Unshaken: Chapter a Day

John 9 Discussion

• Pastor Plek

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A man born blind opens his eyes and the whole town goes blurry. The neighbors doubt, the leaders fume, and his parents step back. What starts as a quiet miracle becomes a revealing trial of motives, power, and faith. We walk through John 9 to see why Jesus chose the Sabbath for healing, how mud and a pool called Siloam point to creation and sending, and what happens when allegiance to Christ collides with social pressure.

We dig into the hard question everyone asks when pain hits: who’s to blame? Instead of fueling the blame game, Jesus reframes suffering as a platform for God’s work. That shift exposes willful blindness in the religious experts, who protect rules while missing mercy. Meanwhile, the man’s clarity grows with each step of obedience—first calling Jesus a man, then a prophet, then one from God, and finally Lord as he bows in worship. His simple line, “I was blind, now I see,” becomes a timeless template for testimony that cuts through noise and invites honest faith.

Along the way, we reflect on Sabbath as a gift of rest, worship, and healing; on the cost of being cast out yet found by Jesus; and on the link between cherished sin and hindered prayer. If you’ve ever felt pressured to downplay what God did in your life, this story gives words and backbone. If you’ve wrestled with pain that defies easy answers, it offers purpose without denying grief. Join us for a conversation that blends Scripture, lived experience, and practical steps: believe and worship, obey before you understand, and share your story with courage.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help more people find these conversations. What’s your one-line testimony—then and now?

Text us at 737-231-0605 with any questions.

Pastor Plek:

And welcome back to a chapter today. Keeps the devil away. I'm Pastor Pleck, that's Pastor Holland. We are outlining John chapter 9. We're gonna find some observations, some interpretations about the nature of man, the character of God, and then land the plan with some applications that a sin to avoid or confess, a promise to claim, example to follow, a command to obey, and a knowledge to believe. Verses one through seven of John 9 is the healing of a man born blind. And the ultimate question, whose fault is it, this man or his parents that this dude was born blind? And Jesus answers that question. Then Jesus gets into the neighbors' inquiry and the initial investigation. The astonished neighbors and acquaintances acquaintances debate if it's the same beggar. He confirms he is, and the man they call Jesus got his sight back or gave him his sight for the first time, and they seek Jesus, but he is gonzo. Then you got the next thing is the Pharisee's first interrogation. He's brought the Pharisee. He says that he was healed. Then the parents are questioned in verses 18 through 23. Then the second interrogation, and then he's expulsed from uh the synagogue. He's pressed again. The man boldly testifies of God's work through Jesus, and he urges the Pharisees to become his disciples, and then they he they he they mock him, and they're just like, Who are you to teach us? Then Jesus finally meets up with him again and teaches him on what real blindness is, and verses 35 through 41. Okay. Observations, what you got?

Pastor Holland:

All right, it is so clear reading through the Gospels, you know, we Matthew, Mark, Luke, and now John, how much the Sabbath comes up. Yeah. It is like just this major, major theme in all four Gospels that Jesus is doing stuff on the Sabbath. Right. And they hate it. And Jesus seems really intentional to be doing stuff on the Sabbath and to make sure that the, you know, the authors of the Gospels write down he's doing stuff on the Sabbath. It's just very interesting to me how much, you know, it's an important fact, an important point that we understand God's purpose for us in the Sabbath as a day of rest, as a day of worship, as a day of healing, as a gift from God. I love that, but not a burden.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, that's so good. And it feels like for them the Sabbath was just a beating.

Pastor Holland:

It seems it seems like uh here's the line. Yeah. It's there's the there's the you know, Jesus on one side who's showing the Sabbath to be this amazing day of God's grace and goodness and healing and rest. And there's the people who don't get the Sabbath on the other side who are just angry all the time and want to kill them.

Pastor Plek:

Okay. Yeah, uh I love that. And how about is it's interesting how Jesus uses mud. And right, and then also he sends them to the pool saloon, which means sin. I'm trying to see if there's anything in that that's significant that I'm not seeing. The only thing I can think of, like he's going back to creation, uh, of forming his eyes again or something. And like this is the mud and the spittle. You know, he is taking the mud, yeah, taking the spit, putting it on his eyes, and like kind of doing a redo. Um for what sin has marred, he can go back and fix and recreate.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And the idea of you know, the pool of saloon meaning scent, you know, he he puts that in parentheses here. Um he has a purpose for this. Yeah. And so at the end of the chapter, verse 34, it says that they cast him out, right? And so this is a big you know theme as we you get toward the latter half of John, right? Following G aligning yourself with Jesus means being cast out of the Jewish way of doing so. Sent out, and yeah, exactly. So they're cast out by the Jews, but sent by Jesus.

Pastor Plek:

I love that.

Pastor Holland:

Um, and so you see that chapter nine is kind of a turning point here. Um, yeah.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. Uh I I think we mentioned it, but just the Pharisees, they're arrogant, they're fixated on the Sabbath minutiae and the doctrinal superiority, and they can't even see when God chooses to do something. Even even if um God was all about the Sabbath is the way that they interpreted it, but he wanted to to change it to heal somebody. Like they should be on board with that.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, like at no point are there are they ever just like, all right, guys, this is pretty cool though. Look at all these people he's healing. Like, obviously, there's something about this guy. They're going straight demonic.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, yeah. And and maybe if you're from a different faith tradition, you kind of look at other people and someone gets healed and it's you know, maybe a little charismatic for you. I at some point you gotta go. I I really hope that person's healed. That's exciting. Uh as opposed to straight up demonic. Like you can't just go someone getting healed and their life being transformed for the better, and they're glorifying God walking out. It's hard to call that demonic.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I also love here uh when where is it? Uh verse 27, he answered them, I've told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? Like this whole this whole chapter is like kind of funny to me. And this guy, he's like, he's kind of like mocking them right here. He's like, Look, I told you my story. It's pretty simple. I was blind, now I see. Are you guys wanting to follow Jesus too? Because I can, you know. I mean, he's ripping them.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. And it kind of shows you that the he has like uh I sometimes I think we have this, you know, as uh C.S. Lewis would put it, chronological snobbery where we don't think people were smart enough to kind of like that's quick-witted, like, you know, comeback. Right. And like, oh, so you're asking so many questions. It looks like you want to be his disciple, and that infuriates them. Yeah, it's so funny to me. Um, I I do appreciate that the initial question, I feel like that's something that we need to really help people wrestle with because we asked this question. Verse two Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? Yeah, there has to be somebody to blame. And he's saying here, it's not necessarily that anyone's to blame, but God's to be glorified.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

Uh and and that's just true.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. There are, you know, there are consequences for sin. Um, and sometimes, you know, our sins can uh can harm other people. Um, there's brokenness in the world that affects other people. That's our fault sometimes. But there's also um just the reality of, you know, there's stuff that man, it had nothing to do with you or your parents or any. It's just you live in a broken world and bad stuff happens, and um, and yet we we serve a redeeming God who can turn all things for good, and he allows bad things and dark things and suffering and pain to happen ultimately so that he can show his glory in either giving us strength to persevere those things or healing us from those things, delivering us from those things. Um, God always has a purpose for his own glory in whatever the broken, hard or difficult thing is.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, I also find it interesting here that his parents sell out, sell him out. Man, yeah. Like, hey, let's they were just a keep me out of it. I don't I'm not gonna stand up for my son. He's of age. Ask him. And you're like, what?

Pastor Holland:

This, I think this gets to what the truths about the nature of man. Um let's get into that. Yeah, his parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Right. They cared more about what other people thought of them and not being kicked out of, you know, their social group and their religious group and their rather than um, you know, what was true and even their own son. Yeah. It's crazy.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. All right, another uh truth about man, I think people often attribute suffering to personal or ancestral parental sin. Yeah. Like you this is your fault or somebody's fault in some way. Yeah. And now to be fair, you all blame it back to the ancestral sin of Adam. But uh that would have been funny. Whose sin is his sin or his parents? Well, not his parents, but his parents' parents, parents, parents, parents, parents. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah.

Pastor Holland:

Uh what else you got? Um, verse 18 the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parent to the man. You just see this like uh natural skepticism. Right. And so this is in all of us. And I, you know, sometimes it's like it's a good thing. You don't want to be naive and just believe everything you see and hear and all that. You want to be discerning.

Pastor Plek:

But at some point, yeah, unbelief manifests as willful blindness. Right.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. And you know, you can understand, okay, wait a second, is this a real story? I'm like that. Uh, you know, but then upon investigation, they don't go, hey, seems like he really got healed. Yeah, they go, There's no way.

Pastor Plek:

Right. Uh okay, how about uh some truth about the character of God? Um, God's sovereignty is displayed through human weakness and even suffering. And that his and this isn't a Romans 8.28 verse, however, it kind of is, it's this is seen so the works of God might be seen through him. So all things work for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And this guy's purpose was to be healed. And there was a distinct purpose for this man's suffering was to fire up the Pharisees, and then also to for him to recognize how beautiful sight is and to show the world how blind the world is in comparison. Yeah, that's good.

Pastor Holland:

Um, yeah, Jesus, Jesus is a healer, Jesus is merciful. I think, you know, this gets me excited about heaven. I when I think about, you know, there there are these healings that happen in the gospels, you see it, or you you know, you we even see miraculous things like this today from time to time. These are glimpses, previews, foretasts of heaven when all will be healed.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah.

Pastor Holland:

And this just gets me so excited about you know the world that God has for us, the new creation, is a world of eternal life, of no sickness, no death. Like this this man being healed, just it gets me excited about heaven.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. I like that God always follows up. Uh like he heals him and he loops back around and is like, hey, just to make sure you know who I am. Uh yeah.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, after he was cast out, so now he's got nowhere to go. Right. You know, he's he's um a loner now, and yet Jesus goes to him. It's really good. Jesus goes after the the the loners, Jesus doesn't leave those people.

Pastor Plek:

And what's really great is I'm you know, I don't know how he got connected to the disciples or anything. I I don't I'd think so or hope so. Um, but like, hey, you have you need community, and Jesus is gonna make sure kind of loop around to make sure you aren't alone. Yeah. Um, let's get into some spec. Uh that's sin to confess or avoid, uh, promise to claim, example to follow, command to obey, or knowledge to believe. What you got?

Pastor Holland:

No, no, no, example to follow, verse 38. Uh, the blind man says, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. That's the right response. Yeah. That's the right response to encountering Jesus is believing in him and worshiping him. How about this one?

Pastor Plek:

Command to obey. Uh go wash and you will see. In other words, just do what Jesus says to do, and you will see the purpose of it later. Oh, I like that.

Pastor Holland:

Um what about uh I like just tell your testimony. Yeah. Um, where is uh verse 25? He said, you know, whether he's a sinner, I do not know. He's like he didn't know anything about Jesus at this point. He just knows he just knows. Verse 27. One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. Yeah, telling your testimony can be that simple.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. It's like, listen, this is how I was, yeah, this is how I am. I'm gonna tell you all I know is the guy just washed my eyes and it happened. All right, that's all I got.

Pastor Holland:

I used to be, you know, a drunk and I prayed to Jesus and he set me free. I used to be addicted to pornography, I used to be, you know, um an angry person, I used to be an abusive person, but I came to Jesus and he changed me. And I want to tell you about him. It's that simple.

Pastor Plek:

How about sin to avoid willful blindness that dismisses God's work in other people's lives over because of fear of your afraid of something?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, what about uh verse 31? God does not listen to sinners. But if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Knowledge to believe. Um, God doesn't listen to sinners?

Pastor Plek:

Well, I don't know. Is that true? Because what what's the only prayer? I guess the only prayer that that God's gonna hear, if you will, is the one of like salvation.

Pastor Holland:

Well, and let so I I think when it says sinners, it doesn't mean people who sin, people who have a sinful nature, people who sin. I I think it means unrepentant sinners. Fair enough. God does not listen to people who are an unrepentant sin, okay.

Pastor Plek:

In unrepentant sin. Although I think this is it's I don't want to go prescriptive on this because this is the guy talking about That's true, that's true. It's it's a description of what he's of it's a it's a description of that one particular guy's belief. Right. But I I don't necessarily think it's long personal.

Pastor Holland:

It's an old testament teaching, though. Yeah. Um uh the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his here ears toward their cry, Psalm 34. Yeah. Um, Psalm 66, if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Nice. So I think to me that what that means is like, and it to get to the application too, is like, are you in unrepentant sin? Are you cherishing sin in your heart, or are you turning to God in faith and repenting from your sin? Right. If you're cherishing sin in your heart, don't expect God to bless you or hear your prayers.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, I was just thinking of first Peter three. Yeah, uh live with your wives in an understanding way so that your prayers may not be hindered. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think there is like the way that you treat the ones you're supposed to love the most and you don't do it well, there's gonna be a hindrance to your prayers. So you're living um without faith in God. You you're living in faith in you.

Pastor Holland:

Psalm 145, 19, he fulfills the desire of those who fear him. So I think, yeah, application is don't cherish sin in your heart and think that you can just kind of get away with it and that everything's gonna go like repent, confess your sin, um, so that God might hear your prayers.

Pastor Plek:

Don't go with the Jesus and I have a deal. Yeah, right. All right, uh, hey, I I think that's good. Um uh I feel like that's some real, I feel like the biggest thing is like, hey, can you make sure you have a testimony? This guy's the classic one-word testimony, blind C. And I I would pray that you would think about what's what is one thing you think about who you were to who you are, and who could you share that with today? Hey, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time on a chapter a day.

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