©2004 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

07/11/04

This One Thing I Know Pt. 2

7/11/04 This One Thing I Know Pt. 2

We stopped our study last week in the middle of a thought,

in the middle of a passage.

It is one of the hazzards of studying the Bible together in half-hour sessions a week apart.

But this morning I want to pick up where we left off

and finish what we began.

We were looking at the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John

in which John records for us

our Lord’s involvement in the life of a man who had been blind since birth.

We only made it through the first 7 verses of the chapter,

and let me read them for us once again

just to help get our minds back into what we were studying.

JOH 9:1-7 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents. But so that the works of God might be displayed in him, we must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.

I have brought us to this passage for a number of reasons,

one of which is, hopefully, to help us become more comfortable

with the way in which God involves Himself in our lives.

What we have presented to us in this 9^th chapter

is, of course, the account of an event that took place

when Jesus was physically present on this earth.

But the approach He took to human relationships then

have been preserved for us

as the pattern for what we can expect in our own lives today.

We see this in the way He related to His disciples.

We see it in the way He related to those immersed in religious systems.

And we see it here in His interaction with this blind man in John 9.

There were many blind people who were given their sight by Jesus during the years of His earthly ministry.

But none of those other healings

are given even a fraction of the attention in the gospel writings

that this one is given.

The entire 9^th chapter of John

is dedicated to a detailed account of Jesus’ involvement in this man’s life.

This event receives such extensive coverage by John

because what we have happening here

provides us with a powerful illustration

of what we can expect from God

as He involves Himself in our lives today.

We spent some considerable time last week

talking about how our discovery of the true nature of our relationship with God

is the central issue in life for every one of us.

It is what we are here for.

It is why we exist.

But because we enter this world

with our spirits in absolute separation from God,

we are utterly blind to what’s really going on and why.

And right there, I believe,

is part of the reason why this fellow in John 9

is given so much coverage.

He was born blind

just as we are born blind.

He couldn’t see the physical world around him,

just as we are incapable of seeing the world of the spirit.

In fact, our blindness is even more profound than his.

At least he knew of and accepted the existence of that physical world he could not see.

But our blindness is so extreme

that we often delude ourselves into believing

that this world of the spirit surrounding us either doesn’t exist

or doesn’t matter.

And there is another powerful parallel between us and this blind man as well.

His blindness had driven him to become a beggar,

and our blindness drives us into exactly the same condition.

Our friend on the streets of Jerusalem

went through life each day crying out to those who passed by,

begging for any small contribution they may offer

that would help sustain him for one more day.

And our blindness to our God

causes each of us to go through life each day

silently calling out to those who pass by us

begging for any validation, or affirmation, or word of encouragement they might offer

that will help us sustain our spirits for one more day.

And as we moved into this passage last week,

the first thing we noticed

was that it was Jesus who initiated the contact with this man.

At that first contact

this blind man had no idea who was really stepping into his life,

or what changes would result from that contact

if he trusted the Lord’s words

and followed His instructions.

And with each of us He does exactly the same thing.

He reaches out to us

and draws us to Himself.

Does that sound surprising to you?

Do you find yourself thinking, “No, I really don’t think so.

I certainly haven’t heard the voice of God calling my name,

or had any visions,

or dreams,

or divine revelations.

I guess He’s either not there,

or maybe I’m just not all that interesting to Him.”

Well, if my suggestion that God is actively drawing you to Himself

doesn’t seem to fit with what you’ve experienced,

then it could be because you have heard His voice

but failed to recognize it for what it is.

I said when I first started this morning

that I have a number of reasons for bringing us to this passage in John.

And one of those reasons

is because I hope it can help us

to more easily recognize and trust the voice of God in our lives.

And to help with this

I need to begin by offering us a picture

of what we look like apart from the working of His Spirit within us.

In the Book of Romans Paul uses a series of quotations from the Old Testament

to offer us a powerful picture of what we all look like

without the intervention of God in our lives.

It’s found in Romans 3:10-18,

and the picture he presents is bleak to say the least.

He says,

as it is written, "There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one." "Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving," "The poison of asps is under their lips"; "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness"; "Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace they have not known." "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Do you know what that is?

That is us apart from the working of God’s Spirit within us.

Of course we dress ourselves up in a socially acceptable external facade,

but at the heart level that’s us.

Paul says there is none who seeks for God, there is none who understands, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

And if that does not describe you right now,

if, in fact,

there is a very definite stiring within you,

a hunger,

a longing to reach out to your God,

or to know more about Him,

or to draw closer to Him,

do you know where that comes from?

Do you know why it’s there?

It’s there because the God who created you is actively, personally calling you to Himself,

drawing you to Himself,

by His Spirit literally forming within you a desire to reach out to the One who formed you for Himself.

And I’ve gone to such lengths

to emphasize this

because I don’t want you to ignore what’s stirring within you,

or to think lightly of it,

or to choose to turn your back on the work of God within you.

That stirring, that hunger you feel within yourself right now

is every bit as significant for you and your future

as was the touch of Jesus’ hand on that blind man’s shoulder,

and the sound of His voice to that man’s ears,

and the feel of that warm mud smeared on those unseeing eyes.

You can ignore what’s going on inside you if you choose.

You can tell yourself it means nothing,

it is nothing,

and return to those favorite hiding places of yours,

to your frantic schedule,

or your favorite hobbies,

or to your family,

or to whatever is currently on the top of your “things I really must have in order to be happy” list.

But I will tell you honestly,

the voice you will be trying to silence with all of that running,

and hiding,

and doing,

is the most real thing you’ll ever encounter,

and your response to it is the most critical decision you will ever make.

And then, before we move on in this passage,

I want to make just a few more comments about that business

of Jesus asking this man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.

The request itself fascinates me

because it so perfectly parallels the way in which

our Lord so often accomplishes His work in our lives today.

On the surface the request seemed ridiculous.

Why didn’t Jesus simply reach out and heal this man?

Why did He make that muddy little mess

and then tell him the mess could only be washed off at that one pool?

Clearly, it had something to do with trust,

this man’s choosing to trust Jesus’ words.

And any of you who have ever responded to that voice of God within yourself

have discovered that there are lots of Pools of Siloam in your own life as well.

I can tell you how to recognize them.

They will look to us

just like that Pool must have looked to the blind man.

Logically it will look like something that just really doesn’t matter,

something that doesn’t seem to make all that much difference,

a simple request

that logically could not possibly change anything.

And yet there it is.

And we can’t get it out of our minds.

It will be something that we can do,

a deceptively simple act of trust, or submission, or obedience.

It isn’t God asking us to fix ourselves,

or to clean up our lives before we come to Him.

Such things as that are, of course,

not within our ability to do.

But our pools will look like something we could easily do,

a step that, if we chose to, we could take.

At it’s heart,

it is simply our way of acknowledging

that at some level

we do indeed choose to trust that voice within us.

In truth, your being here this morning

may be one of your pools of Siloam.

You may have thought about coming.

You may have considered it,

and then nearly dismissed it, thinking, “ Oh, no, I know what churches are like,

and they are certainly nothing like me.”

And you tried to set it aside,

and you couldn’t,

you just couldn’t because there was still something going on inside you,

that voice saying “Go”.

The pool is your simple affirmation of trust in what God has been saying to you.

I can tell you what one of those pools will be

for each of us who ultimately respond to the love being offered to us by our God.

It will be our simple choice to trust His promise

that if we place all of our sin,

all of our immorality into His hands,

He will take it,

and nail it to His cross,

and write upon it with His own blood,

“This debt is paid in full,

by Me,

for you forever.”

Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?

It seems ridiculous that all of this corruption within us

could be lifted off of our shoulders,

removed forever,

simply because we choose to trust what He says to us

about His own death on that cross.

Why, it seems as ridiculous as that blind man believing

that, if he washed that little bit of mud off his eyes

in that one certain pool,

he would be able to see.

But, from the very beginning of time,

it has always been that way.

The defining moments of our lives,

those points that profoundly alter everything else that ever happens within us,

those defining moments are always

those points at which we either choose to trust the voice of our God,

or choose to turn away from Him.

Such pools are common occurrences in God’s dealings with us.

They are steps we know we can take,

steps we know He has asked us to take,

steps that, from our point of view, look utterly absurd or unnecessary,

and yet, steps that, if we try to set them aside,

we know we do so at the peril of forfeiting our ability to hear

that gentle voice of our Creator within us.

OK, as John’s account continues,

a fascinating thing happens.

Christ’s involvement in this man’s life

results in tremendous conflict occurring between himself and the religious establishment.

We won’t take the time to read the entire account this morning,

but I think you would enjoy reading it on your own,

and I’ll just tell you that the religious rulers tracked this man down

and questioned him about what was going on in his life.

And when they heard him giving the credit to Jesus

it made them furious.

I will resist the urge to run wild with this,

but I’ll just say that here, too, the parallel between this man and us holds true.

Jesus Christ has been offending religious systems for the past 2000 years,

even those,

or maybe especially those that bare His name.

Religious systems are all about control,

and conformity,

and manipulation,

and rules and rituals that are suppose to improve our standing with God.

Christ, on the other hand said simply,

JOH 10:10 "...I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

And that life,

His life within us and through us,

will blast apart any religious system ever created.

With this blind man

the point of tension came because Jesus had done what He had done on the Sabbath.

He broke one of the religious rules of the system in place in that day.

JOH 9:24 So... they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, "Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner."

 And it is his response to that statement

that originally drew me to this passage.

JOH 9:25 He then answered, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

...one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see...

Do you know what that was?

That was this man’s anchor in the truth.

Here he was,

just a day or two into his relationship with his Lord.

At this point he knew almost nothing about Him.

And those who were universally recognized as the ones who knew,

the ones who had invested their lives

into accumulating knowledge,

and understanding,

and insight into the true nature of God

stepped into this man’s world

and told him in clear,

logical terms why this Jesus thing going on in his life

was utter foolishness.

And at that point our blind beggar did the most intelligent thing he could ever do.

He didn’t try to debate his critics.

He simply returned to the one huge truth of his life -

“Once I was blind, and now I see.”

I don’t know where your anchors are in your relationship with Christ right now,

but if you have allowed Him entrance into your world,

I know they are there.

They are those points at which you know

His presence in your life has changed you,

healed you,

made sense of life as it has never made sense before.

Those are your anchors.

Trust them,

hold onto them,

draw strength from them.

And when your critics attack you,

don’t try to debate them.

Trust what you know,

and don’t be afraid to acknowledge your ignorance in what you do not know.

And then, before we leave this passage altogether,

there’s one more observation

about this man’s relationship with Christ

that I want to share with you.

I take great encouragement from seeing

that there was a definite progression

in His relationship with the Lord.

From what we are told in this ninth chapter,

I think it is reasonable to assume

that, before Jesus stepped into his life that day,

he knew almost nothing about the Master.

As a blind beggar on the streets,

it is altogether possible

that he really was not in the mainstream

of all of the debate and discussion Jesus was causing throughout much of Israel.

And then, too, apart from a few brief visits,

Jesus was not in Jerusalem.

His home,

and the center of most of His activity

was far to the north in Galilee.

Now, obviously, there was something about that initial contact with Jesus

that drew the man,

something about Jesus’ interaction with him

that gave him enough confidence to trust Him and do what He said.

But his understanding of who Jesus really was

came gradually

as he listened, and learned, and thought through what was going on in his life.

We didn’t take the time to read it earlier,

but there is an exchange that takes place about half way through this chapter

between this man and the Jewish leaders

in which they ask him who he thinks Jesus is.

JOH 9:17 So they said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?"

And I love the man’s response!

And he said, "He is a prophet."

Roughly paraphrased,

I hear him saying,

“Well, Bubble Heads! This guy just did what no other man in history has ever done before.

He gave sight to a man born blind,

so it should be pretty obvious even to you that He’s got some kind of connection with God

that none of the rest of us have.”

So here he is -

he starts out with only a tiny bit of trust in this man.

And then, the more he thinks,

and the more he hears,

the more he realizes that there is a lot more going on here than he ever realized.

And then, at the end of the chapter,

after the Jewish leaders kicked this man out of the Synagogue

because he continued to honor Jesus for what He’d done,

John records this.

JOH 9:35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

JOH 9:36 He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"

JOH 9:37 Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you."

JOH 9:38 And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him.

JOH 9:39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind."

He begins by knowing almost nothing about Jesus,

then keeps growing until he knows there’s far more going on here than he realized,

and then finally reaches the place where he bows before Him,

calls Him his Lord,

and worships Him.

And I point this out this morning

because I believe some of you are following a similar pilgrimage in your own life.

Right now your awareness of Jesus Christ

my be limited to a growing awareness

that there is something about this Jesus thing

that cannot be explained simply on the basis of religious systems and organizations.

There’s something real there,

something you don’t want to just walk away from.

Or it may be that you’ve reached the place in your understanding of Him

at which you have discovered within yourself

both the desire and the ability

to take some first steps of trust,

steps of obedience,

and you’re discovering that you like the way it feels,

you like the way it plays out in your life.

If you’ve seen some of that going on in your own life

I will end with two comments especially for you.

First, if you continue in this growth,

the time will come when you, too, will bow in spirit before this Jesus,

and worship Him as your Lord and your God.

And second, I want you to know

that we as a church will never do anything

to try to force you into a commitment you are not yet ready to make.

When you have the knowledge and the insight you need,

the Spirit of God will call you to a commitment

that will form the pivotal point of your entire life.

But if you need more time to learn,

and to listen,

and to grow in your understanding of what He is asking from you,

this is a safe place for you to go through that process.

What your spirit hungers for more than anything else

is the discovery of the depth of the love of your God for you.

What that blind beggar hungered for most

was not to have his eyes opened to the physical world around him,

but rather to have the eyes of his spirit opened to see his God.

But with that beggar

Jesus did not barge into his life and demand submission.

He began by giving him small steps of trust,

and then gave him the time he needed

to work his way through to the truth.

And He will do the same thing for you.

He wants you more than anyone else has ever wanted you

because He loves you more than anyone else ever could.

And He will give you both the time

and the knowledge you need

to find your way to Him.