Dan Werthman: Thank you, Lindsay and worship team.
Dan Werthman: Open your Bibles to Mark chapter eight.
Dan Werthman: That's where we are.
Dan Werthman: I start with a little bit of a confession: I suffer from blurred vision, and I mean that literally.
Dan Werthman: I am near-sighted.
Dan Werthman: So if I take my glasses off, all I see is very, very blurred images of each of you.
Dan Werthman: But even with my glasses on, you know, my sight isn't so great from this distance.
Dan Werthman: In fact, some people say to me sometimes, you know, after a sermon,"Were you looking at me?' And, you know, on one hand, I want to tell them yes, I was, you know, to make sure that they were alert and listening.
Dan Werthman: On the other hand, if I tell them the truth, here's the truth: you could be sleeping as long as you don't fall over and I don't see the movement of you falling over.
Dan Werthman: I won't see it.
Dan Werthman: Because I have blurred vision.
Dan Werthman: Even corrected, I have blurred vision.
Dan Werthman: So that is not an excuse to sleep, but you know you won't get me asking afterwards about that.
Dan Werthman: But here's the ongoing confession.
Dan Werthman: I not only suffer from blurred vision physically; I suffer, I realize, especially working through the text this week, that I suffer from blurred vision spiritually.
Dan Werthman: And I wonder if you do, too.
Dan Werthman: In fact, I bet you do.
Dan Werthman: I bet many of you do, at least.
Dan Werthman: That is the picture that we get in our text.
Dan Werthman: We see in this latter half of chapter eight this week, we see a picture of literal, physical, blurred vision that Jesus actually uses as an illustration of spiritual blurred vision.
Dan Werthman: And let's take the literal, the physical picture of blurred vision first, and that is the blurred vision of the blind man in Bethsaida that we see in chapter eight starting with verse 22.
Dan Werthman: Jesus and his disciples, they come to Bethsaida.
Dan Werthman: That's on the north side of the Sea of Galilee.
Dan Werthman: "They--" the people in that area--"they brought him a blind man and begged him to touch him.
Dan Werthman: And Jesus took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village, spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him.
Dan Werthman: Jesus asked him,'Do you see anything?' The man looked up and said,'I see people, and they look to me like trees walking.'" So let me stop there.
Dan Werthman: The story goes on.
Dan Werthman: You may know that, but let me stop there.
Dan Werthman: Let's picture that scene there.
Dan Werthman: Jesus and this man outside the village are probably surrounded by, I'm sure, his disciples, maybe other people.
Dan Werthman: And this man who has been blind begins to see, but really all he can make out at that point of the disciples or whoever it was, is they look large objects, like trees moving.
Dan Werthman: If you are a fan, like I am, of Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.
Dan Werthman: Tolkien, I instantly think of the Ents.
Dan Werthman: You know, these large creatures that are actually trees, but they move around.
Dan Werthman: That's, you know, growing up, what I thought of when I read this passage.
Dan Werthman: But when I think about it logically, it's pretty much like if I take my glasses off, and I see people moving around in the back, and all I can see is it's something tall, and it could be a tree, but it's moving, so it's probably not a tree.
Dan Werthman: You know, this presumes that this man knew what a tree looks like, and he knew what people look like, so this man was probably not born blind.
Dan Werthman: He probably became blind at some point in his life.
Dan Werthman: But what else stands out from this, without reading the rest of the story?
Dan Werthman: What stands out to this is Jesus has touched this man to heal him, and the healing has begun, but the healing is not complete.
Dan Werthman: In fact, what really stands out here is this is the first and, as far as I can find, the only occasion where Jesus' first touch did not heal somebody fully and instantaneously.
Dan Werthman: And yes, the story will go on, and we'll see that.
Dan Werthman: But note at this point, the first touch of Jesus begins to bring this man his sight.
Dan Werthman: But what do we see?
Dan Werthman: He has blurred vision.
Dan Werthman: He has blurred physical vision.
Dan Werthman: What he can make out of people looks like trees walking.
Dan Werthman: Now before we finish that story, because it is related in the way Jesus uses this as an illustration, let's jump back to the proceeding section, verses 14 through 21.
Dan Werthman: And I've intentionally taken these out of order this morning, and the reason I've done so is because many Bible scholars believe, and I believe with them, that Mark intended this healing of this blind man at Bethsaida, this picture of this healing that was not at least initially full and instantaneous, to be an illustration of spiritual blurred vision.
Dan Werthman: The spiritual, blurred vision of the disciples.
Dan Werthman: But I would posit to you this morning it's a picture of my blurred spiritual vision.
Dan Werthman: And I bet I'm not alone here this morning.
Dan Werthman: Let's pick it up in verse 14.
Dan Werthman: This is where Jesus and his disciples, they have just left their confrontation with the Pharisees following the feeding of the 4,000.
Dan Werthman: They're in a boat.
Dan Werthman: They are in the boat working their way across the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida.
Dan Werthman: We pick it up in verse 14.
Dan Werthman: "They--" the disciples--"had forgotten to take bread and had only one loaf with them in the boat.
Dan Werthman: Then he--" Jesus--"commanded them,'Watch out.
Dan Werthman: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod.'" And do they reflect on that?
Dan Werthman: No.
Dan Werthman: Verse 16:'They were discussing among themselves that they did not have any bread.""We have lunch coming up.
Dan Werthman: There's 13 of us.
Dan Werthman: We only have one loaf of bread.""Aware of this, Jesus said to them,'Why are you discussing that you do not have any bread?
Dan Werthman: Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Dan Werthman: Is your heart hardened?
Dan Werthman: Do you have eyes and not see?
Dan Werthman: Do you have ears and not hear?
Dan Werthman: And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full of bread did you collect?''12, they told him.''When I broke the seven loaves for the 4,000, how many large baskets full of pieces of bread did you collect?''Seven,' they said.
Dan Werthman: And he said to them,'Don't you understand yet?'" Mark includes this account of the man with blurry vision in Bethsaida as an illustration of what's going on here in the boat, of the blurry spiritual vision of the disciples.
Dan Werthman: And I'll go a step further.
Dan Werthman: This is a picture of my spiritual vision, my blurry spiritual vision, and maybe you'll recognize it this morning as a picture of your blurry spiritual vision.
Dan Werthman: How do we see this in ourselves in this text?
Dan Werthman: Well, first consider Jesus' warning in verse 15 about the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.
Dan Werthman: What is that all about?
Dan Werthman: I think leaven, I think yeast.
Dan Werthman: If you're going to bake bread today, you buy those little packets of baker's yeast.
Dan Werthman: It's fresh.
Dan Werthman: It's safe to use.
Dan Werthman: You don't even think about it when you bake bread using that yeast.
Dan Werthman: But they didn't have that at that time.
Dan Werthman: And so they used a rising agent called leaven, and what they would do is they'd break off a piece of the dough, they'd make their dough, and they'd break off a piece of that dough.
Dan Werthman: It's kind of like a sourdough starter if you make sourdough bread.
Dan Werthman: Or awhile ago in one of my churches, this thing was going around called friendship bread, and it was the same idea.
Dan Werthman: You break out a little piece of the dough.
Dan Werthman: Now when we do that for sourdough bread or friendship bread, we refrigerate that.
Dan Werthman: You know, we keep it from going bad, but at that time they didn't have refrigeration, and they actually added some juices to make it ferment.
Dan Werthman: And then they would take that fermented bit of dough the next week, when they're making their next batch of dough to make bread for the week, and they'd work it into the dough, and that fermenting leaven now would permeate that lump of dough.
Dan Werthman: And every loaf that was baked out of that would be, would have that leaven in it.
Dan Werthman: The problem was without refrigeration, sometimes that leaven became tainted, and tainted leaven mixed into a batch of dough would, guess what, taint all the loaves that were baked out of that dough.
Dan Werthman: And the taint often made people sick, sometimes even killed people as a result of this.
Dan Werthman: That was leaven in the ancient world.
Dan Werthman: So leaven did not have the good, safe connotation that yeast does today.
Dan Werthman: So with that image in mind, what is the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod?
Dan Werthman: Well, Mark doesn't tell us exactly, but I think we can put some of this together.
Dan Werthman: What have we seen Jesus really focus on with the Pharisees leading up?
Dan Werthman: What would be their leaven, or the word I might put on it to sum up everything we've seen is hypocrisy?
Dan Werthman: These are men who were concerned about their external appearances and had all their works down and knew how to stay within the rules, but their interior, their heart, could be totally rotten, could be totally tainted.
Dan Werthman: That's what we think of when we think of hypocritical.
Dan Werthman: What's the leaven of Herod?
Dan Werthman: Herod Antipas is the leader that's being referred to.
Dan Werthman: Jesus hasn't had much to say about him, but we saw him appear in chapter six when John the Baptist confronted him.
Dan Werthman: And what was it that John the Baptist confronted him?
Dan Werthman: Herod had some belief in God but didn't want to live within the boundaries that God put in his life.
Dan Werthman: So when Herod saw that his brother's sister, or brother's wife, was desirable to him, romantically and sexually, Herod took her, broke God's boundaries, broke God's rules, and took her as his wife.
Dan Werthman: And then when John the Baptist challenged him on that, Herod again went outside the boundaries and had John the Baptist killed.
Dan Werthman: So what can we say of Herod?
Dan Werthman: We could say, I think, like James says, he has, he has one foot in, maybe, you know, wanting to follow God, but he has another foot in the world.
Dan Werthman: He's really governing, he's really infected with the leaven of worldliness, giving into what he desires.
Dan Werthman: He's infected with the leaven of secularism.
Dan Werthman: "What does the world tell me is okay?" So how does that have to do with your and my blurred spiritual vision?
Dan Werthman: Well, Jesus is warning his disciples, and he's warning me, and he's warning you: that can be you and me, that our vision of Jesus, our vision of the Kingdom of God, can be infected with the leaven of hypocrisy.
Dan Werthman: I know that's true of me.
Dan Werthman: I can so easily get caught up in that treadmill, that pharisaical treadmill of works.
Dan Werthman: "Am I doing everything I need to do?
Dan Werthman: How do I look?
Dan Werthman: Am I appearing as a good Christian?
Dan Werthman: Am I appearing as a good husband, a good father?" I can fall into that leavening influence of hypocrisy, the pharisaical influence of hypocrisy.
Dan Werthman: But I also, like James warns, I can find myself, and have found myself many times in my life, with one foot in the world and secularism and the influences of the culture around me and another foot in the kingdom, wanting to follow Jesus, but not wanting to let go of the things that the world tells me will make me happy and make me fulfilled.
Dan Werthman: And that is like a leavening influence.
Dan Werthman: And Jesus is telling me that that blurs my vision.
Dan Werthman: That blurs my ability to see him clearly.
Dan Werthman: That blurs my ability to see what he's doing in his kingdom.
Dan Werthman: And I'm guessing I'm not alone in that.
Dan Werthman: My spiritual vision is blurred by these things.
Dan Werthman: How about yours?
Dan Werthman: Verse 16: they were discussing that they did not have any bread.
Dan Werthman: Here's another way that my spiritual vision I think is blurred.
Dan Werthman: They were discussing in the boat that they did not have any bread.
Dan Werthman: Do you remember what happened just a few verses before this?
Dan Werthman: I mean, literally, it had to have been hours before, maybe a day, but what had they just witnessed?
Dan Werthman: Jesus had taken seven loaves, and he multiplied those seven loaves to feed more than 4,000 people.
Dan Werthman: Do you think he could take one loaf and multiply it to feed 13 men?
Dan Werthman: But it's like they have group amnesia.
Dan Werthman: It's like they never saw that happen, because here they are just hours away, verses away as we see it, and suddenly they're all consumed with anxiety that this one loaf is not going to be enough for lunch for the 13 of them.
Dan Werthman: It's like Jesus was not even in the boat.
Dan Werthman: I can relate.
Dan Werthman: Can you?
Dan Werthman: I mean, my vision is often blurred when I become distracted, when I become preoccupied with what I think I need.
Dan Werthman: And I think that's the human condition, that anxiety has a blurring effect upon our vision of who Jesus is and what he's doing in our lives.
Dan Werthman: What I think I need and my struggle to find how I'm going to meet those needs has this blinding effect to what's going on spiritually around me, and I would venture to guess that I'm not the only one in the room who suffers from this.
Dan Werthman: Look at verse 18.
Dan Werthman: Here we see Jesus connect the blurred spiritual vision of the disciples to their failure to remember what they've just seen, with the feeding of the 4,000.
Dan Werthman: "Do you have eyes and not see?
Dan Werthman: Do you have ears and not hear?
Dan Werthman: Do you not remember?" I mean, it's more than just the feeding of the 4,000; they've seen him twice now, with just this little bit of food, multiply it to feed thousands.
Dan Werthman: They've been in boats with him in the middle of the storm where they have seen him still the waves and stop the wind, his power over nature.
Dan Werthman: They have seen him heal the sick.
Dan Werthman: They've even seen him raise the dead, and it's as if they haven't even reflected on that, like that just went in one ear and out the other, what that communicates about who he really is.
Dan Werthman: And I would like to call them dense, but you know, I really can't criticize these disciples, because I have the same problem.
Dan Werthman: My vision, my spiritual vision is blurred by my failure to recognize what he's done in my life, my failures to remember what I have seen Jesus do in my life, my failures to reflect on the meaning of how he makes himself known in what he's done in my life.
Dan Werthman: Can you relate?
Dan Werthman: Is that you this morning?
Dan Werthman: Jesus sums it all up in verse 21:"He said to them,'Don't you understand yet?'" You know, their eyewitness experience of all of these miracles, it's given them this unique opportunity to see he's more than a man, to see that he really is sent by God as fully God, as not just savior, which they will see him soon to be, but as Lord, as king, but they haven't fully grasped that.
Dan Werthman: Have they?
Dan Werthman: They haven't really understood that yet.
Dan Werthman: Their vision of him is still very blurred.
Dan Werthman: We're no different.
Dan Werthman: We weren't eyewitnesses, obviously, of all he did, but we have the written accounts of what he did, don't we?
Dan Werthman: In our Bibles.
Dan Werthman: We can read about all of these things.
Dan Werthman: Not only that, we have the advantage over the disciples at this point that we're on the other side of the Cross and resurrection.
Dan Werthman: We've seen Jesus validate who he is by being raised from the dead.
Dan Werthman: We have the accounts of him being ascended into Heaven.
Dan Werthman: We have the promises of him returning in all of his glory, and yet we-- or at least, I'll take it, you know-- I am still often so spiritually dense as to who he really is.
Dan Werthman: And so like I say in my outline up on the screen there, just being honest here, I struggle in my faith because I don't fully grasp who Jesus Christ is, and I need a clear vision of him.
Dan Werthman: How about you?
Dan Werthman: Well, return with me to the account of the blind man in Bethsaida.
Dan Werthman: Remember, he's been touched once by Jesus.
Dan Werthman: And what has that touch done?
Dan Werthman: That has begun to bring his sight back, but he's still only seeing with blurred vision.
Dan Werthman: And isn't that a spiritual picture, not just of the disciples, but a spiritual picture of you and a spiritual picture of me?
Dan Werthman: This man needs Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: The disciples need Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: I need Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: You need Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: No matter how long you have walked with the Lord, you need Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: And we see him literally, physically do that.
Dan Werthman: Verse 25: again, Jesus placed his hands on the man's eyes, and he saw distinctly., He was cured and he could see everything clearly.
Dan Werthman: Jesus' continuing touch clears this man's blurry vision so that he can see everything distinctly.
Dan Werthman: He can see everything clearly.
Dan Werthman: People are people.
Dan Werthman: They're not trees.
Dan Werthman: Trees are trees.
Dan Werthman: They're not people.
Dan Werthman: They can't clear their blurry spiritual vision on their own.
Dan Werthman: They need his continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: I can't clear my blurry spiritual vision on my own.
Dan Werthman: I need Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: You, if you recognize this morning that you struggle with blurry spiritual vision, you can't clear your vision on your own.
Dan Werthman: It's not a matter of reading enough books or hearing enough speakers or watching enough videos or psyching yourself up.
Dan Werthman: You and I, like the disciples, like this man, need Jesus' continuing touch.
Dan Werthman: In all of my moments of doubt and faltering faith, what I need more than anything is Jesus to touch my spiritual eyes to help me see clearly.
Dan Werthman: How about you?
Dan Werthman: Does that describe you this morning?
Dan Werthman: The very next thing that Mark records encourages us that maybe the disciples are beginning to get it, that maybe now they are experiencing, as a result of Jesus' continuing touch, an opening of their eyes, and their blurred vision is beginning to clear.
Dan Werthman: Look at verse 27.
Dan Werthman: "Jesus went out with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the road he asked his disciples,'Who do people say that I am?'" He's asking,"Not yet what you think, but what is public opinion about me?""And they answer him,'Well, people think you're John the Baptist.
Dan Werthman: People think you're Elijah returned.
Dan Werthman: People think you are another one of the profits.'" You know, that was public opinion.
Dan Werthman: You know, he preaches like John the Baptist.
Dan Werthman: He's a social reformer like Elijah.
Dan Werthman: You know, he seems like one of the prophets sent by God." And while those do seem to honor him in some respect, they seem to be complements, what they all have in common is they fall far short of who he really is.
Dan Werthman: All of those make him still a man, a human.
Dan Werthman: They don't get to who he really is.
Dan Werthman: That's the message that you and I get.
Dan Werthman: I hope there's no one who is still caught up in these messages, but all around us in our culture, that's what we hear.
Dan Werthman: "Jesus is a great teacher.
Dan Werthman: Jesus is a social reformer.
Dan Werthman: Jesus is a great moral example." All of those things are true to some respect, but they all fall far short of who he really is.
Dan Werthman: And so, like I have in your outline there, I need to rely less on what other people say about who Jesus is, especially what people say in our culture.
Dan Werthman: I need to experience Jesus more myself.
Dan Werthman: I need to experience him as he reveals himself, as his Holy Spirit works through his word.
Dan Werthman: I need to be in his word.
Dan Werthman: I need to be in his Spirit and allow the Spirit to show me more and more who, really, he is if my blurred spiritual vision is going to clear.
Dan Werthman: Verse 29, now he turns to them.
Dan Werthman: "'Okay, that's what the public thinks, but you,' he asked them again,'Who do you say that I am?'" You know, and that is the defining question of the gospel of Mark.
Dan Werthman: Really, that's the question that Mark writes the gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to answer: who do you say that Jesus is?
Dan Werthman: And really, when we think about it, when we present what we call the plan of salvation or the Gospel or whatever it is, we share our testimony, that's where we want to get to.
Dan Werthman: Who do you say that Jesus is?
Dan Werthman: Because if you stop at the place that Jesus was a great teacher or a social reformer or whatever it may be, you have not gone far enough.
Dan Werthman: Peter correctly answers.
Dan Werthman: "Peter answered him,'You are the Messiah.'" That's the Hebrew term.
Dan Werthman: Some versions use the Greek term:"You are the Christ." And this should stand out, because up until this point in Mark's gospel, no human being has identified Jesus like this.
Dan Werthman: God has said it about Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Demons have said it about Jesus, but no human being.
Dan Werthman: Peter is the first human being to say,"Jesus, you are more than a man.
Dan Werthman: You are more than a great teacher.
Dan Werthman: You are more than a great moral example.
Dan Werthman: You are the Messiah.
Dan Werthman: You are the Christ." And the Old Testament concept of the Messiah is"the anointed one", the one who is of God and sent from God and anointed to be God's king.
Dan Werthman: God's king over all creation, God's king over the world, over all the nations in the universe, but God's king over all of us who turn to him and recognize him as savior and Lord as well.
Dan Werthman: I want to see Jesus like this.
Dan Werthman: I want to see Jesus more clearly as the Christ, as the Messiah, as the anointed one, as the king over all the universe, but particularly as the king over me and over my heart.
Dan Werthman: How about you?
Dan Werthman: This seems to end on a high point, but the truth is the disciples' vision, it's going to take a while to clear.
Dan Werthman: You know, Peter has his moment here.
Dan Werthman: He says the right thing.
Dan Werthman: He gives the right answer, but we're going to see next week, what we're going to see is he takes a step back, and his concept, his expectation of what Jesus is, as the Messiah, is a very human concept.
Dan Werthman: So Peter will even falter, and he'll falter, ultimately, in chapter 14, when he denies that he even knows Jesus.
Dan Werthman: In fact, for Peter and the disciples, they won't gain their fully clear picture until they see the resurrected, risen, glorified Lord Jesus Christ after his resurrection.
Dan Werthman: And here's the thing: it's the same for me and it's the same for you.
Dan Werthman: We begin our lives spiritually blind.
Dan Werthman: We can see nothing spiritually.
Dan Werthman: And then somewhere along the way, we encounter Jesus Christ.
Dan Werthman: Someone shares the Gospel with us, or God uses some other events to draw us to Jesus.
Dan Werthman: And our sight begins to clear.
Dan Werthman: We're like that man who's received the first touch, but we go through the rest of our life until our death, until the Lord's return, with that continuing touch of Jesus, more and more clearing our vision, but still, as the apostle Paul puts it, what we see is a poor reflection as in a mirror.
Dan Werthman: It's like looking through some old, faded mirror,and yeah, we see some of Jesus, and we see some about the Kingdom of God, but it's so incomplete.
Dan Werthman: Paul says what we know is only in part, but here's his promise: one day we will see Jesus face to face.
Dan Werthman: Faith will become sight.
Dan Werthman: We'll see everything with absolute clarity, everything with absolute distinction.
Dan Werthman: One day we will know him fully.
Dan Werthman: And that is why I long for Jesus to return.
Dan Werthman: When I think of my blurred spiritual vision, when I think of all the ways that keep me from seeing him clearly, from seeing his kingdom, from understanding what he's doing in my life, I long for him to return.
Dan Werthman: I want to see him absolutely clearly.
Dan Werthman: I want to know him fully.
Dan Werthman: How about you?
Dan Werthman: Let's spray.
Dan Werthman: Jesus, this blind man is me.
Dan Werthman: Your disciples here in the boat are me.
Dan Werthman: And again, I imagine I'm not the only one in the room today who sees that about themselves.
Dan Werthman: We thank you, Lord, that you have given us sight.
Dan Werthman: If we've come to know you as savior and Lord, you've begun to open our eyes, but we still have blurred vision, and we still are held back.
Dan Werthman: Whether it is by hypocrisy, by secularism, Lord, by our preoccupation with our needs, Lord, all of these things that blur our spiritual vision.
Dan Werthman: We don't see you like we want to, like we long to.
Dan Werthman: We pray for your continuing touch, Lord Jesus.
Dan Werthman: We pray that your Spirit works through your Word to more and more open our eyes.
Dan Werthman: And we long for your return, Lord Jesus, of all of the things that you will bring that we look forward to, this complete opening of our eyes has got to be a highlight.
Dan Werthman: Jesus, give us ever clearer vision of you.
Dan Werthman: Spirit, work through your Word to open our eyes more and more, that we may see you and worship you.
Dan Werthman: Amen.