well i invite you to turn uh to john chapter 9 this morning the exciting section of john chapter 9 uh i thought about breaking this up and then i i don't know if that's wise to do it's one story and i think you lose the effect of it if you do that so we're going to consider the whole chapter today of john chapter 9 this is the word of the lord as he passed by he saw a blind man from birth and his disciples asked him rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind jesus answered it was not that this man sinned or his parents but that the works of god might be displayed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means scent. So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some said, it is he. Others said, no, but he's like him. He kept saying, I'm the man. So they said to him, then how were your eyes opened? He answered, the man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. They said to him, where is he? He said, I don't know. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. He said to them, He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes? He said, He's a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, Is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He's of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, He is of age. Ask him. So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, Give glory to God. We know that this man's a sinner. He answered, Whether he's a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. They said to him, What did he do to you? how did he open your eyes he answered them i've told you already and you would not listen why do you want to hear it again you also want to become his disciples and they reviled him saying you are his disciple but we are disciples of moses we know that god has spoken to moses but as for this man we do not know where he comes from the man answered why this is an amazing thing you don't know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes we know that god does not listen to sinners but if anyone's a worshiper of god and does his will god listens to him never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind if this man were not from god he could do nothing they answered him you were born utterly in sin and you would teach us and they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out and having found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind some of the pharisees near him heard these things and said to him are we also blind jesus said to them if you were blind you would have no guilt but now that you say we see your guilt remains and there ends the reading of god's word how are your um how are your eyes this morning i like to uh think a little bit about this great passage today with you how important this passage is uh for christianity and for our life when the lord puts passages like this in front of us it's always important to ask why is why is john in this particular gospel doing this and i think you felt in the readings many of the ironies and and many of the things that are just kind of comical in this passage that i think is just exposing how ridiculous unbelief is but we have really studied the awful confrontation between jesus and the the pharisees it's been it's been brutal last time they said awful things about him things that were vicious about jesus attacking him and attacking mary and jesus had just said to them in the middle of that that if they knew the truth the truth would set them free and that's such a beautiful statement uh about uh the gospels and about jesus in his work that his great work sets us free in this life it's important to say though refusing him they would not come to him and what we have in front of us this morning are the sad effects of remaining in the consequences of remaining in the darkness and that's what this is before us now uh what what john is doing is helping us understand what exactly jesus came to do for us jesus is on a mission of saving jesus is on a mission as we've seen all along you have a great event and then you have the teaching that comes after the conflict and the teaching that's how john's been doing this the whole time back with Nicodemus and the woman at the well and the man who was healed on the Sabbath in John 5. Then you had the bread event and the same sort of thing. You have a major event here and Jesus is teaching from that about his salvation and about his great purpose in saving people. It's just beautiful, isn't it? But there's another truth here that I don't think gets a lot of play and talk about in Christianity. Jesus is also here to close eyes. Did you know that? Jesus is also here to close people's eyes. You will see that he wills to save his sheep. He will rescue them. He will save them. We're going to see this great truth in John chapter 10, where he says, I've come for my sheep. He'll tell the Pharisees, you are not my sheep. I've come for my sheep, and I lay down my life for my sheep. But here you'll notice here, all this does not go on. And this is actually really good news, I think, in our day. All that's happening, all this mission, all the ministry of a time in this world that we live under the sun does not go on indefinitely. And there is an end to all this. There's a goal to all of this. And we see that played out here this morning. But completely absent often from the message today is the important truth that Jesus is also a prophet of judgment. That's why the message is so impotent today. You don't really want to mess with Jesus. You don't really want to take him lightly. You don't really want to set him aside. You don't really want to play fast and loose with him in his worship. He's no joke. He's no joke. And Jesus here summarizes everything that's happening in this particular passage with a summary statement in verse 39. Look at it carefully. In verse 39 of John 9, Jesus said, for judgment I came into this world. Whoa. That's not what we see on bumper stickers, is it? For judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind. that is a remarkable statement in the Gospel of John. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what this passage is meant to show us. It's meant to illustrate this very truth that's in front of us here, illustrating the very truth of that summary statement that Jesus makes in verse 39 of what just happened with the man and the Pharisees. So you have this here, if you're taking notes, you have a great illustration that Jesus provides for us, And then you have the great confrontation and then the great conclusion to this, to this section, which is really helpful. We're going to see two different people with, they're going two different directions in this life and with two very different outcomes in this life. And all of this is intended as John's gospel is intending to do is to say, come to faith in Jesus, believe in Jesus. These things are written that you may know him and believe that he is the Son of God and have life in his name by believing in him. So here we are. I want you to notice in the last section of that ugly section that we looked at in John 8 that the last thing we read was in verse 59, they had picked up stones to throw them at him, boulders. And you'll notice here there's a little curious statement already that's beginning to set up for this particular text that Jesus hid himself. Now that's not just incidental. That's an important thing that Jesus did something here in that he blinded them. They could not see him. This is important because how do you explain how they have stones and all of a sudden they can't see? This is an important moment of what Jesus is doing here and illustrating with two different peoples the opening of eyes and the closing of eyes and so you'll notice that there's a lot of play of words here that we should see on on eyes and seeing and closing all having to do with our spiritual state and so i noticed in verse one as we open up chapter nine that we read as he passed by he saw another important thing to emphasize jesus is the one doing the seeing here and he saw a man who was born blind from birth christ is taking the initiative as he does in salvation nobody ultimately takes the initiative to come to him because of this great problem as we're going to see everyone's born blind blind to jesus and so jesus is out seeing jesus is out laying his eyes on this man who has been born blind from birth. He had never in his days seen any light of day. His eyes had never perceived any sparkle of light. You imagine that. I think there are a lot of bad afflictions in this life. But I think one of the great afflictions that would be the most difficult is to be blind. we what what a what a gift we take for granted i have in that bible collection i showed you last week there's actually it was a pre-braille bible that helen keller used before they had the braille system you've just seen the the bible's full of raised letters and the blind what they would do is put their hands on these raised letters and try to understand the word of god you imagine how tedious and difficult difficult that would be to try to to understand god's word with your finger well here we are this is the the very kind of affliction the bible uses this one constantly uh to a focal point uh blindness is one of the the most common afflictions that the gospels use to teach us something about us and and here we have this man who is is in in a lot of sorrow and a lot of misery and the beautiful imagery is as jesus has walked right up to him and jesus has laid his eyes on the man and and a question then surfaces about this particular man from the disciples the disciples want to know what would be the cause in this man's life for him to have been born with such an affliction born with it it's probably been 30 years of blindness they want to know if this blindness has been caused by some specific sin or or this man's parent sins that they he would have to endure such an awful state in this life which really goes to show what the the jews believed about the law of hereditary and sin and the things that happened and the reasoning behind it was pretty clear that this defect behind this defect has to be a sin uh but how could it be so if the man was born blind could it be his own could it be his own fault um how could it be unless he sinned in the womb i mean that's what they're thinking which clearly believes the jews had a pretty good doctrine of sin didn't they you can sin in the womb fascinatingly jesus answers in verse three he says neither this man nor his parents sinned so he says but that the works of god might be displayed in him he uh this is a very big moment uh it's really an amazing answer of course sickness and and the things that we face are all due to the fall of adam but the lord here doesn't really go there everything that we have is a result of the fall but the lord here really does apply this in a completely different way and this is where we're beginning to see something very special develop in the gospel of John as Jesus is making distinctions about his people. You remember, Jesus will say the same thing about Lazarus. When Lazarus dies, he will tell his disciples, look, this death is for the glory of God. So John is showing us something about suffering and death and sickness, as Jesus has already made a great distinction in the last chapter between the sons of God and the sons of Satan. So what Jesus is showing us now is that for the sons of God, for the children of God, whatever has happened to them, whatever plight, whatever sorrow, whatever struggle, whatever hardship, all of it, Jesus has taken upon himself in his own work the particular purpose of using that and appointing that to be for the glory of God. That's really an amazing perspective in life. The glory of God is going to be shown in this man. How? Well, you're about to see it. It's really remarkable. Not quite in the way you think. So what Jesus does at this point is call his disciples to the mission, to enter into the mission, just like he called them to enter into the mission with the woman at the well when they were worried about buns and food, remember? He said, join in this work. He does the same thing. This man is an opportunity, and he is set apart in his sickness for the glory of God. He's a child of God. So you need to enter into this. You need to understand this. You need to help him. You need to love him. And you need to understand that God is using this for some great purpose. And we haven't really thought too much about that. This is why Jesus says, while it's still day work, these are opportunities in life. And this is why the Sabbath issue is going to come up. Jesus was helping on the Sabbath. Jesus was healing on the Sabbath. Get off these questions, says Jesus. It's not for you to determine times and seasons. This is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for us together, all of us, to use for the glory of God. I'm here. There's a day coming when this all ends. And God has given us work to do. So you can peg this man with darts. You can leave him alone. You can avoid him. or you can view him as some bad sinner, or you can stand around and speculate, or you can join the work that God has done in setting his people aside, even with their afflictions for his glory. It's a really powerful perspective, isn't it? That's what he's saying to us. So here comes the great illustration. In verse 6, Jesus spits on the ground. Not a flattering thing to do. makes clay with his saliva. And then he grabs the balls of clay and he, right on the eyes. Tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated sin. So he went and washed and he comes back seeing. And I stopped and I thought this week, what a strange way to heal a man born blind, isn't it? As a matter of fact, you don't give sight by putting mud on people's eyes, do you? It's kind of offensive if you think about it. That's how you blind somebody. If a blind person were here right now and they can't see what I'm doing, and I had the ability to heal and I grabbed big balls of clay and spit on the ground and then went right on the eye, you'd be mad at me. You say, that's the most insensitive thing you could ever do, Pastor. It's the most insensitive thing you could do. What's more offensive to a blind person than to make him walk around with big cakes of mud on his eyes? What's Jesus teaching? What's the illustration? Well, he's a walking illustration of the truth that Jesus is illustrating now. And that's the power of this. Imagine seeing somebody walking around with cakes of mud on their eyes that Jesus has put on a blind man. And now he's told, and by the way, the guy doesn't know how to get to the pool of Siloam. Now he's being led by people over to this pool that somebody had to take him to wash off this mud. Jesus has just done something very important. And you know what the truth is. It's the truth that you've always believed as Christians. It's the truth that you've always known. We're all dead men walking. We're all dead men walking around. We are blind people walking through this earth. When Paul was saved, you'll remember in Acts, I don't know how much to make of it, but something like scales fell from his eyes. And he finally saw. This has always been something that the Lord has used to teach us about our spiritual condition, that people are walking around through this life And the great truth is people are spiritually blinded to Jesus. They cannot see him. This is why Paul will say, when you're saved, the eyes of your hearts have been enlightened to see. There's only one remedy to this blindness. You see, physical blindness in the Bible has always been set aside to teach us something about the blindness that we've been studying all over John to see Jesus. That's the issue. That's the important issue here. Everyone is blind to him. Nobody can see him. Nobody will see him and they will not listen to his words and they will not receive him as sent by the Father. They are blind. Far worse in this life than being physically blind is being blind to see Jesus. Far worse. And here is Jesus' sermon illustration. He gives a good one. Here's a man with filthy mud covering his eyes walking around that they all knew had been sitting there blind for years. It's a spiritual teaching just like Naaman. You go wash in the pool, Naaman. You go and wash. And these waters that flow out of the temple, as Ezekiel had prophesied, as the message always was, there's healing waters out of the temple, which is the healing waters that Jesus gives. It's a whole visual of the gospel that had just been set in front of them that all of our blindness is spiritual and we have mud over our hearts and we are a bitter miserable people complaining people who don't want to worship him who don't want to be around him and want to do our own thing and we can be very religious in the process. We're born that way. No one can see Jesus. But God who's rich in mercy made us alive when we were dead. the eyes of our understandings being opened. So the effect here is to point and say, who is blind and who really sees? That's the question of this text. Who is blind and who really sees? So now we have the great confrontation that begins to happen here at this point. Christ is removed from the scene. It's really amazing that to show the power of Jesus and faith, when he gives faith, he heals him and he leaves this man right in front of the Pharisees. He is removed from the scene, and now we have this great interrogation that's really quite comical. In verse 8, his neighbors begin to ask about him. His neighbors begin to ask, how did this happen? You are the guy sitting here blind. You can't be the same guy. You're not him, the same guy. Is it him? No, it's not him. Yeah, it is him. It's him. It's me. It's me, you see. And so in verse 9, he openly says this. So I want you to notice here that what's happening in this man is simultaneously, the master craftsmanship of John 9, simultaneously we see eyes starting to go like this, and simultaneously we see this. This is what John's showing us here. So notice here, he begins, and they start to ask him how he saw, and notice what happens, he's beginning to see, and he starts talking about Jesus. by the way when your eyes are being open that's the first thing you're going to start talking about you've never talked about jesus in your life not a good thing not a good thing you've never opened your mouth and told somebody what jesus has done for you not a good thing when you're saved you start talking about jesus he's your life he's he's your righteousness and he's starting here you'll notice it's illustrative he's starting to see and and notice here uh that jesus he starts telling the story well how did you well i met a man named jesus and and guess what he did he put he put clay on my eyes and i went and washed in the pool salome and now i see i was blind and now i see and thought we've had such good examples of that in our church Does anyone here remember Pete DeYoung talking about Jesus? How much did Pete DeYoung talk about Jesus? His eyes were wide open. Notice those examples among us. It's beautiful, isn't it? An eye wide open that sees Jesus. We'd go walk and do door-to-door evangelism, and I was always nervous. Who was going to get mad at us? no one ever got mad at pete i thought somebody was going to swing but that accent just won him over let me tell you in verse 13 he's brought to the pharisees they begin this official trial to examine this man and and again i want you to notice if faith overcomes the world john will say you know why he says it because he's looking at john nine i'm convinced of it a little bit of faith overcomes the world that's our victory this faith that jesus gives so they begin this great trial to examine him and all of it has to do with his connection to jesus and does he confess jesus as the christ or and and who does he give glory to for this great act that that's the heart of this discussion here and so this examination begins a scene of bullying sectarianism a guilt driven sectarianism forced submission by intimidation it's just awful and now you understand next week why jesus is going to say i'm the good shepherd these guys are all hirelings and i don't treat my sheep like that so in verse 14 we read jesus did this on the sabbath oh no you didn't do that again on purpose did you back in chapter 5 he did this on the sabbath and it already got him into big trouble remember they wanted to stone him for it jesus is doing these things on the sabbath on the Sabbath, to provoke the community, who had great confidence in their status as the people of God, thinking that that was what pleased God, their observance and their conformity to and their identification with the Sabbath, as that was the basis for which God was pleased with them. That doesn't throw out the Sabbath. We'll come back to that thought. He's doing this on purpose. So the Pharisees begin the interrogation. How did he heal you? He tells a story. And they begin attacking the person of Christ. This man is not from God because he doesn't keep the Sabbath. What a statement. Here's their reasoning. All people who are truly from God keep the Sabbath. This man who healed you doesn't keep the Sabbath. Therefore, he's not of God and his healing can't be of God. Does that make any sense? So verse 17, What do you say about him? Because this Sabbath breaker is not from God. Verse 24, they call Jesus a sinner. Now, they'd already committed blasphemy. I think we looked at last time. I mean, it just keeps going. Now they're saying he's an open sinner. You better deny him right now. How many of you have ever been put on trial for your faith? I still haven't. Not even with all that's going on like this. Never had the authorities come down on me and put me on trial yet. You'll notice here, after all of this, what do you say about him? Come clean. The Sabbath breaker has opened your eyes. Here's a brand new believer, which is really the power of this, to encourage all of you. Jesus didn't even have to be there. Jesus has given him sight. He doesn't know much. He doesn't know much about anything right now. He doesn't understand much. He's not even totally sure about the Messiah yet. You're going to see that at the end. Is this him? But his eyes are being opened. In great contrast, the Pharisees are pouncing on him, attacking Jesus, calling him a sinner with great pressure. Instead of the joy that should take place over one sinner that comes to Jesus, Here the religious community is pouncing on him over the Sabbath. You admit you shouldn't have been healed on the Sabbath. Therefore, your whole healing is illegitimate because he's a sinner. What do you say? What a complete lack of care for this man's spiritual state and physical state. You can really see a false shepherd this way because they just don't care about the most important things, do they? The man. What do you say? He's a prophet. I laughed when I read that the first time ever in my life. He's a prophet. It's what he is. So they come down on him. What's their next move? Find out in verse 18, it began to circulate among the Jews that this whole thing's a fake. It didn't even really happen. So now they go and they bring in mom and dad. This is just like watching Fox and CNN. They're going to bring in somebody to discredit the other person, aren't they? And they do this all the time. They have their pawns. And religious pastors should be careful of going on Fox for that reason. Next step. Get this poor man, mom and dad, to get those closest to him to turn on him. Is this your son? Whom you say was born blind, is that him? We don't know how it happened. Ask him, he's of age. Now John gives us a little added information here as to how bad this had become that they refused to speak about Jesus because what had happened was, for fear of the Jews, the Sanhedrin had come together and they had made a formal decision in their Sanhedrin courts that anyone who confessed that Jesus was the Messiah was to be unsynagogued. That's excommunicated from the church. That's what it really reads. Unsynagogued. So they would be expulsed from the synagogue. They would be kicked out of the church. In other words, they would not be able to attend church. This is ugly stuff. And I mean, this happens. This happens. I have seen this ugly stuff in the church. I've seen how bad it can become. So verse 24, they put him again back on the stand for the second time. Pharisees. I want you to know the reasoning they now use. Give glory to God. They're so pious, aren't they? We know this man's a sinner. In other words, okay, we're willing to recognize now that you were healed, but only people who are from God can open the eyes of the blind. This man is a Sabbath breaker, a sinner, therefore there's no way he could have opened your eyes. So if you're going to claim that your eyes are healed and we're going to give that to you, then look, you give glory to God because that's the one who did it for you. Locked themselves right in, didn't they? The man. Whether he's a sinner, I don't know. Notice the simplicity here. One thing I know. I once was blind, but now I see. I can't and I will not validate your charge against him. Look what he did for me. This is beautiful. Look what he did for me. Explain it again for us. How did he open your eyes? At this point, he loses patience. I already told you, and you just don't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you really want to become his disciples? That's what the issue is. You guys really want to become his disciples, don't you? You're obsessed with him. That's all you're doing. You're running around. You're obsessed with him. This is bizarre. Stop this. He's all you can talk about. They begin to revile him. We're Moses' disciples. You're his disciple. In verse 30, he silences them. Well, this is a marvelous thing. This is a marvelous thing. You don't know where he's from. In other words, you guys claim to have answers for everything. You guys have the law perfected. You've memorized 613 commandments. You're considered God's gift to men. The people view you as spiritual authorities. No one dares question you. But here's your issue. You can't explain how he opened my eyes. It's an astonishing thing that you claim to have all these answers and you can't figure this out. Hey, look, they're open. You just said that God does not hear sinners, but if someone's true and does his will, doesn't God hear him? When since the beginning of the world has anyone opened the eyes of the blind? Oh, that's a great question. If the man were a sinner, God wouldn't have listened to him. Now, you see, he's really reasoning here. But you know what? I see. Therefore, here I stand. Here I stand. Astonishing you guys can't figure this out. He just totally and completely defeated them in their own reasoning. You almost hear the anticipation of Jesus saying, don't worry when they put you on trial. God will give you the words. God hears the prayers of the righteous. He must have heard him because I'm healed. See what's happened? His eyes are opening. His eyes are opening. What's wrong with you people? You're completely born in sin, says the Pharisees. you are you're teaching us we read that the last thing they do is that they cast him out of the synagogue they excommunicated the man from the church they drove him out of the communion all together and jesus here it's so powerful because he heals him and leaves and notice uh uh in in your scriptures here that the truth that's set before you that this man as jesus is absent has just worked the entire Pharisee, Sadducee system, and what John is telling us and showing us is, see what Jesus has come to do. This faith overcomes the world. We have a beautiful scene here at the end. After this is, he's been unsynagogued, after he's been excommunicated, Jesus comes and finds him. Jesus has one concern on his mind. This is his sheep. Do do you believe in me, son of man? Do you believe? He says, Lord, who is he that I may believe in him? And Jesus says, you're looking at him. It's he who talks with you. And right then and there, his eyes opened fully. And you'll notice here that the imagery that is left with us is of the man bowing down in worship before Jesus on the Sabbath. this man's fulfilling the sabbath because he's worshiping jesus and this is what the sabbath is about he has come to the sabbath rest think of the imagery christ says something here that summarizes the whole thing for judgment I've come into this world that those who do not see may see and that those who see may be made blind you understand it now you get it some of the Pharisees are standing there with disdain because they knew what he was saying are we blind is that what you're saying well if you were blind you'd have no sin but now i want you to know notice what he says there at the very end and um in john 9 such such an important important thing that he says some of the pharisees near him heard him say said to him are we blind jesus said to him if you were blind you would have no guilt but now that you say we see your guilt remains in other words it's the basic truth you know if you saw your condition and you knew what you were and you knew that you were blind and you yearned for the son of man to save you you would have your sin taken away. But since you go on in this awful presumption and that you trust in your own model life and you think you're like a well man who needs nothing from me I've got really bad news for you. Just what he said last time you're going to die in your sins. He's a prophet of judgment. Picture the two scenes. In John 8 they have stones behind him I'd ask Jerry to draw it but you can't draw images of Jesus so I can't ask Jerry to do that but imagine Pharisees with stones this man bowed down on the Sabbath to worship that's a powerful image of what John is showing you of who has come to us one now sees the others have been made blind hear the question of the text how are your eyes today how are your eyes today you fall into one of these two paths you're either blind and don't know him or you know your sin and misery and today you've come to Jesus because you see he is your salvation and your light he's the gift of God god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish you're not going to be blind you're going to have everlasting light life jesus said in this section john 8 you shall know the truth and the truth is going to set you free and i've got really good news for you about next week as we come to the table you know what Jesus is going to say about this man as he teaches now I'm the good shepherd I'm never letting him go he's mine and he says that of you too you see Jesus today you can say I once was blind I was in all kinds of sin and darkness I did whatever I wanted to do my heart was bitter I hated his worship I would nothing do with it I complained that was my life now I see him. I've got really good news for you. Your guilt no longer remains. Isn't that beautiful? That's what he's announcing to the ends of the earth today. Believe in Jesus. He is your light and your life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for such a glorious text. Thank you for helping us to see Jesus. For apart from you coming after us through the work of your son, we would still be sitting there walking around with mud cakes all over our eyes, just like the world does today, with no answers, no hope, without God in the world and perishing. Let people hear the message in their blindness. May it be taken away through the work of Jesus. May they see the light, the light of the world who has come to take away the sin of the world. In Jesus' name we pray.