Stop Chasing Methods And Start Trusting The Healer

What if the breakthrough you want won’t come through the method you expect? We walk through John 9 and the healing of a man born blind to explore why Jesus rarely repeats a technique, how suffering can be a canvas for God’s works, and what it means to obey when the process feels strange. Clay made from spit, a pool called Siloam, and a long walk while still blind become the unlikely path to sight—and a living picture of creation, living water, and faith that moves before it understands.

As the man’s vision clears, another kind of blindness comes into focus. Neighbors doubt what they see, religious leaders argue over Sabbath rules, and fear grips the man’s parents as they worry about being cast out of the synagogue. We unpack the tension between legalism and mercy, the purpose of Sabbath rest, and the way Jesus, the Light of the World, turns a contested day into a sign of God’s compassion. The debate sharpens a simple, enduring testimony: I was blind, now I see. That line powers real witness more than perfect answers ever could.

Along the way, we press into practical takeaways for everyday faith: hold your methods loosely and cling to Jesus tightly; trade blame for compassion; expect God to work through irritation, inconvenience, and small acts of obedience; and let gratitude make you brave. We also frame John’s larger portrait of Jesus—fully God and fully man—whose signs reveal divinity and whose tears reveal tender humanity. If this journey stirred you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Every time he heals, he does it differently. Because he knows we have a tendency to fall into formulas. If we have somebody that's sick, this is the things we need to do, and they're healed. And if we can do these things, then we tend to drift away from being reliant on the Lord to do his healing work because it's the Lord that's the healer, not us. He may use us, but the Lord is our healer, and ultimately the healing is with our souls.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Many of the miracles that Jesus performed are recorded in the Bible. But as Pastor Carl notices today, rarely were the miracles all performed the same way. Not all blind people were healed by Jesus' touch. Not all dead people were raised by his voice only. One woman was healed from a blood disorder after merely touching Jesus' garment as he walked by. The lesson we can learn from this is that Jesus never has one formula. Instead, we should constantly draw near to him and see what he has planned. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

At the end of chapter 8, Jesus declares that he's the great I am. They pick up stones and they're about to stone him, and he walks right through the crowd and mysteriously disappears. And that's where chapter 9 picks up. Now, as Jesus passed by that crowd and went out of the temple, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind? So his disciples are not asking, boy, that guy needs help. They're asking, boy, what did he do wrong? Obviously, somebody sinned in their lives because things happen to you because of your sin. And yes, sin has consequences. There are things that we might not have in our lives had we not sinned. But as Jesus goes on, he says, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God would be revealed in him. And he's not saying that none of them were sinners. He's just saying that it's not the cause of his blindness. Some of the teachings in that time, some of the Pharisees believed that there was a form of reincarnation, where this man, he may have done something wrong in his old life, and that's why he was born this way. Or even he sinned in the womb, and that's why he's blind. Or obviously his parents did something, and that's what caused him to be cursed with this blindness. And Jesus is saying, No, it isn't because of their sin that he is blind, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. And we all know that we've all been born into sin. I mean, that's why Jesus came to take away the sin curse and to give us life and forgiveness and eternity with him. That's not the problem. And we we often get caught up in that and pointing out to people, oh, you wouldn't be in that situation had you done this or that. Instead of having the mercy and grace of God, boy, you're in that situation. Let's minister to you. Let the Lord work in your heart and in your life and encourage you through this time. And I don't know, some of you might have gone through things that have you've been suffering things in your flesh for a long, long time. And you wonder, why, Lord, do I have to go through this? Or you see how other people go through things in life and they've been born with a disability from the beginning. And why, why, why, Lord, do they have to go through these things? And the Lord gives us a different perspective at the end of verse 3 that the works of God will be revealed in him. I mean, maybe he had this blindness all his life to get him to this very moment where God would glorify him. And spoiler alert, the Lord's going to heal him, he's going to give him vision. The first person ever that was born blind to receive sight is going to happen, and God is going to be glorified. If he had vision all his life, we would have never known about him. If he had vision all of his life, Jesus wouldn't have had to heal him or wouldn't have gotten to heal him and give God the glory. Now it's not that God caused him to be blind or causes us any evil in our lives, but he does work in the midst of a fallen world where he allows things to happen, and yet he's working in the midst to bring us back to where he intended us to be before the fall. And so he's saying the works of God are going to be revealed in him. Don't judge this man or his parents. That's not the point. And there are things that we go through in our lives too. Sometimes we beat ourselves up, sometimes we beat others up on the things that they've done, and we get our eyes off the gospel. We were born into this fallen state, and Jesus has come. God has come into the flesh in order to change us and to make us like him and to bring himself glory through us. And he says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, for the night is coming when no one can work. Do you feel the darkness coming? Do you feel the night coming upon us? I mean, in this particular situation, the night is coming when he's going to be crucified on that cross. But when the enemy thought that he had victory over Jesus and destroying the works of God, it was exactly the opposite. That was the victory over sin and death and the devil. But he's working with them then, and it's not night yet. And darkness is coming. We feel the darkness all around us now, and yet when the darkness gets darker, the brightness of the light gets brighter. And the Lord is working in our midst, and the Lord is coming back soon to set all things right. And he says, As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And he talked about being the light of the world in the last chapter, declaring it to the crowds. And now he's going to bring this man light. When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with saliva, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and he said to him, Go and wash to the in the pool of Siloam, which is translated sent. So he went and washed and came back seeing. You remember the pool of Siloam was where the high priest would go during the festival, the feast of the tabernacles, to get water and to bring it up onto the altar and pour it out on the altar as a sign of the Holy Spirit that was to come. And Jesus cried out, I have the living water to give to you. And now he's sending him down to the pool of Saloon to wash off. Now this is interesting, a few different points that we could go on forever with this, but let me just say first, he didn't ask him if he wanted to be healed. He just said, This is what we're going to do. He didn't even introduce himself. He just said, Here, here we go. And he spit on the ground. So is anybody have any aches and pains? We'll have you come up and I'll spit on you and then you'll be better. No, I won't do that. I won't do that. There are two other times that the Lord used spittle or saliva in his healing process, and I really couldn't find any reason exactly why. The Bible doesn't specifically tell us why, but he just shows us uh these instances where he did it. One reason is probably because he every time he heals, he does it differently. Because he knows we have a tendency to fall into formulas. If we have somebody that's sick, this is the things we need to do, and they're healed. And if we can do these things, then we tend to drift away from being reliant on the Lord to do his healing work because it's the Lord that's the healer, not us. He may use us, but the Lord is our healer. And ultimately the healing is with our souls to draw us closer to him. So that might be one reason. Another reason is, of course, saliva is water, and that living water is the healing of the Holy Spirit working, it could be that, and spinning on the ground and creating some clay kind of harkens back to the beginning of creation, doesn't it? Because God created man from the dust of the earth and he made man. And so what he's doing here is actually recreating something. He's creating eyes that will see, that never saw before. Other instances of healing of a blind man in the Bible, those those other instances they they had seen before. This is the only time where somebody who had been born blind was made to see. And then there was another interesting aspect here. He put this clay on the eyes of the blind man. And I heard a commentary on this, and I hadn't thought about it, but I I don't know why, because I have I have bad vision. My eyes are real sensitive. I'm sure your eyes are sensitive too. If somebody comes up close to you to your eyes, you block your eyes, right? They're like the most sensitive part of your face, of your body. And would you like to put some wet dirt in your eye and scrub it around? Do you think that'll feel good? That's irritating, isn't it? So if if this is the case, if he he might not see, but he might feel his eyes, wouldn't that be like rather irritating if some man came to you, spits on the ground, makes this stuff, and puts it in your eye and rubs it in your eye, and you're going, ow, what are you doing? You know? It's like what sometimes when the Lord wants to do a work in our lives, it's going to irritate something within us. And that's where faith comes in. Are we willing to go through what the Lord is calling us to bring us to this place of healing? Or do we just demand that the Lord heals us with our formula in our way? This guy wasn't even asking to be healed. I'm just doing fine here, begging. Just give me some money, I'll be fine. But there was something within this man, too, that said, Well, this is different. And if his eyes are irritated, and he said, I gotta wash my heads, I gotta wash my eyes out. What am I gonna do? And the Lord says, Well, go down and wash them in the pool. So, in a way, the Lord forced him to obey. And sometimes that happens in our lives too. I don't I in my life, so often there's there are two choices, this or that. Not a whole, I hate a multitude of choices. The older I get, just give me two things, you know, yes or no. You know, I'll have to do this. And in this instance, it it the guy was forced to obey, wasn't he? So he went down to the pool and he washed and he came back seeing. His immediate desire was to get that dirt out of his eyes. But when he opened his eyes, he could see, and it was worth it. You know, I can't relate to this, but because I'm a guy, but I've been married to a woman for many years, and she gave birth to four of my children. That's one thing I've never understood is how much pain a woman will go through to have a child and they want another one. I don't understand. I praise God for that because that's what keeps the population going, and that's what keeps good families uh together and and and expanding. But that's a mysterious thing, isn't it? It was worth that pain that the man had for him to go and wash and to come back seeing. And he came back seeing, and it's he's excited. I've never seen before. This is like wow, you just imagine what it was like for him. Whoa, these are stems, it's probably pretty scary as he goes back up the stairs up to up to the temple area. This is what this looks like, what whatever is it's look. I when we were in Georgia, we lived next to a family. The father and the daughter both were born blind, so much so they didn't have eyeballs. We've had conversations with them sometimes, you know, describing what what is purple? I don't get it. And you try to explain it to them with with like you know, feeling with temperature or something like that, and or maybe you know, uh what's what what something feels like, like on these chairs, the difference between the leather and the cloth, you that might help create a picture of something that they have no idea what you're describing, but maybe they get a glimpse into it. And in the same way, we're we're really blind when it comes to the things of the Lord that he has for us today and into the future. He sees so many things and he's trying to reveal it to us in his word, and yet we just grasp a little bit. We we're looking through a mirror dimly. But when we see him face to face, everything will be clear and everything will make sense. So he's coming back, and then the story takes an interesting twist. He has to start defending himself. Therefore, the neighbors of those who previously had seen that he was blind said, Is not this he who sat and begged? He's been there for years. He's walking around like he can see. Some said, This is he, and others said, Well, he's like him. That's not really him, he looks like him. Have you read it to people where that person sure looks like that person, but I don't think it's that person. And they're in the midst of it, he's standing there. You know, first of all, I wasn't deaf, I was blind. I can now see, I could hear you talking about me. Now I could see you talking about me. I'm standing in your midst. I am he. I'm I'm the one you're talking about, and I'm the one who was blind. And therefore they said to him, How were your eyes opened? And he answered and said, A man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. I guess Jesus must have introduced himself because he knew Jesus' name, but he didn't really know who Jesus was. All he knows is Jesus came, he made clay, he anointed his eyes, and he went to the pool and he washed. And so I went and washed and I received my sight. That's all I know. And I stand before you now. And then they said to him, Where is he? And he says, I don't know. I haven't seen him. Isn't that funny? He hasn't seen Jesus yet. But he ran into Jesus and Jesus saw him. And I'm so thankful that even though I'm blind to the things of the Lord, he sees me and he gives me glimmers into who he is and and what he's planning to do in our lives. So he's just being honest. You know, this is a new thing that's happened to me. I haven't seen before. Uh this has been a miracle, and I'm standing before you, and you're asking me questions of how it happened. I'm telling you how it happened. I don't know where he is. And he's having a good time. Verse 13. They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now, this is something that you're supposed to do. If somebody is healed of, you know, a disease like that. I don't know if a blindness is a disease, but like that, they would come to the Pharisees and they would, actually, to they should bring them to the priests, right? And show them what had happened so God can get the glory. And so he brought them to the Pharisees. And then there's this interesting note. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. And then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight, and he said to them, Well, he put clay on my eyes, and I washed and I see. And therefore, some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. And in one of their helps, all these extra laws that they wrote, to define the things that you can or can't do on the Sabbath, because they don't want anybody to get in trouble with the law and break it on the Sabbath day. So one of the things you can't do is you can't knead, like with bread and stuff, but that's what Jesus was doing with the clay. When you're making clay, that's work. You can't work on the Sabbath. And so we're going to get this man because this man is a sinner. Not the one who received the sight, but Jesus, the one who gave him the sight. The one who is described as our Sabbath rest. The one who made the Sabbath. He's the creator. You know, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was for our blessing, not for our cursing. And the Pharisees didn't seem to get that. Others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them. So some are saying he's a sinner and he shouldn't be doing that because he did this work on the Sabbath, and others would be going, wait a minute. Can only God do those sorts of things? Or somebody who's used by God? The enemy could do a lot of false signs, but nothing like this. And so even amongst the Pharisees, there was an argument uh developing there. And then they said to the blind man again, What do you say about him because he opened your eyes? And he says, Ah, he's a prophet? Maybe. I mean, he did say, Go and wash yourself. And I did, and I and it was a miracle. So he must be a prophet or something. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And again, when John is using this term, the Jews, it's referring to the Jewish leadership, the Pharisees there. And uh they didn't believe him. Uh, he's making this up. He's always been seeing. And of course, with a man, a deceiver like this Jesus fellow, of course, he's going to get somebody to lie, to create this story, to just cause trouble. But they called the parents and they asked them, saying, Is this your son who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see? And that's interesting. And they they probably hadn't even noticed what happened yet. They were just brought into this scene and they were probably aghast. They were excited, but at the same time kind of fearing because they heard what was being said. If anybody comes against the Pharisees and kind of gives some credit to this Messiah fella, then they were going to be evicted, discommunicated from the synagogue. And that's more than just being kicked out. That's like this fellowship, you're out of the family. So they're taking very careful steps on how they would answer. They wanted to answer in a way that would glorify God, but they didn't want to be kicked out either, because I don't believe they were followers of Jesus, but they believe that they've heard things about Jesus and they were probably curious about him. So his parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind, but by what means he now sees, we don't know. I mean, this is the first we've heard of it. Or who opened his eyes? We don't know. We didn't see it. He's of age, ask him. He's an adult. Why do you need to ask us? He will speak for himself. And his parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, that he would be put out of the synagogue. And therefore his parents said, He is of age, ask him. So in verse 24, they called the man again who was blind and said to him, Give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner. Give God the glory is if you lie, you're not glorifying God. You need to be truthful in this situation. Glorify God in the words that you use. Acknowledge that this Jesus fella is a sinner. And this is great. Verse 25. He answered and said, Whether he's a sinner or or not, I do not know. But one thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. On some Monday mornings, I hang out with some local Southern Baptist pastors, and some of them are really down to earth. I mean, they're all great and they all love the Lord, but some have gone to seminary. I haven't gone to seminary. I just read the word and the Lord called me to teach, and so I teach, and I'm a simple guy, and so I teach simply. But some of these guys talk about all these different theologies. And different ways of doing this and that, and that can't be this way because of that. And my head just hurts sometimes doing it. But all I know is the Lord died for me and He loves me, and the word is true, and I'm gonna declare it. You know, that's that's what I know. And this man, what does he do? He quotes that great song. Though I was blind, now I see amazing grace. You've heard of it, right? He's heard it back then. No, that song was written because of this instance, not the other way around. But still, it was like, look, I I don't know. I'm not as smart as you guys. All that I know is I was blind for all my life, and now I see you answer it for me. You are the representatives of God. And then they said to him again, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? And he answered them, I told you already, and you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? A little snarky there. But that's great. You know, it's like, come on. And sometimes you gotta use a little sarcasm to wake people up. It's like, look, I told you. Why don't you believe it? I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you, I'm not making this up. This is just how it is. What you do with it is up to you, but look, it might be a good idea for you to follow him. It sure seems like he's from God to me. Verse 28. Then they reviled him and said, You are his disciples, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses, and as for this fellow, we do not know where he comes from. And yet they do know where he came from. He he came from Galilee, and they insulted him because of that. The man answered and said, Here he goes again. This is, you know, sometimes just common man, common sense makes so much more sense than the ivory towers, than the educated people.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

You've been listening to the teaching of Pastor Carl from the Mountain Cross on Come On Up. We're in the Gospel of John, and there's much to explore in this exciting book of the Bible. Jesus does all kinds of miracles in the book of John, such as turning water into wine and raising Lazarus from the dead. These were signs that he was far more than human. He's God. However, Jesus didn't shy away from expressing his humanity on earth either. When his friend had died, he was sad and he cried. He experienced righteous anger, seeing people abusing and defiling the temple while taking advantage of the poor. He cleared out the temple area with a cord of whips and showed his authority. But he was also tender with children and compassionate to those who were considered outcasts. This is the juxtaposition of the book of John. Jesus was both God and man, and you get to fully appreciate it more and more by reading this rich book of the Bible. If you're enjoying the teaching on Come On Up, would you consider helping us get the word out to others? Simply visit themountaincross.com/slash donate. It's a safe and secure way for you to give online. The Mountain Cross meets Sunday mornings at 10 at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville, North Carolina. If you are nearby and don't have a church home, we'd be delighted to have you join us this weekend. And be sure to come on up to the mountain with us next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.