Well, it's a privilege and joy, as always, to bring the Word to you this morning. We come to our text this morning, continuing last week's account of Jesus healing a blind man in chapter 9, right? And I just wanted to summarize it before we dive into today's text. So basically, Jesus and His disciples pass by a blind man, and the disciples, trying to make Every minute with Jesus, a teachable moment, they ask him, Lord, who sinned in this case? Was it the parents or the man himself that he is blind? And it was a cultural assumption of the time that by sinning, someone had caused this man's blindness. And Jesus replies, of course, that it's not that anyone sinned. He points out that this is the reality of a fallen world, and that in a paradoxical way, we as Christ followers get to participate with God himself in the redemption of this world, and we're invited to do so. That is what will bring most glory to God, to do his work in the midst of this fallen world. And Jesus gives him a live illustration with the man. He puts some saliva-infused mud pies on the blind man's eyes, then tells him to go wash it off, and just like that, the man is able to see for the first time in his life. So naturally, people are freaking out because this does not happen. This is something that doesn't happen. And they don't know what to do with this. So they take the man to the Pharisees for a better or more insightful explanation. And that's what takes us to our text this morning. Please read with me. In the word of John, in the book of Gospel of John, chapter 9, verses 13 through 41, They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And 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 is a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and he 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? Then how 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 is 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 is a sinner. He answered, whether he is 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 have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do 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, for this man we do not know where he comes from. The man answered, Why, this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is 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 in utter sin, and would you 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 worshiped 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. This is an amazing text, as all scripture is, but honestly, it's a text that pretty much preaches itself. So the plan is to walk through it once again, picking up on key insights and observations and see how the Holy Spirit leads us to apply this text to our hearts and lives. Okay, so the first thing that we see is that it was a Sabbath day. We all knew that what was coming as soon as we read those words again. This is a deja vu moment of sorts. This has happened before in chapter five, right? There's something about Jesus and pools and the Sabbath that just gets Jesus in trouble with the Pharisees. And John has skillfully withheld this information from his readers until this point, until the point that he encounters the Pharisees. And this is for the sake of giving us a glimpse into their frame of mind, the way they process and they consider things. So the Pharisees initiate an investigation, and for the second time in the whole chapter, the man is asked how he has received his sight. Now, before we start discussing the to and fro between the man and the Pharisees, I want us to take note of how this man develops his understanding of what he has just experienced, and how the way he speaks, every time he is given the chance to speak, he is revealing how his heart and his mind are catching up to this new reality of seeing, which, of course, is not only visual seeing, but also in a spiritual sense. Right? So, this has just happened. He's probably still on an adrenaline rush, right? He's overjoyed. He is eager to share this with anyone willing to listen. And the Pharisees seem to be interested. But of course, as we continue reading, they are revealed to have no real intention of looking at the bigger picture of what is happening here. So, enter the Pharisees. The man is asked how he was healed, and maybe to clarify that there was no weird ritual or big ceremony, no incense, no bells, not even an audible prayer, the man replies in the simplest possible of terms, he made mud, he put it on my eyes, he sent me to go wash in the pool, and now I see. Very simple, no tricks at all. And without skipping a beat, in the most a-ha of moments, some Pharisees declare, this man is not from God because he doesn't keep the Sabbath. And you can tell that the Pharisees hung out a lot with politicians, you know? The first thing is that they don't let anyone else get their point across, right? And then usually they have this way of avoiding the questions or issues at hand, but rather push their own talking points and their that their political agendas dictate, right? Often begging the question, like, where did that statement come from? Where is that answer coming from? And that is what's happening here. And it's, quite frankly, ridiculous. It's a textbook illustration of totally missing the point. The neighbors and people who knew this formerly blind man, after witnessing the supernatural intervention or the effects of it, sought the Pharisees so that they, as their spiritual leaders, knowledgeable in all the things of God, could provide insight into what just happened. But some of the Pharisees we read decide to overlook this amazing testimony of the works of God to focus on Jesus' apparent transgression of a man-made guardrail that they themselves had come up with to try to keep the Sabbath. Now, I don't know if the parents here have ever experienced your young artist, preschool age probably, proudly coming to you, showing you a picture of their amazing watercolor or tempera painting. But perhaps the only thing that your eyes can focus on as he is showing you the picture is the disaster left on the dining room table with all the colors spread about and this brown sludge coming out of this cup just falling all over the carpet. Not that it's ever happened to me, but I can imagine some of you rushing to salvage the carpet and while trying to clean up that mess while unintentionally breaking your child's heart in the process. And that's the kind of picture we see here. You see, the Sabbath in short, was instituted as a day of worship, of rest, of spiritual renewal, a time to seize from labor and instead engage in worship and in spiritual exercise and reflection. And as such, it did require that some prohibitions would be established, right, from keeping us from working, keeping us from going on what we're doing the rest of the week, right? So in the law we read those prohibitions and they're well established to keep people from working and turning instead to worship. However, The Pharisees had put together what is known as the Oral Law, which is their own tradition. And it was a collection of rules to keep you within a safe distance from breaking the Sabbath. So it's not actually breaking the Sabbath, but it's keeping you in a narrower aisle so that you won't break the Sabbath, a sort of buffer, if you will. And one example of these was in regards to fire. So in the law we read in Exodus, we read the literal prohibition of lighting a fire during the Sabbath. But the Pharisees, in their oral law, established that anything done either to increase or decrease the flame of an already lit fire was prohibited and considered sinful. That's an example of how it worked. And it's the same thing with salvaging the carpet, right? The Pharisees had good intentions, They wanted to pursue piety and in keeping the law of God. They wanted to preserve Jewish national and religious identity while they were under Roman occupation, right? Those are all good things. But these intentions resulted in devastating consequences, which were strict religiosity, overburdening the people with all these rules and regulations that you had to have present during the whole Sabbath day. and also equating the law of men, which was this oral tradition, with the law of God, which was the law, right? So, imagine yourself trying to cook or stay warm on the Sabbath with an ever-decreasing fire that you can't do anything about, so you're eventually going to go hungry and cold. It's overburdening for the people. Now, Other prohibitions included, for example, carrying your mat. Remember when we went through Chapter 5 and there was a healing of the lame man? Carrying the mat was a big one, apparently. Or healing someone, which would happen there and happen again here. And interestingly enough, kneading dough. So I'm sorry for our young sourdough entrepreneurs here. No, none of that on Sundays. But... This one, kneading dough, is the one that the Pharisees probably were focusing on. As soon as a formerly blind man said that Jesus had spat on the dirt to make a little mud, they were like, yes, that's it. And that's when they settled this issue in their heart. The investigation didn't go past the man's first three words. He made mud. Everything after that, I don't care about. That's it. That's a nail in the coffin. That's all it took for them to reach the verdict. So what kind of circumstances and situations make us rush to conclusions based on how things could have or should have gone down in our life rather than seeing the bigger picture of what God is doing in and in front of us? Are we at times too caught up in our own priorities and structures that we are effectively made blind to God's work in our midst? We know there are things that simply just don't happen, right? And in our certainty, we fail to let ourselves be surprised by God's intervention. And there are other things we think should definitely happen because we put in our work, we did our part, so of course God will show up and he ought to honor what we did. but how presumptuous of us to think we have a clear picture of what is going on at any point in time. Now, there was another group of Pharisees we read that had just a little more common sense, right? We read in the second half of verse 16, they at least acknowledged that there were more than three words spoken and that the man's testimony is a fact. He was actually blind and now he sees. And the reason for why he sees is probably because of this other man's intervention. Therefore, it doesn't add up that he's a sinner and that he did this amazing sign that only God could do. So not knowing how to resolve this conundrum, the Pharisees asked the formerly blind man, so what do you make of him? And this is very interesting because of who the man is. You see, a blind person, like any other disabled person in first century Judea, could typically only support themselves by begging, right? They were not the kind of people encouraged nor giving opportunities to work. They were often marginalized in society because of this general assumption that their disability was caused by sin, what was That was what prompted the initial question, right? And because of this assumption, these outcasts were removed from participating in synagogue. They were uneducated, and they were eventually isolated from the rest of society. But this man, despite all that, was not a complete stranger. Beggars usually have their spot, right? Maybe at a stoplight of a busy avenue, that increases the chance of engaging with people that would maybe help them out. In this case, maybe he was on the way to the temple. So people who pass by their spot on a daily basis, right, as they went to the temple, they were at least aware of the beggar's presence, even if to know to look the other way to avoid him, right? You know that he's going to be there, or at best, maybe to give him some scraps of food or money. But rarely does anyone pay close attention to them in the first place, much less engage with them in conversation or even ask for their opinion on any matter. Judging by the culture's own behavior toward them, they were considered good as dead. But here, the amazing thing is that this formerly blind man, this outcast, has become himself the linchpin of Pharisaic theology. And the Pharisees, in their disagreement and confusion amongst themselves, request that he come up with a theological category for Jesus. It's again ridiculous, aren't they supposed to be the experts? And now we see in just his second utterance as a now seeing man, he's asked, what do you make of him? And he says, well, he's a prophet. Now, why would he say that? Because This man is beginning to see things very clearly. He's probably never been through formal education, right? Nor has he learned the Torah in synagogue. He's probably only ever heard of others or overheard others speak of the prophets that have been sent by God, right? So you see, by calling Jesus a prophet, this man is not simply offering a compliment, a nice compliment out of gratitude to Jesus. He was rather making a profound theological statement, albeit an incomplete and naive one, totally deeper than he ever knew, nonetheless true. The man is saying that Jesus is from God. He is the one who speaks and acts on behalf of God. And it's a shocking statement that would actually be blasphemous if it weren't true, as of course the experts have predetermined. In verse 18, we see, speaking of the Jews, but meaning the Pharisees, that's another way John refers to them, we see them not buying this whole thing. Since Jesus is clearly a sinner, of course, and this man is evidently a heretic, this whole thing is probably a farce. Because never has anyone been born blind suddenly become able to see. That doesn't happen. So the guy's parents are called in with the intention to confirm the Pharisees' observations. The Pharisees ask the parents. Is this your son who you say was born blind?" Every time I read that, it just makes me angry. I'm like, are you serious? Like, how obnoxious can these guys be? If we try to assume the best reading that, they're really trying to conduct an investigation, right? But they're also so biased by their presuppositions that even their questions are telling that. So do you remember when we were first introduced to this text, the question was, who sinned, the man or his parents, right? This was a stigma that the parents of disabled or sick children carried with them. No one went around saying that they had a disabled child because of it. They weren't able to claim any disability benefits or any kind of aid because of it. There was absolutely no value in going around pretending that your child was blind. This is the climax of the Pharisees' absurd inquisition. They are desperate to justify their veredict. sinning, of presumption, of pride, of dishonesty, of lack of compassion. And now, as we see, even using intimidation tactics in order to control the narrative. And it works, that's the worst part. This is like when, again, it hasn't been a great day in the Contessa home, and you have the carpet troll yelling at the child artist who didn't hear Mom's request to put away the sister's art supplies, who is in turn taking it out on the cat. Everything is going haywire. And this happens when you get a bunch of sinners together, and sin is allowed to run rampant and unchecked. My sin incites sin in you, and together it just makes a big mess. And here the mess reaches the parents. They are being interrogated under threat of excommunication, which is what we're reading about in verse 22. And while they tell the Pharisees what they do know, they do know that he is our son, he was born blind, out of fear, they are very quick to tell them what they do not know, namely, how the man can now see and who the person who opened his eyes is, which, by the way, is a question that the Pharisees never even They're just offering all these excuses, trying to get rid of this crazy situation. Furthermore, in a very Adam-like way, remember when he was afraid of seeing God after eating the fruit and he blamed Eve? The woman you gave me, right? Here, the parents should win an award or something for the most cowardly parents ever, for throwing their son under the bus. Ask him, he's his own person, totally independent of us. Why did they fear? You see, the parents Through their then visually impaired son, they had learned what it meant to be ostracized, what it meant to not belong. They knew through the son's experience what it felt to not be taken seriously or even acknowledged. They were terrified of experiencing what their son has experienced his whole life. And basically, here and now, they were sacrificing. They're now seeing son on the altar of their own status quo. They were not ready to risk their life. They're not willing to risk their life as they knew it for their son. And the parents get what they want. They're off the hook, sent home. The Pharisees call the man again and are pushing him to supposedly honor, to glorify God by affirming their perspectives and verdict. They're fishing for some kind of confession out of him. However, again, his simple yet profound response communicates, unlike you all, I don't have all the answers, but there's one thing, one thing that I do know. I was blind. And now I see. It's not only his eyesight that allows him to see, but he begins to perceive all things in a very different wavelength, so much that he begins to ask back, why do you want me to tell you the same story over and over again? It's very simple. There was mud. There was water, and now I see. But what are you really asking? What are you truly after? Why doesn't my answer satisfy your questions? And the aggravating truth is that the man who was blind and now sees, He's serving as a living parable, illustrating the core issue of this narrative, which is not the identity or godliness or the quality of eyesight of the formerly blind man, but rather the identity and mission of Jesus as Christ, as the light of the world, come to make the blind see. This is the crux of the matter. It's a parable of life in darkness or life in the light, a parable of life in unbelief or life in faith in Jesus Christ as the answer to the biggest questions we try to navigate as humanity in our human experience. This is an undeniable reality of which each believer can testify. In the words of the psalmist, of the psalm that we just read early in the service, come and hear all you who fear God and I will tell what he has done for my soul. This is a worldview shaping event. And this man gets it. And that's why he asked the Pharisees, admittedly with a little touch of sarcasm and mockingly perhaps, but I still believe it to be an honest question. Is it that deep down you want to become his disciples too? And this statement is fascinating because in it he first admits his own becoming a disciple. It's not, this is a healer, he's great. No, I'm going to follow this guy because this doesn't happen and it happened. He is God. I'm following him. But while also pointing to the heart of the matter, that this is the chief work of God that he would call spiritually blind, spiritually disabled, spiritually dead people, to live, see, and follow him?" And of course, this question just lit the Pharisees up. They insult the man and insist that they are followers of Moses, to whom God spoke directly to and to whom was given the law of God himself. probably revealing their fascination more with the law than with the law giver. And they claim they don't even know where Jesus is from, and they really don't even care, because they see things for what they are. And again, the man's response in verse 30, why this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes." Now it's really loaded with sarcasm and irony. It's utterly inconceivable to him that these so-called experts in all the things of God are clueless about the nature and origin of he who has performed a miracle that only God can do. "'How blind can you be?' said the formerly blind man. see how his assessment of truth, how his assurance in his newly given perception, and even how his confidence have seemed to grow in the span of this interaction with the Pharisees, it is amazing. And it is that that gives him the authority with which he continues to school the Pharisees in orthodox theology. First point, we know that God does not listen to stubborn sinners. Second point, we know God does listen to those who know him and engage with him in the ways he has prescribed, right? Worship. Point three, we know God does listen to those who follow him in humble obedience. And point four, you're right, Pharisees. These kinds of healings don't happen. They have never happened, but it did. And the only explanation for it is that God himself intervened. This man knows without ever having seen Jesus that his healer is God. He's astonished that the Pharisees, who have seen plenty of him, totally miss him. And that did it. Out of rage, the Pharisees concluded that this guy was born in utter sin, right? Which, by the way, was confirming that he was born blind in the process. The veredict became a sentence, a sentence of excommunication, now banning the man not only from synagogue, but also from relating to any member of that particular community, too. He finds himself completely isolated once again, yet radically transformed and seeing clearly. In verse 35, we learn that Jesus hears of everything that went down, and he finds a man, and he asks him the most important question that any of us could ever wrestle with. Do you believe in the Son of Man? Now, Son of Man is the most recurring title in all of the Gospels. It's arguably Jesus' favorite title for himself when he talks about himself in the third person. And the beauty of this title is that it conveys Jesus being the revelation of God to man as man. It's the same title used in Daniel in the Old Testament to describe the pre-incarnate Son of God who will reign forever, so the Eternal Son, as a fuller revelation of God. Let's say that Moses and the Law were embodied in human form to meet humanity's deepest needs as one who would live a perfect life before God, be crucified as an atoning sacrifice for our sin, and be resurrected to prove his victory over sin and death forever. So when Jesus asked this question, it's not a question of believing in his existence as a historical figure, but rather a question of, do you place your trust in the Son of Man for your eternal salvation? Do you trust God's sovereign and evident plan in the person of Jesus to save you? Well, do you, New City? For those of us who have been in the church longer than we can remember, Jesus feels very familiar. But could it be that at times we are missing the point of everything? Of everything that goes on here? Because we believe, we've seen it all, we've heard it all. and that we can afford to nitpick and spend ourselves over secondary and tertiary matters, or even worse, we don't really care anymore, and have become completely apathetic and numb to the simple truth that once captivated us, that we had mud, that we were washed, and that we now see. As a transformative nature, of a relationship with Christ brought fresh fruit in you lately? Can you or can those around you see that, testify to that? Or for those of us who haven't yet made up our minds regarding the person and work of Jesus, have you been rushing to conclusions of unbelief before giving your own questions serious consideration? Are you predisposed to justify your own viewpoint at all costs because of assumptions such as, these things don't happen? Maybe you have seen lives change, and maybe that's what got you in through the doors this morning, but you still refuse to acknowledge the possibility that God himself could be at work in you. This moment is an opportunity for you to plead that God would open the eyes of your heart to ask hard questions and to genuinely seek the answers in his word. Perhaps in doing so, you might discover that Jesus is not just a historical fact, but a living and active source of spiritual life and renewal. Continue to come, continue to learn, ask those honest questions, and be prepared to receive honest answers. This man is perhaps somewhere in between. He is done with the religious experts, yet he is longing to engage the truth. Another reply that you just have to love in verse 36, He answered, and sir, who is he that I may believe in him? This suggests that his spiritual eyesight appears to be even sharper than his new eyes. Not having ever seen Jesus before, he is eager to believe in his healer. Please point me to him, sir. And Jesus says, oh, you've seen him. It's me. I'm right here. And at that instant, we read that the man professed faith and worship. And I was just drawn to this passage again. Sorry, the Psalm. On page three in the bulletins, verse 17, Psalm 66. I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. This is the end result. This is the goal. This is the purpose of all things, that blind people would see God for who he is and would know what he is up to in the world, his works, chiefly that of salvation. Now, after this living parable, as Jesus usually did with his parables, he offered an explanation. He says that He had come into this world and embodied humanity so that every person attuned to, as Ecclesiastes puts it, the eternal longings in the heart, and everyone that has been made aware of God's vast holiness in contrast to their own sinfulness and frailty, as we learn in Scripture, that we might embrace Christ as our Savior and Lord. We are drawn from spiritual darkness into clear vision by the gracious glow of the light of the world. And this enables formerly blind saints to live a life in relationship to him or with him for his glory forever. Now, sadly, there's the other side of this coin. There are those who believe that they see, that they see things for what they are. And as such, they refused to be shown anything. These are like, I don't know if you saw that video on the internet, those who were foolishly looking at the solar eclipse with no special glasses on, claiming to see the beautiful celestial dance, but they were burning their retinas off. probably ended up lying, I don't know, didn't follow up, but that's not a smart move at all. And that is the judgment that Jesus brings to the ones who are good, who don't need to see things through another lens, the ones who can see perfectly. However, he does offer that judgment, but not without providing an entire universe of reasons and circumstances and heart longings that incessantly point us to his grace. but which some refuse still to see. And having heard Jesus talk of this judgment and talk of those who are blind and seeing the Pharisees perk up and they react, wait, are you saying that we are blind? And Jesus says something like, yes, I'm saying that, but you're too blind to even see that. So I guess I'll just let you think of yourself having 20-20 vision. I can't do anything else for you. But you're headed toward destruction. Your guilt remains. Now, what is the guilt that he speaks of here? Is that of knowing what God requires, holiness, perfection. and failing to keep it. Not even the Pharisees with their oral law guardrails and all could keep the law. But they had no other hope but to try harder, to do better. If only they would have paid more attention to God's doing rather than their doing. If only they would have loved the Lord and his revelation, not only the text of the law they would have had a hope in Christ. They would have seen some sort of shimmer that would ultimately lead them to the light of the world. Him who did keep the law of God perfectly, so that in turn it could be applied to the visually acute who actually see their own unrighteousness and that in that poverty of spirit prostrate themselves in worship and humble reliance before the Redeemer. Please take a look at the call to worship passage that we read this morning. This passage is answering the same question that the formerly blind man was asking. Who is a son of man that I may believe in him? Maybe some of you thought that the you, starting in verses six, was speaking of the church. But no, it's actually speaking of Jesus. So let's read it again with that in our minds. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. I am the Lord, I have called you, the servant of the Lord, Jesus, in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, for what? to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. This is Christ, the one we read from cover to cover in Scripture, the one we pray to, the one we sing to and point to in everything we do in the life of this church. the One who sent His Spirit to empower and work His gift of salvation in the lives of those whom He has called, and the One who at the end of all days will come to judge the living and the dead according to their vision acuity. Praise God that you are being exposed to this truth today. Praise God if you have already turned from your sin and sought His forgiveness through the atoning work of Christ, Praise God even if you are just beginning to see these glimmers of light leading you in the right direction. Praise God that we can join the formerly blind man, the formerly blind John Newton, and the formerly blind slaves that sung this amazing song, declaring in full voice, that they see. Join me in singing. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for opening our eyes to see your truth today. Thank you for the light of your word that penetrates our hearts, dispelling doubt, casting out the shadows of our misunderstanding. We ask for the courage and strength to live in response to this truth. As those who are growing into the fact that we are beginning to see, help us to act accordingly, giving ourselves up in worship, pursuing steadfast obedience, and showing other beggars where to find so much more than stale bread. You have done and you are doing a wonderful work in us. May we embrace it and receive the call to participate in it as well. In the power of the Holy Spirit, applying the work of Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.