A Faith That Sees Clearly

Ever feel like your life or your faith is a little blurry? You know God is working, but you can’t quite make out the details. Honestly, waiting for clarity can be frustrating.

We are continuing our "Fix Your Faith" lesson with a message titled "A Faith That Sees Clearly."

We look at a powerful moment in Mark 8 where Jesus heals a man in stages. If you feel like you are stuck in a "blurry season," this message is for you. Find encouragement, community, and the patience to trust God's timing!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And howdy all, welcome to the Preacher Man Podcast. I'm Blaine Crane, the Preacher Man, Minister for the North Christ Church Christ in Maha, Texas. Once again, we are uh back this week with another sermon review. Last Sunday was a um a Sunday, uh I guess you could say it was kind of in between holidays. We Mother's Day was um the Sunday before last. Uh this Sunday there was um we had a busy, busy week. We um had a blood drive, we had a funeral, we had um other things take we had a fundraiser for um the for our camp kids so they could kind of help uh defer some of the cost of camp. And uh it was a pretty busy Sunday, and we uh we um like I said, it's in between the Sundays. Uh next Sunday is uh Memorial Day weekend. Uh next Sunday will also be our uh senior Sunday where we uh pay tribute and show some honor and love toward our very big graduating class. A couple of things that uh were um uh interesting about this uh sermon on on a faith that sees clearly um and I'm very grateful for was I got a lot of good feedback. I got a lot of compliments and um not that um not that that's what I was doing it for, mind you. Um you know I always try to make sure to you know tell them to give God the glory. I'm just the messenger. And and uh but uh it was it was it was greatly appreciated, and so I'm I'm I'm very thankful that um I have a congregation that gives me feedback, good, bad, or ugly. And um this sermon was uh specifically focused on Jesus' healing of the blind man where it looks as if it reads as if uh uh there were uh two attempts made. And it's a rare uh healing simply because uh it it did take Jesus it well, it didn't take him. Jesus uh chose to set this up to be done in uh in stages. And while many people question w maybe why that happened, or was there a faith issue, was there a uh strength in issue in Jesus? Um I think uh the one thing that normally is brought up when we talk about this healing of the blind man uh Jesus was using this healing to demonstrate to his followers just how um just just how their faith was also uh unclear. But this healing um helps demonstrate what took place in the previous verses of Mark VIII. Uh Jesus fed uh four thousand men and more uh probably families and uh of the the feeding of the four thousand takes place, and then immediately after that Pharisees obviously not too happy about Jesus doing that, are demanding a sign from heaven and uh Jesus is uh basically questioning them, why are you questioning me about another sign after this large feeding took place with only a few breads and fishes? And then the disciples he pulls the disciples aside and he kind of warns them, he goes, Look, don't don't beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Um beware of the leaven of of of Herod. In other words, don't let what they're demanding and what they're wanting of me have an effect on on you. He reminds them of just what all took place, and they weren't quite necessarily understanding what he was saying. And so many times this healing um helps it reads as if it's helping the apostles and the disciples see what is happening with uh the Pharisees and others. There is a uncertainty about his faith. There is a a questioning of his authority. And in many ways, it is not a it's not it's not a faith that sees clearly. It's a faith that is in the lesson you're gonna hear me say that uh many people suffer from um spiritual astigmatism. In other words, it's just blurry vision. We we we want to believe, we can think we can make out a belief, but uh the vision is distorted. But uh tying this into uh the fix our faith and our fix uh theme for this year. Many times our faith is being worked on, our faith is being uh built up, it's being strengthened, it's it's cr increasing and growing. And it's not something that happens overnight. Uh sometimes it takes um a little time to get from point A to point B. And when we are going through these times of faith building, if you will, or faith fixing, if you will, we gotta be patient. We gotta let we gotta let the we gotta let some things take time to to come into to to come into a better picture. So we're gonna go ahead and and roll the uh pre-recorded sermon with with that in mind. So this is uh a faith that sees clearly. The text is uh gonna be Mark 8, 22 through 26. I'll also reference Hebrews 6, 12. And this was preached um last Sunday on the 17th. Take a listen, and we'll be back afterwards with some closing thoughts. Open your Bibles to Mark chapter eight. Mark chapter eight is where we will be getting our start this morning. Want to go ahead and say thank you in advance for those who are donating, already have donated or will be donating uh blood today. Um we are there's always a need for for blood, and I'm glad that we can partner with the blood bank in Waco to uh Carter Blood Care who can help us with that. So I understand if someone of some of you uh have to get up and go out while I'm preaching, that's fine. Um I can I can I can always uh justify that because you have your contribution and thank you to those who have already done so. How many of you remember how many of you remember the Polaroid instant camera? How many of you had a Polaroid instant camera? Oh man, yeah. I mean, those things were and still I they still make them, by the way. Um I I think they and I I don't know if they're still they have all the the fancy doodads. I mean, with digital stuff now, you know, you can do it so many different ways. But I remember when um we got my mother one of these for for her birthday or Christmas, one or the other. Um ours, ours was fancy. Ours had the fl uh had the flash that you could you know put on top of it, you know, and and it would be flashing out. Mom went through hundreds of Polaroid cartridges, and and and that was the fun part about it, right? You take the picture and out comes this blank screen. This little this blank picture. And so what do you have to say? Yeah, what Kathy's doing right now. Well, you just start fanning that picture, wanting it to come into view, and then you get something that starts looking like this, right? And then what was really cool about it is you had that teeny little spot at the bottom of the picture, and you could get out a magic marker and write, you know, this picture was taken on late whatever on this date, and etc. You know, and then you can then you boy, um we had tons of Polaroid pictures taken by the Polaroid instant camera. It turned so many people into professional photographers. Um, that was a really, really good thing. When the thing about the thing about the Polaroid is that you had to wait for the picture to come into view. You got an instant picture, but it still required their time to be uh to be developed. We're going to be looking at the only miracle that Jesus performed where it took two steps instead of one. This is the only miracle that Jesus did in the Bible that we have record of where there was a follow-up to what he had already done when Jesus heals the blind man in Mark chapter eight. And what we're looking at this morning as we continue with our fixture faith series is that we want, ultimately, we want a faith that sees clearly. Last Sunday, Mother's Day, we looked at the different things that mothers have and teach, as and parents, as mothers and dads as well, teach our kids about what faith is and how it is demonstrated. Today, we're going to kind of continue that in this idea of what does it mean to have a faith that sees clearly. Now, as we go through this lesson, I want you to think about this one question. And if you want to write it down, you can. We live in a world full of instant things. We have instant coffee, uh, we have instant oatmeal. Maple sugar is my favorite. We have Minute Rice. And then many of you ladies pretty much have an appreciation for the one on the bottom corner. You have your Instapot, where and I I I refer to it as Michelle's thermal nuclear crock pot because it happens so fast. I mean, you can I mean knock down a time frame on cooking a full meal incredibly fast. We are surrounded by things that are instant, right? Well, let me the the question I want you to think about this morning: have we become accustomed to instant? Has our microwaves and our deliveries and our um FedEx, Amazon deliveries? Even now the Walmarts does deliveries, HEB does deliveries, and I'm not complaining. I'm very, very thankful for those types of things, but in the process of all these things that take place or happen to us instantly, have we become so accustomed to it that it affects our dispositions, our attitudes, and our, dare I say, even how we believe that God does things. Many believe, many believers, I believe, and I'm kind of changing the, I mean, going back to our kind of like our Polaroid, our Polaroid uh theme here, many believers, I think sometimes, I know I'm guilty of it too, suffer from what I call um spiritual astigmatism. Spiritual astigmatism, Mary, where she keeps asking me questions, and so I'm gonna answer. Spiritual astigmatism is where you see things spiritually, but sometimes because your eyes may not, you may not have your glasses on. You may not see things clearly. We know and we believe, and we can definitely claim, and I'm sure that some of you here this morning could give me an example of what how God is working or how God worked in your life this week. But the details are kind of like what the blind man said after the first attempt. He said, Well, I see them, but they're it's like trees walking around. We don't have a clear vision of what God's doing. And when that happens, we make the mistake, at least I do sometimes, I make the mistake of confusing people with when God's working in my life and I have spiritual astigmatism, I confuse people with obstacles, and I can also confuse blessings with burdens. Now, some of you here are far more spiritually mature and have been far more faithful than I had ever been in my short time here on this earth, but that's what I struggle with. Because I am a I'm I'm a part of a generation where I can get my order quickly. I go through the the the self-checking up because the lady behind sometimes I think they take too long. I can scan my own stuff and pay for it a lot faster. Now I don't even have to go to the store anymore. All I got to do is pull out my phone, get out my app, pick what I want, and pick the time I want it delivered to my house. I live in an instant result world. We demand immediate. We expect immediate. We think we can get this perfect clarity from God, and when we don't get it, well, maybe maybe my face weak. Maybe my little mustard seed faith isn't the size of a mustard. Maybe it's smaller. Maybe, maybe God's not listening to me. Maybe I don't have the the kind of faith that I need to have. We start second guessing ourselves. The same thing happens when you order something and then it gets there to your house and you open it up and you go, wait a minute, that's not my size. Did I mess my order up? Right? I can't tell you how many times Michelle can get frustrated with me because I order something and I quickly, I didn't look at the fine print, I didn't look at the right, right, you know, and next thing you know, the size is wrong. The shirt's too short, the pants are not long enough, whatever. But thankfully, you can return that stuff about as fast as you can get it. We ask for, we put our faith in, and then for some reason, there's this unbiblical expectation of instant. And in Mark chapter 8, starting in verse 22, we see that in many cases we need to allow things to progress before we get to what we are really asking for. Let's look at it. Mark 8, 22, starting in verse uh 22. And they came to Bethesda, and some people brought a man who was blind. And Jesus, and and they brought him to Jesus and begged him to touch him. By now in Jesus' ministry, they knew that that's all Jesus had to do. That he was he was that powerful, he was that, he had that kind of ability. Taking the man who was blind by the hand, he brought him out of the village. If you mark in your Bible, put your little dot out there because we're going to talk about that here in a minute. They brought him out of the village, and after spitting in his eyes, ugh, gross. After spitting in his eyes and laying on his hands, he asked him, Do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see people, for I see them like trees walking around. Jesus takes the man outside, spits on his eyes, and lays his hands on him. And sure enough, the man is able to have his vision back, but it's just a little distorted. I would submit to you this morning that your first step of faith is supposed to change our status, but it doesn't instantly change our maturity. You are saved. Faith. We talked about this the last couple of Sundays. How many times did Jesus tell someone, your faith is what saved you, your faith is what made you whole, your faith is what you or your um he tell or he tells the man who was lowered down by the roof, he tells his friends, you have great faith. Your faith, there's the saving power of that. You're saved, but you're still learning to see. Partial vision can be very frustrating. If you don't believe me, just ask Mike Clements next time you see him. We got a chance to go see Mike this weekend. And Mike said, I never thought, and I'm paraphrasing this, and this is not an exact quote, but he goes, I never thought that having this worked on would affect this up here. He goes, I've ever since I've had that surgery, my vision's been off. But yeah, I know he's but he said there's something, there's something that's taking place when all this stuff that is affecting my vision. Now I'm sure it will get better, or I'm sure he'll have to go see an optometer, or whatever, but it's just it's frustrating. But it's proof that God has started a good work in you. Here's the thing I want you to understand about this part of the lesson. Don't mistake or misunderstand a work in progress for a finished product. I don't care if you were baptized last Sunday or if you were baptized last century. Here's the news flash for you. You are still a work in progress. You are still in transition. You are, you, you, even though you were baptized in nineteen 70, whatever, or 60 or 50, you are still growing up in the Lord. You are still learning. You are still transitioning. You are still being developed. You are God, you are that picture from the Polaroid camera. And boy, God is just a fan in you, just working on you to come into development. That's why my preacher back in Highway 36, Michelle and I's minister, always said that Bible class should be the only class you never graduate from. I don't care if you're six or sixty, 9:30, you should be here for Bible class. You're going to learn some things. You're going to relearn some things. You're going to be reminded about some things. And through the Lord and the Holy Spirit and good Bible class teachers, you might just learn something new. Don't mistake a work in progress for a finished product. The other thing we need to understand about this is that developing, what does it mean to develop patience in those seasons of blurriness? Look again in verse 25. Then again, Jesus, he laid his hands on his eyes, and he looked intently, and he was restored and began to see everything clearly. Did you notice what Jesus didn't do? Jesus didn't say, Come back and see me in two weeks for another round. Jesus didn't say, Well, I spit in your eye this time. How about I just grab a handful of dirt and see what that does? Let's try something different. Did you notice that Jesus didn't say, Oh, I'm sorry? And and quite frankly, I'm sure many of us, I know I did this. My head was scratching. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Why didn't Jesus take care of it the first time? Did Jesus have a lapse in ability? Was the man's faith not strong enough to get himself healed the first time? What's the deal? And what why why do you have to spit in his eye, Lord? You can just put his, you know, just give him the right hand of redemption. Pow! Be healed. Or why don't you just say something? Snap your fingers. Do whatever you need to do. What is going on here? Why is this the only time that it takes two attempts or two what's the word I'm looking for? I can't think of it right now. It takes two attempts, two tries, two therapy sessions to get his vision restored and to be able to see clearly. Jesus doesn't apologize for this for this partial healing. He just simply puts his hands on his eyes a second time, and the man is seen clearly. What's the lesson in here for us? Well, turn for that, we're going to have to go to the Hebrews, the verse that was read this morning, that Don read for us, Hebrews 6. And verse 12 is part is part of where we get to this idea. Hebrews 12 reminds us that inheriting the promise requires some things. It requires both faith, but it also requires a little bit of patience. The dreaded P word. Verse 11 says, We desire that each one of you demonstrate the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end. Then if it gets to verse 12, so that you will not be sluggish. I'll tell you this right now. And if y'all want to put me on your prayer list or in your private prayer list or whatever, I can tell you right now, I have been dealing with sluggishness for about two and a half months now. I have had brain fog, low energy. And let me tell you something, I know that some of you think, well, you should have my problems. I believe me, I understand. But when you are known to have energy to spare, and then all of a sudden it you you feel like you could take a nap every day at the same time, I'm not liking that at all. And uh the the answers that I've been getting, I'm I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I'm still working on it. I don't want to be sluggish. I want to have a little pep in my step, a little pride in my stride. I want to be able to be able to get out and do stuff. I want to be able to talk to people, do my I just want to be able to work. But in order for that to not happen, I have to, not only that, I figure out what's going on, but according to Hebrews, you're not supposed to be sluggish, you're supposed to be imitators of those who through faith and what, church, say it with me, endurance inherited the promise. Does the word instantaneously ever pop up in this little paragraph here? No. In fact, it's quite the opposite of instant, isn't it? You've got to have a little patience, you got to have a little endurance, you've got to have, you got obviously you've got to have the faith. The space between the first touch of Christ and the second touch of Christ is where some of you might be right now. Let me tell you, that is where your endurance grows. Faith. Let me put it this way, maybe help, maybe help make a little more clear. Faith is what gets you to the table. Patience is what keeps you at the table until the meal is served. Endurance, not being sluggish, keeping on. Believe it or not, the good Lord is going to use every kind of season in order to get you from where you are to where he wants you to be. Don't believe the hype that God loves you just the way you are. That is very, very true. But the second part is even better. God loves you just the way you are, but he doesn't want you to stay that way. He wants you to grow. He wants you to be better through repentance and understanding salvation and surrender. He wants you to become the 2.3.0 of what you were before. God will use those blurry seasons in your life to teach us some things. And I would say the one thing we need to, I need to learn, and I'm about you, is to trust his hands when we cannot see his plans. I know many of us have gone through this. Well, I don't know what the Lord's Lord's doing something. I just can't, I just can't see it. Well, maybe you're not supposed to. Because if you were to see it, you might go, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. And you might want to, you might be tempted to pull a Jonah and turn around and go the other way. Instead, he works your vision into a place where you can see some things, and you go, well, okay, that's not too bad. That's not too bad. And then finally, when it comes clear, you're like, got it, and I'm ready. The next part about this is another lesson that some of them might go, well, preacher man, I think you're stretching it a little bit. But bear with me. There's a method to my madness here. Look at verse 26 of Matt, go back to Mark chapter 8. Look at verse 26. So the second attempt, the second part of the healing took place, and the man can see clearly. What's the first thing that Jesus tells him to do? He says, See, he sends, he says, I want you to go home and do not even enter the village. Now, that is kind of funny for Jesus to tell a blind man to go home. How does he know where to go? You know, but that's not the point. The point is that Jesus sent him home, but he didn't tell him, he said, but don't go through the village. Now, many times we have read in that Jesus does something fantastic, miraculous, and he tells them to do something similar. Don't tell nobody. Don't mention this. You know, almost to the point with I wasn't even here. You're right, you know, this is the same, and many people will say this is the same concept. The Jesus at a time in his ministry felt like he that it well, it wasn't the right time for his ministry to be just out there for everyone to know about. And normally it takes that takes place right at the beginning of a ministry. You know, you don't want to just unload everything all at once. But when you look at it from another point of view, you can see that Jesus sends the man home and he tells him not to go in the village. He commands him to avoid some things. If that blind man walked through the village to get to his house, how many times do you think he would have been stopped? How many times do you think there would have been fingers pointing? Whispers talking, somebody goes, hey man, what's the deal? How come you're not using your stick no more? Or how come you're not walking around like this no more? So many questions, so many responses, so many, what happens? But there's also this idea of distractions, skepticism. Maybe it could he could have been this idea of don't go to the village means don't go back the way you were, move forward and on to something new. Let those fresh eyes and those that or that fresh new established faith get up to something new. You don't have to be spending your time looking back. My daddy used to tell me, especially when I was driving the tractor, if you spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror while you're plowing the field, your lines are never going to be straight. Your rows are never going to be straight. Sometimes the things in our past can be distracting, they can be skeptical, they can be can be old patterns, old ways of doing things. Clear faith requires new dynamic boundaries. This blind man is seeing the world with a new pair of eyes and a new faith. And Jesus says, whatever you do, don't go back to the way you were. I'm starting something new. Once Jesus clarifies that you're clears up and clarifies your vision, you really can't go back to the environment that accommodated that blindness that you had. And I think sometimes I get guilty of that myself. I'm supposed to be a Christian where I am. That's true. But I'm not supposed to waller around in it. I'm not supposed to put all that old stuff back on. I'm supposed to show my faith proudly. We can learn a lot from this lesson that took two times to go to, that took two attempts to have to be made whole. I think the first thing we can learn from this lesson is this God is definitely a finisher. If your faith is blurry today, if you are waiting for an answer, looking for some healing, looking for some direction, waiting for a prayer to be fulfilled, you are simply know this, you are simply between the first and second touch of the Lord. Many times, this is where you might want to cross your legs and slide them underneath the pews. Many times it's been heard and prayed in congregations all throughout places, well, at least places I've been, Lord, increase our faith. Maybe that's been a prayer of yours. Maybe, just maybe, instead of asking for an increase of faith, maybe we need to be asking for a clarity of faith. Lord, clarify what I am already going through. What's the point in asking for an increase if you can't make out what you already got? The other side of that coin is that we need to stop panicking over walking trees. We need to start being worried that our faith is weak because something didn't go right. Just give your vision back to the master for that second touch. Many of us go and to the eye doctor. We always go, we got it, we we get a checkup every so often, right? And he and he puts that big, huge machine in front of your face, right? Any of you know what that machine's called? It's called a uh a pro a propter or a philopeter. It's a machine with multiple lenses, and he starts clicking them. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. And every so often he goes, better or worse, one or two, three or four. Is this clearer or is this clearer? I think God is constantly flipping the lenses in our lives. And sometimes we do get some blurry parts of the calibration. That's part of the process. That's part of the process to get us to where we want to have and what we need to have, and that's perfect focus. Um I'm sure many of you heard uh it's been said that uh this is a marathon, not a sprint. Many things don't happen overnight. Being becoming a Christian is the the the effect of or the idea of being reborn is a really a really good example for that. When you give your life to Christ, you are reborn and you can consider yourself a babe in Christ. There's no such thing as an instant Christian. Everybody's walk, everybody's path, everybody's challenges, the things they're going to Well, the things that they overcame to get to surrendering to Jesus and the things that uh they are going to continue to work through as they in their Christian walk is is going to be different for each person. The direction is still the same. The but the uh the goal is still the same. The place is still the same. But many paths of the Christian walk are what will have different obstacles when faith is being developed, just like the photograph, it's being developed with an anticipation. And that anticipation is we we know we know what we took the picture of. We were just waiting to see the development of that picture in order to have something to take with us and cherish. So there is some patience that needs to be applied in many of the challenges that take place when it comes to um our Christian walk and when it comes to um developing a a faith. I really do believe that maybe instead of I know I need to do this. I don't know about you, but when when I am thinking that I need to pray for an increase in faith, instead I need to be praying for a clarity of faith. Because I think that will go a long way for all of us in the end. Just want to remind you, you can contact me through email. My email address is preacherman1178 at gmail.com. That's preacherman1178 at gmail.com, and I would love to hear from you. Any questions or comments about the show? And uh next Sunday, like I said uh in the opening, next Sunday will be our senior Sunday. And we are going to take some time to not only uh honor, worship, and praise the Lord, but we're going to uh express our appreciation to our graduating seniors class of uh 2026. And we're going to have a lesson that will be not only for everyone to hear, but for everyone to be applying when it comes to this idea of a what does it mean to have a faithful foundation? And um if you remember from your Bible uh little kids' Bible class days, if you were the where you were a student or a teacher, if you remember the song uh The wise man built his house upon the rock, that will be the application that we will be applying, Lord willing, this coming Sunday. In the meantime, I'm gonna turn it back over to you. This is the Preacher Man signing off. Hope you have a blessed day. And always remember who you are and whose you are.