More Than Just Seeing
Eyewitness • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 8 viewsThere is something worth beholding beyond what you are seeing.
Notes
Transcript
Title Slide for Part 6
Title Slide for Part 6
Occasion: Under Threat of Life
We are in part 6 of our messages series Eyewitness. If you want to catch up at anytime you can visit this site: and it will be there forever. Also, I will be starting a new series of messages called “Me and My Big Mouth.” Where we are going to go root canal deep in understanding this big fat mouth of ours and how we can use it to hurt or heal the world around us. I may even have a conversation about what you should be putting into it and what you should not be putting into it!!
During this lockdown period of time I have had a lot of time to think. Too much time to think, actually. And, a lot times I feel like Napolean Dynamites crazy Uncle Rico who wishes he could go back and change the hands of time.
There are things I know now, I wish I knew back then.
More in shirts and less in pants.
Taken than master class on being a barber and beard up-keep.
Not prayed so much for my time together as a family.
I also prayed for God to test my charachter a few months back.
There are people I know now, I wish I knew back then.
My wife
There are consequences I face now, I wish I could stop the decision back then.
That google investment I passed up in the 90s.
That apple investment I passed up.
The drugs that i used, the alcohol I abused, the people that I left behind.
There is a faith in Jesus I know now, I wish I knew back then.
And I know that
For better or worse, these are the moments that make us who we are.
But what if there was something to behold beyond what you see that could transform everything.
It is a tragic irony what I am about to tell you. But Scripture and Psychology both affirm that, The very thing we long for so deeply is often the things we sabotage.
We long for love and understanding but we hurt those we love and fail to communicate.
We long for real meaning and purpose but deny God a proper place in our lives.
What if there was something to behold beyond what you see that could transform everything and a someone along with me.
Why should it matter if someone besides me is transformed? Good question, Victor Frankl said, “The true meaning of life is self-transcendence rather than self-actualization.”
True meaning comes not when we chose but when we are chosen.
You see up to the Bread of Life Sign, the apostles are mostly spectators but starting with the Bread of Life they start to become participators in the scene. They are handing out bread, they are walking on the water to Jesus (in Matthew version), and in this sixth sign that will take on an important roll in the present and in the future, and it is a roll that we Once we behold beyond what we see, we too become beholden to that heavenly vision.
Ha-Foke-Bah
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life—
Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.
Light is warming, clarifying, compelling, revealing, invasive, and frightening. It can travel across galaxies and some rays of light are as old as the galaxy and penetrating its furthest expanses.
The Psalmist said of God Psalm 104:2
He wraps Himself in light as if it were a robe, spreading out the sky like a canopy,
His brilliance is like light; rays are flashing from His hand. This is where His power is hidden.
The thing about light is though at its source it is powerful blinding as its rays extend it can be blocked
Isa 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
The power of darkness ensnares in sin and self-deception.
Darkness is the opposite of everything associated with the light.
Darkness is alienation from God, alienation from intellect, from moral uprightness.
Darkness is a place of confusion, fear, lostness.
If you spend too much time in the darkness Amos 5:18
Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! What will the Day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light.
The symbolism of light and darkness is a key theme in the Gospel of John and the Letter of 1 John. John uses the light and dark opposition to express how the coming of Jesus brings spiritual light and life to a dark, sinful world (John 1:4–9; 3:19–21; 9:5; 12:35, 46; 1 John 1:5–7). Continuing in darkness means one has rejected or opposed the spiritual light represented by faith in Jesus (1 John 2:8–11).
This symbolism of darkness was so prevelant that even blindness itself, physical blindess was considered taboo:
The Lord spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron: None of your descendants throughout your generations who has a physical defect is to come near to present the food of his God. No man who has any defect is to come near: no man who is blind, lame, facially disfigured, or deformed;
While there were strict laws around protecting the disabled blind Deut 27:18
‘The one who leads a blind person astray on the road is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’
If Israel broke the law, if Israel was in sin it says Deut 28:28-29
The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and mental confusion, so that at noon you will grope as a blind man gropes in the dark. You will not be successful in anything you do. You will only be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will help you.
I Tell you all of this not to make an elaborate show of the bible but to show you how Jewish people felt about blindness being taboo, being a punishment.
See our passage in John 9 is acutally part of a long story that started in chapter 7 John 7:37
On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink!
This was the festival of sukkoth or Tabernacles. He is saying that rather than amazing libation offerings that were given on the last day for the life of Israel, that He is the water of life. His message was not received well and he faced challenges John 8:44 and he responded to his challengers with
You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars.
Then they said he had a demon John 8:48
The Jews responded to Him, “Aren’t we right in saying that You’re a Samaritan and have a demon?”
Then Jesus escelates John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am.”
Then it escelates again John 8:59
At that, they picked up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple complex.
As He was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth.
explain: Jesus, let it go, just walk on by.
His disciples questioned Him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Explain: like i said blindness was taboo.
Explain: this is a horrible way to view the world but like the Talmud says, “A prisoner cannot break himself out of prison.” We are all to one degree or another held captive by our cultural presuppositions.
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.
Wrong: God blinded this man because of a generational sin.
Wrong: God blinded this man because of some sin in the womb.
Wrong: God blinded this man so Jesus could heal him at this moment.
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.
Sin did not cause his blindness and God wants us to transform his suffering.
God wants us to do something about his suffering.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
I can show you what God sees and when you see what God sees then you and me lets transform this man’s suffering.
After He said these things He spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes.
On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink!
“Go,” He told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.
His neighbors and those who formerly had seen him as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the man who sat begging?” Some said, “He’s the one.” “No,” others were saying, “but he looks like him.” He kept saying, “I’m the one!”
Therefore they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”
He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.”
Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He doesn’t keep the Sabbath!” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” And there was a division among them.
Explain John 8:41
You’re doing what your father does.” “We weren’t born of sexual immorality,” they said. “We have one Father—God.”
Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He doesn’t keep the Sabbath!” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” And there was a division among them.
Again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” “He’s a prophet,” he said.
His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him as Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue.
So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner!” He answered, “Whether or not He’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!”
Then they asked him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
“I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become His disciples too, do you?”
They ridiculed him: “You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’ disciples.
We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man—we don’t know where He’s from!”
“This is an amazing thing,” the man told them. “You don’t know where He is from, yet He opened my eyes!
We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He listens to him.
Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind.
If this man were not from God, He wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
Did you notice his sight:
The man Jesus - John 9:11
The prophet Jesus - John 9:17
The One from God - John 9:33
“You were born entirely in sin,” they replied, “and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out.
When Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, He found him and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
“Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” he asked.
Jesus answered, “You have seen Him; in fact, He is the One speaking with you.” “I believe, Lord!” he said, and he worshiped Him.
John 9:39
Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”
The Sixth Sign is about beholding and not just seeing, its about opened hearts and closed hearts, its about escaping false narratives, its about the problems of binary thinking, its about toxic religion that blames and revelatory faith that solves, its about beholding the Light of the world and being Beholden to the Light.
Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”