September 26, 1997;
<http://www.gty.org/Transcripts/archive.htm>; Kerux sermon #3021.
#64934 “They’ll Just Remember The View,” David Holwick, adapted from "The
blind hiker who takes on the wilderness," by Lee Kumutat,
BBC News, Ouch Blog; September 11, 2015;
<http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-ouch-34186187>.
#64938 “He Was Blind, But Now He Sees - Forever,” David Holwick, adapted
from the sermon “Old Aesop Can Tell You What It Means, But How
About Old Saint John?” by Rev. Kevin Tully, March 14, 1999;
Kerux sermon #4464. The man’s name is Bernace but I changed it
to “Bernie” for ease of understanding.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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