Sermon Tone Analysis

So Clear, Even a Blind Man Can See It

INTRO:

Have you ever had one of those “moments of clarity”?

Maybe people have been telling you to give up a bad habit, or check out a band they think you’ll like, pursue a different major or career option, or something along those lines.

You’ve shrugged off these suggestions, thinking you know better, or you just don’t have time for whatever it is, until finally one day, the moment comes and you realize… they’ve been right all along.

I had one of these moments the year after I graduated college.

I was working for my college at the time, and so I got similar breaks to the college schedule, and was back home for a couple of weeks to visit.

YES! Finally I was on my way to having it all.

The prettiest girl in school was my girlfriend.

Everything was going to be great from here on out.

Now all through college I had continually argued with my mom about what classes and extra-curriculars I should have, how many hours I should work at my job, how much time I needed to do homework.

My mom always told me that she’d stop telling me what to do with my time and education when she saw me start taking responsibility for it myself.

But until I took responsibility, she was going to make sure I did what I needed to do!

But there was a problem.

We’d always gotten along as friends up to this point.

We hadn’t had any real conflict.

But once we started dating, the differences between us became painfully, painfully obvious.

It soon became very clear that her expectations of what it meant to be boyfriend/girlfriend was very different from what my expectations were.

Well I went off to college, almost flunked out my first semester, and came to realize that she had been pretty much right about everything.

In my mind, we’d do everything we possible could to spend time together.

Let’s get our classes to match up next semester!

Let’s sit together during chapel time and church!

Any downtime we have, let’s spend it together!

So here I am, back at home after graduating college, and I walk into the kitchen where my Mom and 16 year-old brother are arguing.

And here is my little brother, sitting the way I sit, gesturing the way I gesture, and arguing with my mom about his education and work schedule with the exact same arguments and phrases I tried to use against her when I was in high school.

For Nicki, who was a straight A student, she wanted a much more balanced life.

She pictured a boy-friend as someone who would be a natural study-buddy.

We wouldn’t spend as much time

It was one of the most humbling moments of my life.

There are few things more humbling than seeing your own foolish attitudes being replicated by someone who looks up to you.

I stopped abruptly and they both paused their conversation and looked at me.

I looked at my mom and said, “Oh my gosh.

I am so sorry.”

I looked at my brother and said “I’ve been there, we’ll talk later.”

In that moment it was so clear to me.

My mom had been forced to fight this fight with me virtually every day of high school, and here was my little brother disrespecting her on the exact same issues, in the way he had seen me do it.

Yowch.

I had probably realized I’d been wrong about some of that stuff beforehand, but it wasn’t until God let this comically similar re-enactment of my sin play out in front of me that I realized how wrong I was, and how much of an apology I owed to my mom.

This was my “moment of clarity.”

But the reason it didn’t come earlier wasn’t because the information wasn’t there.

There were probably multiple opportunities for me to recognize and repent of my sin beforehand.

See it wasn’t lack of information that kept me from repenting.

It was my own pride—I wasn’t willing to recognize the truth, until God gently showed me a “parable” that opened my eyes to the sin I had been so blind to.

See ther

This isn’t just a funny little story about how I was wrong, and figured that out.

When Jesus took on human flesh and came to live, die and rise again as our savior, one of the things he taught was that we as humans are born with a serious medical condition: spiritual blindness.

Think about it this way: if we as humans were just in need of information to recognize who God is, and live our lives accordingly, then Jesus would have had a 100% success rate.

He’d show up, everyone would give their lives to Him, and he’d move on to the next town.

But that’s not what happened.

When Jesus came to present himself as the very savior and Messiah that the Jews were waiting for, he came up against severe opposition from the group that should have been most anxious to greet him—their religious and political leaders!

So why did they miss the memo?

Did they not have enough information?

Nope.

Jesus was there.

God in the flesh, right in front of them.

They rejected him because they suffered from spiritual blindness.

The book of John, which we’re studying through right now, was written by John, one of Jesus’s 12 disciples, to address this problem: the Jews were waiting for a Messiah.

Jesus, the Messiah, came, and they all didn’t accept him.

In fact many plotted against him and ended up nailing him to a cross.

And even after Jesus rose from the dead, the majority of the Jewish people didn’t receive him as Messiah.

So John wrote the gospel of John, originally to a predominantly Jewish audience, as he writes in , he wrote

SLIDE “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ (savior), the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

He wanted them to hear the story of Jesus, and he intentionally picked the stories and organized them to help people come to the right conlcusion: Jesus IS the savior, and belief in Him is the way to have relationship with God.

Tonight we’re going to be looking at , the story of Jesus healing a blind man, and we’re going to get to see four sets of people who are in various stages of spiritual blindness.

They’re going to witness evidence of an incredible miracle, but they all respond to it differently.

If you’ve got a bible or smartphone, let’s turn to John Chapter 9, Verse 1. I’ll have it up on the screen if you want to follow along there instead.

SLIDE

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6 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 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent).

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

So Jesus and his disciples are traveling, perhaps having just escaped an angry mob in the temple who wanted to stone Jesus.

They pass a man who has been blind from birth.

They ask Jesus a theological question, and He uses this opportunity not only to teach them a powerful truth, but to heal this man of his physical blindness!

let’s keep reading in verse 8

8 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?” 9 Some said, “It is he.”

Others said, “No, but he is like him.”

He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 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.”

12 They said to him, “Where is he?”

He said, “I do not know.”

So Jesus heals this guy who has been blind from birth.

Now we learn in verse 8 that this guys neighbors all knew who he was, because, as was common in that day-and-age, his disability kept him from holding a job, so he was someone the neighbors would see every day.

Bottom line: they knew his face.

They knew who he was, and they knew he was blind.

But here he is, standing before them, telling them that this Jesus guy had healed him and given him sight!

How do they respond?

Well, some don’t believe it at first.

they say “well, He looks like the blind guy we all know, but it can’t be the same guy.

Blind people stay blind!”

The neighbor’s problem isn’t an information problem.

They’re absolutely right: People who are born blind don’t usually wake up one day able to see.

Mud isn’t widely known as a cure for blindness.

But they don’t all connect the dots: Blind people don’t just start seeing all of a sudden—that’s why we call it a miracle!

The God who created the heavens and earth, and all of them, is among them, displaying His power and compassion by MIRACULOUSLY healing this blind guy.

Let’s keep reading, verse 13

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.