What if your biggest struggle is just a loop in your mind? /// Encounter: Part 3

We're so glad you've chosen to listen to our online experience! Here at Plum Creek, we’re all about changed lives, changing lives; and what that simply means is that what Christ has done in us is not just for us, but it’s for us to share with others in our community and around the world.

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If you're using this teaching for a Home Groups setting, we've included discussion prompts to help guide your conversation:

1. What stood out to you about the teaching that the blind man was not being punished for sin but was instead part of a bigger story where God’s work would be revealed?

2. Reflect on a “mental loop” you may be stuck in and consider how it has shaped your thoughts or actions more than you realized.

3. Pastor Eric talked about how Jesus addressed the man’s mindset before the miracle happened, so how does that shift the way you think about change and healing in your own life?

4. Look up John 9 and consider what it reveals about how Jesus sees and responds to people who feel overlooked or misunderstood.

5. In what ways might you be living as if you are still stuck, even though freedom or healing has already been made available to you? 

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Transcript

Message Start

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Plum Creek Church Podcast. We're so thankful that you're listening along with us in this way. If you're a returning listener, welcome back. But if you're new or fewish, we'd love to become part of your listening rotation. So be sure to subscribe and follow to be notified when new episodes are available. Now, before we get into the message, we want to remind you of one thing. We really believe that if Jesus is right about God, about life, about the soul, then it only makes sense to rearrange our lives around what he says is true. Because when you choose to follow Jesus like that, it really does change everything, including the lives around you. Okay. Let's posture our hearts for what God has in store, this message. And so we'll have a little bit of house lights up so that you can see. But I want to back up a little bit. We're in this series called Encounter, where we're looking at these amazing encounters that Jesus has with people throughout Scripture. And for us to understand this particular encounter that we're going to talk through in John chapter 9, we need to go back in time and look at John chapter 8. Now here's the setup. John chapter 8. It's early in the morning in Jerusalem. The city is absolutely packed because it's one of the three great pilgrimage festivals in the Jewish calendar. And Jesus is there. And in John chapter 8, verse 2, it says that Jesus heads to the temple to teach. He's going to teach all of these people who are coming to the temple his new way. Now, John chapter 8, we could do a whole series on John chapter 8, because it is the most concentrated series of explosive claims that Jesus makes anywhere in the Gospels. Like in one chapter, one location, in one confrontation, he tells the Pharisees that one, they're children of the devil, which doesn't make him popular, right? He says that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus stay. He then, at the very end of the chapter, he uses the divine name of God. He calls himself I am. He said before Abraham he was. And you have to understand, like, God spoke those words to Moses through the burning bush. And that name is so sacred to the Jewish people they would not speak it. Here's Jesus saying it at the end of the chapter. And all of this, all of this is happening in John chapter 8. In the courts, it's totally public. Everybody's watching. But there's one thing that he says that I want to point out because when you see it, you're going to see it come up again in John chapter 9. He says this in John chapter 8, verse 12. He says, again, Jesus spoke to them, so he's preaching. He says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness. He says, I'm the light of the world. Now we've heard this phrase, but it's about to take on a much different meaning. Now by the end of the chapter, the religious leaders pick up stones and they're about to throw them. The Bible tells us, throw them at Jesus. Jesus slips out, and in John chapter 9, at the very beginning, we pick up the story. So Jesus walks across the street, and the Bible tells us that on the other side of the street from the temple was a blind man. Now let's pause for a second because we need to understand what it meant to be blind in the ancient world. To have a disability of any sort in the ancient world was certainly of curse. Because there were no jobs for a blind man. Your only job was to sit on a street corner and to beg, right? This was his lot in life. And it wasn't just that that was his social state. He was taught that, and he it was believed that he was cursed, right? There was a theology tied to his illness, that somehow suffering equaled sin. And we see it right in the beginning of John chapter 9. You notice when Jesus walks across the street, he's there with his disciples, and the Bible tells us. And his disciples ask him, Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents, for him to be born blind? Think about that. Sit on that corner and to be so misunderstood, to be not only cursed with this physical ailment, but to believe to be cursed. I don't know. Have you ever had anybody misunderstand you? Anyone? Have you ever said something that your spouse just totally misunderstood? Right? You're like, no, no, no, that's not what I meant by that. I mean, there I honestly think there's nothing worse for me than to be misunderstood. And honestly, this blind man, this is the essence of his existence. He has really been taught. People believe that not only is he blind, but he must have done something wrong. Or his parents sinned in some way. So the disciples ask him about it, and Jesus then says in John chapter 9, verse 3, um, something important that I think precedes what he's about to do. He says, Neither this man nor his parents have sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Jesus said it wasn't about sin, but what is about to happen, it's gonna put my power on display. And then he says something. Notice this is so key. Like, seriously, guys, like when I read this two weeks ago, I started my study on this, my mind went, oh, my mind was like totally blown because in verse 5 he says this he says, As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. It's as if Jesus is standing teaching people who could see and yet they were blind. And so Jesus walks across the street and he's like, I'm about to show you what I mean. Now, Jesus does two things in this particular healing that I think is brilliant. If you have your Bibles, um, look at verse six. So Jesus walks over to this blind man, he's been there his whole life, and in verse six, it says this. It says um that he spit, having said these things, he spit on the ground and he made mud with saliva. Okay, so I know, like when you hear that, you're like, well, that's gross. And it kind of is gross. Um, but you need to understand this is not by accident. Now remember, in John chapter 8, when you go back and read this, and I want you to go back and read this whole thing, here's what Jesus has said in John chapter 8. I'm going back to John chapter 8. He said he's sent by the Father, he comes from above, right? He says that nothing that I'm doing, nothing that I'm doing, isn't uh outside of the Father's directive. And then he says the unthinkable. He says, I am, I am. Now, listen. This is what makes John chapter 9 so powerful. All these words in John chapter 8. Listen to me, disciple. This is why sometimes when we read just a verse, and that's all we do in the morning, we miss the whole story. We miss the whole context. Uh sometimes we need to spend more time in the whole story and read the whole thing and see how it's all connected. So, so think about what happens. He kneels in the dust, he makes mud. Now, listen, the moment he does this, every Jewish watcher would know what he's doing. So it's sort of like um in our culture, we have a few things that if you do them, you kind of know culturally what it means. Like, it if if I cut you off in the parking lot, um, and then uh someone then sends me a signal. I know what that means. No explanation needed, right? There's things in our culture that we understand in Jesus' culture when he gets down in the mud and he starts to make it. This action carried meaning. And what they saw in Jesus kneeling in the dirt, it was unmistakable. Now, think for a second, all the things that he said, he was. Okay? Now, go back to Genesis chapter 2. God creates man out of what? Dirt. Out of dirt. As Jesus kneels in the mud, he begins to form something. He is sending a message. What you're witnessing, this is God reforming. He takes dust, puts it on the man's eyes. And he's saying, Listen, and think about it, this isn't just a repair job. This dude's never seen. It's not like he got some bad stuff in his eyes and he stopped seeing. This dude is never seen. Never seen, never. This is recreation business. And remember, Jesus knows what he's doing. The man never called out to him, never asked him for healing, never came over. Jesus saw him and said, I'm about to do some creation business. I'm about to show these people what I'm all about. So he puts the mud on his face in this crowded Jerusalem street. He's doing creation in real time. Present, restoring what is broken. In the dirt, in the mud. He's sending all kinds of messages. He's saying to us today, I'm the God that gets in the dirt with you. I'm the God that gets in the mud. I notice things that other people don't. You're the one that's been walked by your whole life. Yeah, I see you. And so Jesus takes the mud and then he applies it to his eyes, and then he does a second thing that I think is so important that we understand. Because notice, he puts the mud on his eyes, but he's still not healed. Now remember, you'll read the gospels and you'll see Jesus heal people in a moment. Speak it. Speak it from afar. But with this one, he does mud, and then he asks him to do something. He looks at the blind man. And this man who cannot see, who's been on this mat his entire life, he says, What I want you to do is I want you to wash in the pool of Siloem. He does not carry him there. He doesn't snap his fingers and heal him. He says, I want you to go, I want you to walk, and I want you to wash. There is something, blind man, you must do. Now, as your pastor, you've heard me say this in messages before, and I want to reiterate it because I think it applies to this moment as well as any. So many of us have had things happen in our lives that we carry, mats that we sit on. We might call them trauma, whatever that thing is, you aren't responsible for what happened to you. You're not. You're not responsible for the darkness you were born into or the thing that was done to you before you were old enough to choose the wound that someone else put there. I mean, in some ways, there is a theology of brokenness in the first century that on the surface we all go, well, yeah, of course, no one sinned and made them blind. But the truth is, some of us lived that theology out in real time today. But somehow it was my fault what happened to me. Look, it's not, it's not. But while you're not responsible for what happened to you, you are responsible for your healing journey. See, this man had been sitting in that same corner, in that same darkness, in that same pattern, every single day. His whole body knew what that felt like. This man was running a mental loop. Do you know what I mean by mental loop? You know that thing, the soundtrack that just like sort of plays in your mind? The thoughts that you have about yourself or the situation, what you're capable of, what you're not capable of. That's the loop, right? Just plays. That man had a loop. He'd been taught it his whole life. So when he hears get up, move, go somewhere you've never gone before, I can promise you, somewhere in that man's mind, he's like, that is not possible. Now, now, archaeologists will tell you that the walk to the pool is probably somewhere between a half mile and a mile. That's a long way to walk when you don't have any sight. And Jesus says, I want you to get up and walk. You know, it's interesting because this is how the Lord works. I ran across as I was prepping for this message some research. And the research was really interesting to me because it all talked about the way in which our brains work. Now, the research was by a guy named Dr. Lee Warren. He's a brain surgeon, and he is a person of deep, deep faith. And he talks about the neuroscience around our brain, and I actually think it unlocks something in the text. So listen to this, listen to this. Did you know that about 90% of the thoughts that you think today are the same thoughts you thought yesterday? 90. That's just research. I didn't make it up. That's what they found in their research. And do you know this? Your brain is running that same loop over and over again. Of those, 80% of those thoughts are just automatic and they're negative. Did you know this? Four out of five thoughts you have aren't even true. It's just stories we tell ourselves, narratives we tell ourselves, loops that we run, a voice in our head that we trust, because it sounds like me, right? Makes it feel credible. And yet, most of the time, it's just automated negative thoughts that aren't necessarily true about the situation I'm in. Just running, running, running, running, running. That's the loop. Blind man had a loop. And here's why I think what Jesus does for him is so important, right? He sends him to this pool on the southern end of the city of David. This pool had been sustaining Jerusalem for a really long time, literally centuries, and it was connected to one of the greatest miracles in Israel's history. But Jesus says, I want you to go there. I want you to think about it. Guy has a loop, right? He's got to be telling himself, what am I doing? I mean, think about it. Blind guy sitting on a mat, somebody puts dirt on his face, puts some mud in his eyes, and tells him to walk down to the pool. The guy's going, Well, this is the weirdest day ever, right? And he just goes. He starts walking. He just starts walking. And I I wondered this. I was thinking about it even last night. I'm like, what happens if the guy just kind of halfway through goes, well, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'm going to go back and sit down. I'm missing out on a lot of good money. Right? I need to go back. I'm missing out on some good begging. This is prime time. This is what this is what I'm supposed to do. Look, how many of us get comfortable with the loop we're in, even when the loop isn't good for us? It's just comfortable. It's what I know. I've done it for so long, I'm pretty convinced nothing's really gonna change. It's pretty much, this marriage is pretty much gonna stay the same. This job, this job is always gonna be this bad, right? I'm always gonna think these thoughts. I'm never gonna get my anger under control. Jesus says, I know you think you can't, but that's not true. It's the loop telling you something that's just not true. You know, I've seen this as a pastor, and I've recognized it even in my own life, that there's far too many of us, people who truly get healed from their past, but then live broken in their present. Like, not because Jesus didn't do something that was real, but because the healing happened and the loop didn't change. The event was over, but the brain is still running the same old road, we're still flinching at the same old shadows, still waiting for things to just fall apart, for the shoe to drop, still sitting in the posture of someone who has not yet learned that they are allowed to be free. It's like so many of us, we've been given a not guilty verdict, and we don't have to go live in prison, but we just walk back into it, and then we shut the door. You remember that old show, um, the Andy Griffiths show? Remember the guy that was always drinking and he'd lock himself up, you know? I feel like that's how some of us live. We're like, well, I deserve to be in prison. I'm just gonna, Andy, I'm in, and then we lock the door. And Jesus is saying, I think what Jesus did here is so brilliant. He addressed the man's loop before he healed him. He said, There's things you think you can't do. I'm gonna have you get up and walk. And I know what some of you are thinking, you're going, come on, bruh. It's not that simple. You don't understand. What's interesting because um Dr. Warren, who built on some work from another doctor, Dr. Gabor Mate, they did some other research around the way our brains work and and how we deal with complex trauma. And um it's interesting because one of the things they began to theorize and then prove out through the research is that trauma is uh not the thing that happened to you. Actually, trauma is the response pattern you develop to protect yourself from the thing that happened to you. And this is key. Listen, because if trauma is the event, here's the truth: you are stuck. You can't change what happened. You can't, can't change it. But if trauma is a response pattern, there is hope. Why? Because you can change the pattern, you can fix the loop, and the research behind it is fascinating. They literally would take people who had had trauma in their life, sit them in a room, and they would have them think about that moment. And as they dwelled on that moment, their heart would race, they would start to sweat, they would feel it because the body keeps the score. But the moment that they began to change the narrative, they had them think about the best day of their life, the one time they went to Disney World, or that might have actually been the worst day of their life. But something would change in them physically. And what they began to understand is this that what you give consent to strengthens, and what you withdraw consent from weakens. In other words, the apostle Paul was right when he said in Romans chapter 12, verse 2 do not conform to the pattern, the loop of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of what? Your mind. I mean, imagine, imagine if the words of Jesus ran through your mind as much, if not more, than that deceptive little voice that whispers untruths in your life day after day after day. It's true. Jesus tells this man to do something that feels impossible. And yet, the man gets up and somehow finds the wherewithal to walk through this city with mud in his eyes to step into the pool, and when he does, he is healed. He is healed. Now there's so much more to this story that you should go back and read because it's fascinating to me. I could preach a whole another message on this one. Um, the one guy that couldn't see ended up seeing, and all the people who could see were as blind as they could be, right? This is all connected. This is all connected. Jesus does the healing. And listen, you have to hear me say this. When I talk about our role in the process, I'm not suggesting otherwise. Jesus did the healing, but the man did the walking. And there's something in that partnership that is worth sitting with just for a minute. Dallas Willard, who I just so respect, he said a couple of things that I think are key. He said, Look, without Jesus, you can do nothing. But if you do nothing, it'll be without Jesus. He also said this he said, Grace is Not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. It's not opposed to effort. You can't earn your way to wholeness, but you have to walk toward it. You can learn a new loop. You can go a new direction. You can replace those thoughts. And I know it feels awkward, hard, impossible when you've run loops a particular way, but look, I've learned on my own that you can do this. Now, my father, who's gone home to be with the Lord in the last year, was an incredible baseball player. He played baseball in college and was a prospect in the major leagues, and he blew out his knee, and that was never part of the rest of his life. But I grew up in a baseball family from a young, young age, watching baseball, playing baseball. To this day, when my middle son goes to a game, he keeps score. That's how you know he's a serious baseball guy, right? Well, I started playing when I was four years old, and here's what you need to know I'm right-handed. I do everything right-handed. That's what I do. For those of you that aren't baseball players, that means like you throw with your right hand. Well, I golf right-handed, I swing right-handed, I write right-handed. My dad, on the other hand, is left-handed. He writes left-handed, throws left-handed, golfs left-handed. And so when he was teaching me baseball, something interesting would happen. He bought me a right-handed glove. I was probably four or five years old. And uh he'd, you know, he'd do what dads do, he'd sit next to me, show me how you throw a ball, but he would throw me with, he'd show me with his left hand, I'd watch my dad. And then here's what would happen: he'd put the glove on my hand, throw me a grounder, I'd catch it, and then I'd take my glove off and throw it with his hand. And he'd got he'd walk over, he'd go, son, son, son, son, you're right-handed. You're not left-handed. So put the glove on and throw it with the right hand. I said, okay, dad. And he'd show me how to throw it. And he'd throw the ball my way. And I'd pick it up and I'd drop my glove and I'd throw it back to him left-handed. And after a year of this, I played little league. I would do that out in left field. He finally gave up and bought me a glove so that I could throw left-handed. And I got to thinking about this metaphor. Because sometimes when you think about the way in which we're gifted, these thoughts can feel like, you know, like replacing a loop can feel like throwing with the wrong hand. You know? Go try throwing with the wrong hand. It feels weird. You look weird, right? But here's the truth. I watched my dad long enough. I studied what he did. And even at five years old, a right-handed kid learned to throw left-handed. Left-handed. I never stopped throwing left-handed. I played left-handed all the way to college. Look, I know that new patterns at first they can feel awkward and unnatural, like you're throwing with the wrong hand. And sometimes it feels like you're pretending. But you're not. Like when you're stepping in and practicing these new ways and filling your mind with new thoughts, you are practicing new loops, new thoughts, and it will take time. But you can walk in wholeness. And it will be up to us to walk in that freedom. It's been given to us. Why are you wearing chains? And I know. In a room this size, and people online, sometimes, sometimes when when I use the word healing, you it might feel like too heavy for you. You don't think of yourself as someone who needs to be healed. You don't have like a traumatic event that you're trying to get over in your life. Let me speak to you if that's where you're at. I just wonder that is there a version of yourself though that you feel like you've never quite gotten to? You know what I mean? Like someone who's a little more free, a little more present, a little less angry, a little less weighed down by the thing that you keep carrying. A little less the God version of yourself. Because in truth, that's what this blind man was walking toward. He did not have a theology of healing that did not exist. He believed that he deserved what he got. He didn't have a framework, he just had mud on his face, a direction to walk, and a God who told him to go. And he came back healed and with a new loop. Look, here's the good news. That is the same Jesus today. Like he is the same man who sees people that other people look past. He crosses streets that other people will not cross. He gets close when everybody else is comfortable at a distance. He gets in the dirt. And maybe, maybe you came in here and you feel like that blind man stuck in a loop that feels unbreakable. And maybe that loop feels so heavy. And for some of us, maybe the loop seems sort of light. But either way, stuck. Running the same loop. Not expecting really anything to change. Well, wherever you are today, the good news, the good news, is that there is a new loop to be played. There is a new message to be heard. There are new things to be learned. And there is a message inside of this book that Jesus wants to tell you. This is why we say, if Jesus was right about all these things, if he was right, then wouldn't it make sense that we rearrange our thinking, our lives around what he says is true. What would this do? I think, I think that it would bring light to your world. Because Jesus is the light of the world. And I love it, I love it, I love it. That the light of the world walks straight towards the one person who had never seen light, and the first face that he sees in light is Jesus. Is that not amazing? This is who he is, and he has not changed. He is still looking for encounters with people like you and me to not only heal us from our past, but to teach us how to walk in wholeness and freedom in our present. Will you stand with me? And we're gonna worship together. But before we do, can I just pray over you? I'm Father, for my friends. I pray wherever they find themselves, that through the power of your Holy Spirit, that you will give them the courage to walk this walk, to take your word and to put it into their minds and into their hearts, new loops of reality, what they are capable of through you. God, we pray that you will continue to heal that which is broken from the past. But Father, help us to walk in the wholeness in this present by taking your words and truly adopting them and walking them out. May you help us walk that walk in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks again for listening. Our prayer is that this message encouraged and challenged you in your journey to follow Jesus. If you'd like to learn more about our church, please check us out online at plumcreek.church or if you find yourself within driving distance of Castle Rock, Colorado, we would be honored to see you in person on a weekend. So until next time, grace and peace in the name of Jesus.