SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, good morning, Sacred Mission.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good to see this packed house full of people eager to worship God collectively, corporately this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We are, like Mike just said, in the Gospel of John again.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be parking in here for a lot of 2024 and having some breaks where we go in and out of different smaller series.
SPEAKER_00: But we're going to be finishing the Gospel of John this year.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning we're going to be covering verses 1 through 41.
SPEAKER_00: It's a ton of content.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want to say up front.
SPEAKER_00: I could probably preach like a half a dozen sermons out of one through 41, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not going to be able to go as deep on some of the details of the story and really elaborate on some of the points that I would love to.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to try to cover this well and hit one big main idea in the text.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we've seen throughout the Gospel of John is this that Jesus can a theme within the Gospel is that Jesus is the light, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the light comes and he shines in the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And there's these effects that happen because Jesus is shining his light into the darkness of our existence and our experience.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're going to see this morning is the full reality of what happens when Jesus shines his light.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see the effects of it and how it relates to the sovereignty of God in saving sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's going to be the main point that we're going to try to understand and walk through this morning in the story.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's dive right into the text.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at this, I kind of see the narrative in 1 through 41 in kind of three parts.
SPEAKER_00: In part one, we see the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: As we start to engage with the story, we see that Jesus is traveling and he sees a blind man, right?
SPEAKER_00: And there's something about the way that Jesus engages with this blind man.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about the blind man drawing the presence of the Savior toward himself.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus somehow engages with him in such a way that it causes his disciples to see how Jesus sees him, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to realize that this man had probably made a profession of begging.
SPEAKER_00: This was his whole life of being born blind.
SPEAKER_00: He really had no other opportunities but to be a beggar.
SPEAKER_00: And these type of people with inside that socioeconomic kind of class, right, they they were very disregarded.
SPEAKER_00: They were kind of pushed aside, discredited as a part of society.
SPEAKER_00: And so they were very burdensome on the culture.
SPEAKER_00: And so for Jesus to notice and to engage and to see the humanity, the image of God on this beggar, it's a way that the disciples take notice of it.
SPEAKER_00: And they start to engage as well.
SPEAKER_00: But the disciples do something very interesting because they don't engage with the blind man in the way that Jesus seems to, right?
SPEAKER_00: To recognize his humanity, to recognize the dignity and value and worth he intrinsically holds because he's an image bearer of God.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples actually show the culture's posture when they ask a question about the man instead of engaging with the man themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So they ask this question Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
SPEAKER_00: You see, the disciples don't even engage with the man.
SPEAKER_00: They ask a question about him as if he's some subject matter to be studied.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than he was a human being bearing the image of God, standing before them in desperate need.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples were drawing their question of this rabbi who sinned, him or his parents, that he would be born blind.
SPEAKER_00: They're drawing their question from traditions and customs that declared that the disability of a person was a consequence of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so they see this man born blind, and they can only assume, because of the traditions of which they're accustomed to, that the sin of this man or the sin of his parents had caused him to be in this state.
SPEAKER_00: Now they were right in some regard that the man's blindness was a result of sin, but they were wrong in assuming that it was a result of his or his parents' sin.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we have to come to terms with the reality that sin has pervaded all of our existence.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing with inside of creation that sin has not affected in ways that we can see, right?
SPEAKER_00: We can experience, we can engage with.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see the effect of sin in a disability of an individual.
SPEAKER_00: Disabilities exist because sin exists.
SPEAKER_00: We have to reconcile that reality.
SPEAKER_00: And that that the redemptive, restorative work of Jesus uh will one day culminate to such a degree that disabilities will be no more, right?
SPEAKER_00: When we are in the fullness of glory and Jesus has restored all things unto his kingdom, uh the the reality of even disability will be eradicated.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because sin had been fully dealt with.
SPEAKER_00: And so so Jesus helps his disciples understand this.
SPEAKER_00: That that the man's blindness is not because of his sin or because of his parents' sin, but it has a bigger purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says this it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
SPEAKER_00: Man, now that's a huge statement of what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's where we wrestle with, right?
SPEAKER_00: When we experience and we engage with the effect of sin in our lives, specifically in the effect of it being worked out in a disability of another person, we tend to ask this question of why?
SPEAKER_00: Why me?
SPEAKER_00: Why did this have to happen to me?
SPEAKER_00: Why did this have to happen in this way?
SPEAKER_00: What did I ever do to deserve these things?
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus is showing here in this in the way that he responds to his disciples is that every single aspect of our existence is through the lens and through the understanding of the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we could be tempted that the blind man's condition was somehow incidental because God was not active in his personhood and in an intimacy of knowing him and forming him in his mother's womb, right?
SPEAKER_00: We could assume that the condition was somehow incidental because God was removed from his circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: Or we could see it as punishment, the way that the disciples did, uh punishment for some type of personal sin that he engaged in or that his parents engaged in.
SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus shows us is that it was for God's glorifying purpose.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus was letting his disciples know is that the man's state was purposefully and sovereignly existing for the power of God to be put display in him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was going to display the power of God in this man so that those present would know that he is the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that when Jesus starts to engage with this blind man, the end result was so that those present would know that Jesus is the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was going to physically heal the man, but more than that, more than physically heal the man, he was going to heal this blind man of spiritual blindness.
SPEAKER_00: His eyes were going to be open, not just his physical ones, but the spiritual eyes of his heart were going to be open to be able to see Jesus as the Messiah who was promised to come.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus says, He says, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming, then no one can work.
SPEAKER_00: As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here's Jesus helping us understand why he's engaging with this blind man, what the hope-filled outcome is.
SPEAKER_00: And we see throughout the Gospels how Jesus is always kind of reminded, or he always brings into the forefront uh his coming death, right?
SPEAKER_00: The work of the cross that was before him, it gives Jesus a sense of urgency of mission.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of constantly see this throughout Jesus' life and ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this, Jesus bends down, spits in the dirt, takes the mud, he anoints the man's eyes, and he then tells the man to go and wash off the mud in the pool of Siloam.
SPEAKER_00: Now, after the man obeyed Jesus, the Bible says that he comes back seeing, right?
SPEAKER_00: So part one, the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, mud, eyes, wash it off, comes back, he physically is able to see.
SPEAKER_00: Part two, we see the interrogation.
SPEAKER_00: The interrogation.
SPEAKER_00: So when the man returned, his neighbors could not even recognize him, right?
SPEAKER_00: They don't even realize that let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that they don't realize this, that they have a hard time believing that this is actually the same blind beggar who they've known his whole life, right?
SPEAKER_00: And they argued among themselves if it was really him.
SPEAKER_00: And he asked the man to give an account for what had happened.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he said.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now listen carefully to his response.
SPEAKER_00: The man called Jesus, made mud and anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash.
SPEAKER_00: So I went and washed and received my sight.
SPEAKER_00: So how does he respond?
SPEAKER_00: The man called Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We see that here in this moment of the story, the man's eyes are physically open.
SPEAKER_00: He's able to see physically, but his spiritual eyesight is still blurry.
SPEAKER_00: We can see it in the very response of who in the world healed you?
SPEAKER_00: Who caused you to see?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was the man called Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see this reality of what we call progressive revelation throughout the text, right?
SPEAKER_00: So progressive revelation is this reality that throughout this kind of period of time we're able to see and understand more clearly the revelation and truth of God through this idea of progressive revelation, right?
SPEAKER_00: Through this period of time, things become clearer to us that we might truly see who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And we see right here, he can physically see, but his spiritual eyes are still pretty blurry.
SPEAKER_00: The man called Jesus, he's the one who healed me.
SPEAKER_00: So while the man's physical eyes have been open, spiritual sight was still blurry, and so then they bring the man before the Pharisees to validate the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: And we see the Pharisees become divided on the identity of Jesus and his authority to heal.
SPEAKER_00: Automatically they kind of separate into two different groups.
SPEAKER_00: There are some who say there's no way that this can be the Messiah, the one that we've expected to come, because he doesn't fit into our framework of tradition.
SPEAKER_00: What we understand about the law of Moses, about the customs of Jewish life, about the traditions of which we function in, he doesn't fit within that.
SPEAKER_00: So there's no way that this can be Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But then there's another group of them that say, okay, I hear that, I see that, but the dude just healed this man.
SPEAKER_00: This man who was born blind for his whole life now is able to see because of this man named Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So there's got to be something to that.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to pay attention to what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: They actually say, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?
SPEAKER_00: So we see the Pharisees divided.
SPEAKER_00: Who is Jesus and how does he have the authority to do these miracles?
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of their debate, they turn to the man again and they ask the man born blind who he believes Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And here's his second answer: He is a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: So we start to see what his spiritual eyesight starts to get a little bit more clear.
SPEAKER_00: He goes from, oh, the man called Jesus healed me.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's standing before the Pharisees and he's declaring Jesus to be a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And while the man's spiritual eyes are being opened, what we see is that the Pharisees remain in their blindness.
SPEAKER_00: They remain in their blindness.
SPEAKER_00: They're refusing to see who Jesus truly is.
SPEAKER_00: They seem to be at an impasse on the true identity of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So they bring the man's parents into the debate, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they find his parents, hey, you you gave birth to him blind from day one, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now he can see.
SPEAKER_00: What do you have to say about this?
SPEAKER_00: And the parents kind of refuse to engage in the whole interrogation, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because what they know is and what they've experienced is that already the Pharisees have been barring people from synagogue life if they started to claim that Jesus was a prophet, or especially if they claimed that he was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: So they would kind of excommunicate them from fellowship because these people were affirming Jesus to be the true Messiah who had prophecies of Old Testament scripture had said would come, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so they didn't want to engage in this.
SPEAKER_00: They were afraid of the repercussion if they were to say that, man, maybe Jesus is a prophet or maybe he is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he did for our son.
SPEAKER_00: And so they just simply go, Well, he's old enough, you can just ask him.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna stay out of this, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so the Pharisees call the man over again to continue their interrogation, and the conversation starts to get a little elevated as you can sense the frustration from the Pharisees working to reconcile the previously blind man standing before them and the image of Jesus they're holding so tightly to.
SPEAKER_00: So if we can try to enter into this tension for a moment, here's this man, blind from birth, standing in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: Several eyewitness accounts and testimonies are saying now he can see because of his engagement, his interaction with this man, Jesus, and then they're trying to reconcile this reality with their own perception and understanding of who they believe Jesus is: a hoax, a phony, a blasphemer.
SPEAKER_00: And so this tension starts to build, the frustration rises, and the height of it comes at the end of the discourse, where in a final power grab they say to the man, You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?
SPEAKER_00: And they cast him out.
SPEAKER_00: So they bar the man from the synagogue, from being a part of the Jewish community of which he had known, only known and identified with for his whole life, even a man born blind, still able to be counted as one of God's people, an Israelite, and here they are casting him out.
SPEAKER_00: They are done with the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And then part three of the story, we see the revelation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus got news of how the Pharisees treated this blind man, and it caused him to find out where he was.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way that Jesus comes near to those who need him.
SPEAKER_00: We see the compassion of Jesus for image bearers and for those of whom he has come to reveal himself to.
SPEAKER_00: When he finds the man, he asks him this question Do you believe in the Son of Man?
SPEAKER_00: The man shares his desire to see and know who the Messiah is, and Jesus reveals that it's that he's the one, he's the one that God's people have been waiting for.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, not only are the man's physical eyes seeing clearly, but so are his spiritual eyes, because this is his response.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: And he worshiped him.
SPEAKER_00: So this blind man goes from his physical eyes being open, stating that the man called Jesus was the one who healed me.
SPEAKER_00: When pressed, when interrogated, he says, Well, I believe he's a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And now here at the end of the story, he says, Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that you are the Messiah, the one who has promised to come, and his only natural response is to worship him.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus shined his light on him, the light of his glory shin on this man, and he was finally and truly able to see for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: He was enabled to see Jesus clearly, the Messiah who had come to redeem God's people.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not the only character in the story.
SPEAKER_00: We also have the Pharisees who at the end of this story are condemned and judged because they remain in their blindness.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want us to see this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The same light that gives sight causes blindness.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in this text, we've been made witness to the effect of Jesus shining his light in the world.
SPEAKER_00: He has emphatically declared himself to be the light of the world, and that light has caused a distinct effect on whom it is shined upon.
SPEAKER_00: For the man physically blind from birth, the light of Jesus has caused him to finally be able to see, not just physically.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about just the physical miracle of uh of the blind man, but that his eyes of his heart have been opened to be able to see Jesus for who he is and to respond in faithful worship of his name.
SPEAKER_00: You see, has made actual what was deemed impossible, a physical absence has been replaced with spiritual wholeness.
SPEAKER_00: The blind man's spiritual eyes were open to see who Jesus truly is.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in the progressive revelation that the man walks through in the narrative, right?
SPEAKER_00: He, like we said, he moves from the man called Jesus to a prophet and finally to the Son of Man, where at this sight he finally worships him.
SPEAKER_00: He worships him.
SPEAKER_00: For the man born blind, the effect of Jesus' light shining upon him was to truly be able to see, to be able to see Jesus for who he truly is, and by Jesus the Son, the man was then able to see all other things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus showed great mercy to this man, and by the mercy of his light, he gained the ability to see clearly.
SPEAKER_00: But this wasn't the case for all that were present to witness the miraculous event.
SPEAKER_00: There were those present who claimed to have already been able to see.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the this is what we we we witness within the text.
SPEAKER_00: John is setting up this whole thing so that we can walk away, understanding that the man born blind, he represents us.
SPEAKER_00: He represents the meek and humble in spirit who declare that they cannot see, that they are blind, who come to terms with their own inability to see clearly who God is and how he has come to save and rescue us in the person and work of his son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And for those people, what happens is that their eyes are open to be able to see.
SPEAKER_00: But in the narrative, there are those who the Pharisees specifically they already claim to be able to see.
SPEAKER_00: That they're not meek and humble, they're proud and arrogant.
SPEAKER_00: And they say, no, we are able to see, and this Jesus is not the one who we're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: And in their pride and in their arrogance, that light blinds them even more from being able to see.
SPEAKER_00: You see, they work to see Jesus through the lens of their traditions and customs to force the image of who Jesus is through their own interpretation of who they believed he should be.
SPEAKER_00: And as Jesus shined his light upon them, it caused them to remain in their blindness, unable to see him as the Messiah who has promised to come.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus executes justice.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus executes justice.
SPEAKER_00: He does so through the shining of his light.
SPEAKER_00: And that righteous justice caused these Pharisees to be unable to see.
SPEAKER_00: In the end, the man who was unable to see was given sight through the mercy of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: While the ones who claimed to be able to see were blinded by his justice.
SPEAKER_00: I believe this is what Jesus means in verse 39, where he says this.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the outcomes of his judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is communicating purpose in verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: You do you want to know why I came?
SPEAKER_00: I came to execute judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what we're going to see in the judgment of Jesus for his people.
SPEAKER_00: It works itself out in two different ways.
SPEAKER_00: One way is that it actually works itself out in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It works itself out in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is that we get what we don't deserve.
SPEAKER_00: We get positive what we don't deserve, because what we deserve is negative.
SPEAKER_00: We deserve God's justice and wrath.
SPEAKER_00: We deserve to remain in our blindness.
SPEAKER_00: But but see how he links those who are unable to see now can because of the judgment of which I come.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a leg of his judgment that works itself out in mercy, and then there's another leg of his judgment that works itself out in justice.
SPEAKER_00: We get what we deserve.
SPEAKER_00: That those who declare they can see will be made blind.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the radiant light of Jesus is able to illuminate the beauty of his person and work while also able to blind the proud and arrogant from seeing any beauty at all.
SPEAKER_00: The outcome is not based on the light itself, nor the receiver of the light, but it is on the sovereign giver of light.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is going to come in and he's going to shine his light.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want us to understand and comprehend this morning is that when Jesus shines his light, it accomplishes its intended outcome.
SPEAKER_00: Every time.
SPEAKER_00: But if he comes in his justice against the proud and the arrogant, his outcome is that you will be blinded.
SPEAKER_00: That same light blinds us from being able to see any beauty at all.
SPEAKER_00: And we remain in the darkness of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we find ourselves in a cultural time where many claim to see the light.
SPEAKER_00: Who can see most clearly all that is good and beautiful, true and just.
SPEAKER_00: And day after day, the next person is coming forward and saying, no, no, I see this more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Or next day, somebody else comes up and says, No, I can see clearer than they could.
SPEAKER_00: And now look at what this looks like, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so we claim to be able to see beauty, goodness, and truth, right?
SPEAKER_00: We claim to be able to see virtue without any distortion or haze.
SPEAKER_00: That now more than ever we can see what love, justice, virtue, identity, wholeness all look like.
SPEAKER_00: And more boastful than that, we claim to be able to see Jesus more clearly than we ever have also.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something very dangerous in what we are swimming in, these cultural currents.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us we claim to see through the eyes of enlightenment.
SPEAKER_00: We claim to see through the eyes of enlightenment.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we believe that our ability to see is rooted in our own cultural pursuit of enlightenment.
SPEAKER_00: That we've progressed in our knowledge and insight to such a degree that it's actually given us the ability to see things more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Take any cultural subject, whether it be uh uh uh justice, right, whether it be equality, whether it be identity of personhood, gender, and sexuality, what truth is.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're all pointing to is our own cultural progress of where how far we've come, that now this gives us the ability to see all of these things more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: That all that is good and beautiful in the world can and should be seen through the light of our own cultural accomplishments.
SPEAKER_00: And by this, by this, the the most dangerous part is that now we're claiming to be able to see Jesus more clearly also.
SPEAKER_00: But if we investigate it closer, we actually don't allow Jesus to be seen for who he truly is, who he has revealed himself to be through his word.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the obligation of us.
SPEAKER_00: The obligation of us is that we submit to how God has revealed himself to be through the authority of his word.
SPEAKER_00: We have to take our own uh uh conscience, right?
SPEAKER_00: We have to take our own perception, our own understanding, and we have to work to submit it to who God has said that he is, who Jesus has revealed himself to be through the authority of his word.
SPEAKER_00: If we fail to do that, if we don't do that, then all we're doing is we're fabricating out of our own efforts a false God in our own likeness.
SPEAKER_00: Because at this point in time, whatever we declare goodness and beauty and truth and love and justice and virtue and all these things, whatever we declare them to be, what we're going to do is we're gonna force mold this image of who we think Jesus should be also.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna have to fit into that.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we instead make Jesus to appear in the likeness of our own enlightenment.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see this, because here's here's what happens with this radical, uh unbiblical perception of inclusiveness that is in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus become?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus becomes this all-affirming, all-inclusive, everything's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about anything calling it sin or labeling it sin or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is just going to be as inclusive as our cultural enlightenment perception of it.
SPEAKER_00: So, do you see how we're making Jesus be who he's not because we're forcing him through the lens of what we're able, what we're claiming to be able to see ourselves?
SPEAKER_00: But as we understand, as we work to understand this better, we see that what culture calls Jesus is in fact no Jesus at all.
SPEAKER_00: It's a God of their own making, molded and sculpted to reflect their own ideologies so that they can be comforted by its empty affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we make Jesus this false God, this other uh person?
SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately we simply want to be affirmed in our own ideologies and perceptions.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be comforted, we want to have our consciences sedated.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be held accountable, we don't want to have to change, we don't want to have to submit to authority greater than us.
SPEAKER_00: We want to hold control and power, and ultimately, we don't want to be convicted.
SPEAKER_00: And so we make Jesus become who we desire him to be.
SPEAKER_00: The light that they claim to have is actually the darkness of man's knowledge and wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Bible says throughout the whole story arc of scripture that man's pursuit of their own understanding, their own insight drives them into deeper darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Whenever man tries to understand God through his own ability and authority, what do we get?
SPEAKER_00: We get a golden calf rested on a rock that we're that we worship.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're not gonna come out the other side of this with the beauty and glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to.
SPEAKER_00: It's a despairing gloom in which the blind lead the blind further into the dark.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 4, 17 through 18 says this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in what?
SPEAKER_00: In the futility of their minds.
SPEAKER_00: They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul is trying to plead with the Ephesians, don't walk in this former way of life.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because their end is darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're trying to understand God.
SPEAKER_00: How do we get Greek uh uh polytheism, right?
SPEAKER_00: How do we get all these different temples filled with false gods that that they were because this is what the outcome of man's pursuit of knowledge and understanding leads us to.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's calling them away from that.
SPEAKER_00: No, you've been given the light, the revelation of who God is and the person and work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You you've known this and you've come to faith in this gospel, this finished work of Christ, that he died for our sin, was buried, and raised again.
SPEAKER_00: You need to step away from that former life of which you were once a part of because it's gonna lead you back into the darkness of which Christ delivered you out of.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, we claim to see through the eyes of tradition.
SPEAKER_00: We claim to see through the eyes of tradition.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a lot when we when we look at the religions of this world and even the the kind of um cult sects of Christianity, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, and so forth like this, what we're seeing is that Jesus is forced, his image of ability to see who he is, is forced through this lens of tradition.
SPEAKER_00: And so even the major religions of the world, like uh Muslim and Judaism, they can't reject the historical person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They can't do that, right, with any confidence.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They look at their tradition, they look at their custom, and they force Jesus through that lens.
SPEAKER_00: Their ability to see him is through that lens.
SPEAKER_00: And so he might just be a good moral teacher, he might be a prophet, he might be something else, but he's not the savior, he's not the messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And so they try to force their understanding of who Jesus is through a lens of tradition and custom rather than allowing the scriptures to reveal the beauty and goodness of who Jesus truly is.
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't just limited to uh the major religions of the world or the cult Christian sects uh throughout society.
SPEAKER_00: We see this even within the church.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we believe, many of us, that tradition and religious customs enable us to see Jesus more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Yet, like the culture, we fail to allow Jesus to reveal who he truly is by the authority of his word.
SPEAKER_00: We judge and even condemn certain moves of God, expressions of his church, or other theological perspectives, because we claim that our sight enables us to see that this could not be Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this is gonna happen a lot in our camp, right?
SPEAKER_00: In the Reformed camp where we love robust theology, where we dive deep into all these theological principles.
SPEAKER_00: What are we training ourselves to do?
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, too often we're training ourselves to look at the other expressions of the body of Christ with condemnation and judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That can't be Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That can't be Jesus working and moving in their midst because that Jesus doesn't fit into my framework of tradition and custom.
SPEAKER_00: You would be shocked at how much we don't see, how we fail to see Jesus clearly because we're looking at him through the lens of our own theological tradition.
SPEAKER_00: You see, a lot of us were like the Pharisees in the story who claimed to be able to see Jesus, but they were actually viewing a distorted version of him through the lens of their customs and their traditions.
SPEAKER_00: We forced Jesus to fit into our own understanding rather than our understanding to work to fit the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We often proclaim with the Pharisees, He cannot be.
SPEAKER_00: And this fosters a sense of pride and arrogance in us, where we effectively divide the body of Christ rather than strive for her unity.
SPEAKER_00: We're prone to doing this in our own camp.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, we often believe that we see Jesus most clearly better than any other theological tradition out there, better than any other expression of the church.
SPEAKER_00: We are the ones who see Jesus most clearly.
SPEAKER_00: And our sight is not impaired like these other theological traditions around us.
SPEAKER_00: Yet honestly, church, I believe that in many ways we are blinded and we fail to see all of Jesus' beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Man, the the the beauty of the charismatic tradition.
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you they see Jesus differently than we do?
SPEAKER_00: Wildly enough, they actually believe Jesus can do miracles.
SPEAKER_00: They believe Jesus can work wonders.
SPEAKER_00: Their faith shames ours for what they truly believe Jesus can and desires to do.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we sit here with blurry vision and often, too often condemn and judge the beauty that they see Jesus with.
SPEAKER_00: And you can go through the Eastern Orthodox camp, you can go through the Presbyterian tradition, the Baptist, you go down the list, and here's what we realize.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to have discernment?
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to have a sense of ability to judge truth from error?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: But do we often need to hold a position of humility?
SPEAKER_00: Where we have to claim to some degree we're seeing with blurry vision, and we're trying to see Jesus through our own traditions and customs, our own definitions of who he should be according to our theological principle, and it's causing us to see him a little blurry at times, and then we just dismiss or outright condemn the beauty that they see him through.
SPEAKER_00: To see him in all of his beauty, to see him for who he has revealed himself to be.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus warned the Pharisees of his day of the danger before them if they persisted in seeing Jesus only through their own traditions and customs.
SPEAKER_00: He says this in Matthew 15, 14.
SPEAKER_00: Let them alone.
SPEAKER_00: They are blind guides.
SPEAKER_00: And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.
SPEAKER_00: And man, I'm seeing this so much with inside of the evangelical world today.
SPEAKER_00: Where we're just chucking bombs at each other and we're we're publicly shaming and calling out faithful men and women who love Jesus and love his word and desire to be as faithful to him as they possibly can.
SPEAKER_00: We're just out here condemning and judging, and it's just causing all this division with inside the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's shameful.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe there's so many men, leaders with inside the church today that are blind guides, and there's young men, young, formidable men and women that are just following them into this pit of destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Without the light of Jesus shining upon us, church, we would never see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want us to get.
SPEAKER_00: We would never see Jesus through our own personal enlightenment.
SPEAKER_00: We would never see Jesus through the lens of our traditions and customs.
SPEAKER_00: We would never see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We would simply see an idol made in our own image.
SPEAKER_00: We would be left in darkness, claiming to see, but in the end only able to see the false creations and perceptions of who we claim Jesus to be.
SPEAKER_00: We are the blind beggars who rest solely on the mercy of Jesus to open our eyes so that we can see.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our hope.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus mercifully causes the blind to see him.
SPEAKER_00: While we should rightly be in awe and wonder of Jesus causing the blind man to physically see, we must be in even greater awe that Jesus caused him to see him.
SPEAKER_00: That in the end of all this, the blind man just didn't gain back his physical sight.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the story, he falls down and worships Jesus because he sees him.
SPEAKER_00: He sees him as Lord, Messiah, King.
SPEAKER_00: You see, to see him as the Son of Man, to see him as the Messiah had come to save his people from their sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is the greater miracle.
SPEAKER_00: This is the power of God demonstrated in this blind beggar.
SPEAKER_00: This is the greater love that Jesus could show to his people, to have the scales removed from our eyes so that we can clearly and vividly see him.
SPEAKER_00: And all of this is a sovereign work of Jesus' hand.
SPEAKER_00: It's the sovereign work of Jesus in us.
SPEAKER_00: How have we been able to see?
SPEAKER_00: If you're here this morning and you say, I see Jesus, I see him as Lord, as Messiah, as King, as Savior of my soul, how are you sitting here able to make that claim?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus in his mercy opened your eyes and caused you to be able to see.
SPEAKER_00: That's how our boast is in him.
SPEAKER_00: All that we could claim to have or to behold, it is in him alone.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_00: In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: But this is our story.
SPEAKER_00: For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How have we been pulled out of darkness and into light?
SPEAKER_00: How have we been brought out of the enslavement of our sin into the liberty and freedom of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Because the sovereign light of God shined in our hearts that we could see for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge of Jesus comes through the revelation of his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But apart from God, that knowledge has been veiled to us, unable to see it clearly, because the God of this world has blinded our minds.
SPEAKER_00: But for us in Christ, God has shown his light in our hearts, causing us to be able to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Church, we don't see because of our own spiritual journey of enlightenment, nor do we see because of our own adherence to traditions and customs.
SPEAKER_00: We see because he has made us see.
SPEAKER_00: The effect of the light on us is based on the sovereign will of the one shining it.
SPEAKER_00: And so our ability to see can only find its boast in Jesus, who mercifully causes blind men to see him.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want us to do walking away from this.
SPEAKER_00: My hope is that we would see him and that we would help others see him also.
SPEAKER_00: My prayer for us as a church is that we would never cease from striving to see the fullness of the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that that this is what heaven's about, right?
SPEAKER_00: What makes heaven exciting?
SPEAKER_00: What makes heaven not boring?
SPEAKER_00: Just some weird uh baby angel in a diaper playing a harp on a cloud, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not that's not exciting to me.
SPEAKER_00: It might be for you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what makes my thought of Jesus and eternity exciting is that I will be unable to exhaust my effort of seeing the fullness of his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that pursuit for all of eternity?
SPEAKER_00: To to try and exhaust our ability to see the fullness of his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: That that's that's heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We won't be able to.
SPEAKER_00: We will continually chase down to see his glory for all that it is.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that we won't allow the culture or our own tradition to obscure the image of who he truly is, who he has revealed himself to be through the authority of his word, that our picture of Jesus is ever being refined as we allow the Spirit to continue to open our eyes to a part of him that we've previously failed to see before.
SPEAKER_00: And I hopeful, I hope we joyfully call others to come and see him also, to paint for them a portrait of who he truly is through both our word and work, that they would be overwhelmed in the awe of his goodness and beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Church, may we see him, may that be our endeavor, and may we call others to come and see him also.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.