hi i'm pastor scott pastor of the oasis church listen we are so excited that you decide to join us for the preaching and teaching of god's word we just pray that this will stir your affections towards christ but we have one encouragement we want to leave you with please do not allow this to take the place of the local body of believers we pray that you will be involved in a local congregation a local church that you can find yourself submitting under the eldership and the leadership of a local church we pray that you will find yourself stirred towards christ and that your joy in christ will be ever increasing enjoy
well happy father's day church it's good to see men gathered at church so good i just wanted to start this morning and just kind of think about our dads the dads that we had as far as human fathers but also the spiritual dads that god has blessed so many of us with guys we live in a culture that that looks down on men we're in an odd age where masculinity and especially biblical masculinity is being decried as patriarchal tyrannical and yet biblical masculinity is about men who are so steeped in god's word are so close to the father's heart that their compassion and their love and their leadership grows up churches grows up nations grows up families that are just wrapped in the heart of god himself we need godly dads amen amen we need them and here's the deal some of you guys are here this morning like man i'm like 18 or 20 or 25 i don't have a wife yet and we're gonna talk about fathers we get this paul says in his letter to the corinthians i became your father in the faith and so fatherhood is not just for biological parents it's for men who raise up disciples in the lord amen fatherhood is a guy thing not just a dad thing but gosh do we love our dads especially dads who raised their children up in the lord some fathers come to christ later in their life and they look back on their lives and say man i wished i could have been the dad who demonstrated the character of god and my kids guess what that can happen today that journey starts right now some of you guys are praying about children and praying about raising up little babies and that should be your prayer today lord make me a father who can raise my children up in the word
i have an optimistic view of the future despite everything that we've seen in our country despite everything we've seen over the last 100 years 50 years i have an optimistic view do you want to know why because according to barna christians evangelical christians people who love jesus are having children at a rate of three to one to all the other world views it's amazing we love our kids amen which means where there are godly moms and godly dads and a slew of godly children you are looking at the creation of worshipers who break chains in a world that needs chains broken that gives me so much optimism that means in the next generation we will have three times as many baby christians being raised up by godly parents that should give us hope and that should get us on our knees but it's also a call to every man in this room to rise up puff up your chest and say i want to be a dad amen whether that means i'm discipling the guy next to me or the new person who just came to church or whether it means i'm becoming a better husband or whether it means i am going to just get on my knees and beg the lord for the hearts of my kids we are called to fatherhood so here's what i want to do this morning just because this is so near and dear to our faith fatherhood's not an option in the christian faith i want us to pray and earnestly pray for every single man in this room that god would empower your lives and ministries for his glory that you'd be a spiritual death and then i want to pray for every single one of our dads who have children that you would become the father god has called you to be and you're not going to do that on your own by the way you're going to feel like a failure you're going to have to lean into the power of the spirit and repentance and prayer but i'm praying that god would empower your relationship with your children so that they can see god and then some of us have got absolutely horrific relationships with our dads and i'm praying forgiveness for you this morning that god would break the chains of resentment and you would know that god is your father and he's good no matter what your earthly dad may have done to you the father in heaven is not your earthly dad he's perfect he's good he is the healer let's pray father
we need your guidance we need your word we need you to invade our hearts and show us who you are lord this room is full of men who have come here this morning to sit underneath the teaching of your word and my prayer for them father is that you would mature their faith that they may become father figures in the faith to other men that they would grow to love you and desire you more than anything and that they would communicate your truth to other men in this room so they can grow strong as ecclesiastes says where there are three gathered that is a strong bond that cannot be broken or bring us together as men that we might grow one another and become fathers
lord you've blessed our church with children you've blessed our church with young families that are raising up children we pray for the salvation of every single one of those babies every single one of those kids and would you use their parents to raise them up in your ways god i just pray that a a baby boy and a baby girl would get to sit with mom and dad and profess faith in your name and that just the joy of watching children come to salvation would be the gift and the blessing you give to their parents lord we pray for all of our children would you save them lord i pray for our dads would you empower their ministry in the home call them into a quiet time have them kneel at your throne so they might serve as servant leaders who will lay down their lives for mom and the kids that they would teach their children your words and lord i also asked just for the tenderness of our hearts this morning that if we're sitting here and we just think man i'll take god but my dad can go jump off a cliff lord would you begin to heal and give us the heart of forgiveness remind us of the gospel that while we were yet sinners christ died for us lord i'll never forget the day i i just it dawned on me my dad's a sinner too and he needs you as much as i need you
lord we also just pray for peace and comfort some of us this is our first sunday without our dad and it hurts it hurts so bad lord god would you help us just grieve and remember them with joy
shore up our hearts jesus my name we pray these things amen yeah we want to be a church that is passionate about dads passionate moms passionate about parenting passion about our kids and in order to do that we got to study the bible and get equipped ephesians chapter 4 says that the reason we gather here the reason why you have pastors and elders is so that they can equip you for the work of ministry and so our hope this morning is as we dive into the word god would change your heart and transform you into the the parent the father the mom that you're supposed to be the kid the student the worker that your life would be conformed to christ so let's talk about we're in mark chapter if you want to open your bibles remark chapter 8 verses 22 through 26 and today we're going to get into an amazing shift mark is going to begin to change the tone of his narrative with jesus up until this point jesus has been performing miracles casting out demons healing people left and right i mean he's literally getting mobbed everywhere he goes he is the popular new teacher on the block all that is changing um and last week when you were here scott taught about how the pharisees came and challenged him demanded a sign from him the the disciples were confused the crowds were demanding healings and what we're going to see is that in real time in real time we're going to watch jesus be rejected by the pharisees the crowds and we're going to watch the confusion of his disciples and he said but wait a minute seth all these people are coming to jesus don't they want jesus aren't they asking jesus for all these signs only tell me until they believe in him and unfortunately the reality is they just don't they want jesus's stuff but they have unrepentant hearts and we'll look at that in just a second so we're going to see a shift moving on out of mark chapter 8 jesus is going to begin to turn his face towards jerusalem we're about two pit stops away he's going to go up to caesarea philippi and then he's going to turn he'll start heading south towards the cross his ministry is about to take a turn and so he's come he's established his spiritual dominion he's cast back the darkness and yet what john chapter 3 says is starting to be revealed to be true that men love the darkness more than they love the light we love god's stuff but do we love god himself the crowds are saying we don't know
so here we go mark chapter 8 verse 22. they came to desaida and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him and he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him he asked him do you see anything and he looked up and said i see people but they look like trees walking then jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly and he sent him to his home saying do not even enter the village i want to give you a very clear path on where we're heading this morning this is our main point this is the thing that we are going to focus on today that jesus gives sight that jesus is the one that if jesus does not invade our world jesus uses the healing of the blind man to illustrate how he opens the eyes of the hearts of men how he opens men's hearts to faith and so this is a weird healing it's weird there's some questions we've got to unpack so here's what we're going to do first we want to ask this question what does this healing demonstrate about jesus's character in ministry what sort of ministry does jesus even run and what are the characteristics of god and how he addresses people in ministry second is this what's up with the two-part healing that's weird if you've been reading in the reading plan i can't imagine anyone got to this uh passage and was like jesus you've like spoken and miracles have happened across the country why do you why is this guy getting a half healing what's going on is this something deficient in jesus is he is he not god what is going on is god restrained what is going on here we're going to answer that question because he answered that question it just it's so beautiful and so complicatedly wonderful god is an amazing author my my goal today is that by the time we answer that question you're going to say god is the best author in all of existence because this is just him showing off with literary flourishing it is just amazing we'll get there we'll answer that question and then we're going to land the plane here if jesus does not invade my world if jesus does not open my eyes i will never understand who god is and i will never have faith if god does not open my eyes if he does not invade my world and give me understanding i will not have salvation i will not have understanding of who god is i have to have my mind illuminated and so we're going to talk about this doctrine of illumination which look it sounds boring that you're going to love this it's going to just open your heart to how intimate god has been in your salvation if you thought god was far off and you found god you're going to guess again by the end of today god came and got near to you opened your eyes and showed you who jesus was it's going to be good so here we go let's start with this uh verse 22 and they came to bethsaida we need to do just a little bit of work with bethsaida because this is the hometown of peter andrew and philip and so this is where all the way back in chapter one you'll remember jesus comes and he heals peter's mom right raise her up she starts serving this is one of the three towns that jesus kind of makes his home base and his ministry to galilee and so you've got corazon you've got kaepernick and you've got bethsaida and so bethsaida is a place that is very very familiar to jesus but this is not like a happy reunion with bethsaida you'll remember he was just teaching in another town the pharisees come in they say hey we want to sign we're going to contend with you we're going to argue with you we're trying to catch you at this point the pharisees are not trying to figure out who he is they're just they're trying to discredit who he is so they understand his claims and in the other gospels at this point they've already tried to stone him for saying that he is one with god and they and jesus says in john chapter 10 why are you trying to kill me and they say we're not trying to kill you because you did anything good but because you're blaspheming the pharisees believe jesus is committing blasphemy they're saying jesus we heard you say it and it's super clear to us you're trying to say you are god that's the theological truth that the pharisees get so if you're ever contending with someone and they say hey no one in the new testament actually thought jesus was god so the pharisees did and they had him killed they'll get him betrayed and murdered because they absolutely 100 understood what he was trying to say but they couldn't perceive who he actually was every town that say that quartz and capital they all have rejected jesus in their hearts they've received christ in his miracles but they've rejected him in their hearts and so just a few weeks before if we'll look at like matthew chapter 11 just for a moment i'm going to switch over i want you to read what jesus said just a few weeks before this moment it says in chapter 20 chapter 11 verse 20 says then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent woe to you corazon woe to you bethsaida for if the mighty works done in you had been done in tear and sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes but i tell you it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for tear and simon than for you and you kaepernom you will be exalted to heaven you will be brought down to hades for if the mighty works done in you had been done in sodom it would have remained until this day but i tell you it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of sodom than for you man that's heavy heavy-handed cursing this is not a message of blessing you might even ask the question jesus what are you doing i thought your ministry was to come in and bless the nation of israel aren't you supposed to be elevating these towns aren't you supposed to be wrenching them from the clutches of rome and making them once again a national geopolitical force in the world how in the world are you going to condemn your own people to a greater destruction than places like sodom and if you remember in genesis that was a fire ball of a destruction the lord rained on fire and ash on that city and destroyed it so that the whole region was uninhabitable and jesus says if i showed up there and did the miracles i did in front of you they all would have dropped to their knees and worshipped me they would have repented this is how hard-hearted the hearts of israel are as they're looking at jesus which begs the question what are they missing what do they not have that they need how can they see jesus and yet not see jesus how can they hear jesus and yet not understand jesus and that's what this passage begins to unpack
what we get next you may say seth why are you taking so much time on bethsaida because there's a man of satan who can't see and jesus has already cursed his town and yet jesus is going to perform a merciful gracious foreshadowing miracle on this man he's going to use this man to demonstrate to his disciples what they actually need and what he's actually going to do let's look at this this is our first point i want us to just zoom in on jesus's character jesus is not a god of distance but of nearness he is a god who draws near not just a god of words but of god of touch look at how the story begins and they came to bethsaida and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him begged jesus to touch this guy now this gives us some insight to what jesus's healing ministry would have looked like so if you were following jesus around and watching him heal you would have seen him laying his hands on people as he healed them we've got so many just really cool examples of so let's just do a quick survey let's run back to mark chapter one and in mark chapter 1 verse 31 you've got jesus and peter's mom what happens he goes into her and it says he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her and she began to serve him perfectly healed but jesus reaches in and takes her hand and lifts her up verse 41 a leper runs up to jesus and says that moved with pity he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him i will be clean heals this leper perfectly takes away his leprosy but he reaches out and touches the man when you skip over to chapter 5 um verse 27 says that this lady had heard the reports about jesus so it's word is catching on when jesus shows up he starts touching people and all of a sudden the diseases that were incurable go away they they get perfectly healed and so verse 27 in chapter five says she had heard the reports about jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment and it says she was made well she says for even if i touch even his garments i will be made well and immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease now get this i want you to understand this there's nothing there is nothing in the touch that produces the miracle nothing at all and that's one of the misnomers it's not there's nothing special about jesus in that power doesn't just flow out from him because you get into contact with jesus the reason you get healed is because jesus has directed his power to heal you that's right so why is he touching people we find out with the woman he's not content to let her get healed without what a conversation the reason jesus touches people when he heals him is because he wants to be near to them this is an act of intimacy between god and his creation this is an act of love it's an act of mercy it's an act of i see you for who you are i'm not looking at you as a number to be checked off on my ministry i want to touch you and acknowledge you and personally heal you i'm not interested in just my fame and my co in fact most of the time jesus would tell these people be quiet stop telling people about me there's an intimacy with jesus in his healings in fact the whole crowd catches on to this and so by chapter 5 verse 41 um william 41 this is amazing he goes and on his way he finally gets to the little girl who had died and listen to this taking her by the hand he said to her talitha kumi which means little girl i say to you arise man i just sometimes we've got to pause and just meditate on how intimate jesus was in his ministry because this is something we long for is it not amen i mean religion paints a god who's way out there and a lot of religions paint that god is having a magnifying glass and he's kind of aiming it around the world and just wrathfully getting people into trouble
but jesus is a god who comes absolutely as close to you as you can get and then reaches straight into your heart and opens your eyes he's a god who's near in chapter seven we're gonna get and we'll we'll swing back around this guy because he's really really important with our story um but in chapter seven there's a deaf man and in verse 32 it says they brought him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and they begged him to lay his hand on it sounds very similar to the story we're reading now these are parallel stories we're going to need both of these and take him aside from the crowd privately he put his fingers into his ears and after spitting touched his tongue and looking up to heaven he sighed and said f that is be opened and his ears were opened his tongue was released and he spoke plainly this is a god of nearness man someone needs to hear that this morning because some of us in this room think god is just putting up with us that he saved us on the cross but if he if god were actually to look at you he would frown listen to me god did not send his son to the cross pay for your life with the blood of his son so that he could scowl at you that's not what our god does he's a god who's near a god who loves his children he's a compassionate merciful god and we see jesus demonstrating those characteristics right here touch is a it's a social norm both then and now we know this there's there's so many different ways that you could use touch and so like i make uh peace treaties with people all the time just by walking up and shaking their hands we are not at war we can be friends don't punch me right like we give someone a quick hug in some cultures there's a quest a quick kiss on the cheek these are ways that we employ touch to demonstrate nearness compassion friendship but there's other ways we can use touch too right when the bully comes at the kid and he finally shoves back we can use touch to create division in divines touch can be violent and can break a part relationship both these things can be true touch can be used in a physically aggressive way that can be just and unjust in fact we'll see this with christ he's going to go early on in his ministry into the temple and everyone's selling all these animals making a absolute money laundering business around worship and it says that jesus takes a whip and drives the people and the animals out together jesus is going to show us both the just and the loving use of touch but he's also going to show us the third way because there's a way i can receive a blow from someone else and create nearness to you jesus will say this greater love has no man and that he lays down his life for his friends when jesus goes to the cross he takes the wrathful vengeful touch of god that you deserved so that he might draw near to you he pays your price he takes that which was vengeful rightfully vengeful you deserve it and he says you place that stripe on my back so that i can draw near and heal the hearts of my kids this is the beauty of the gospel that jesus sits right in the middle he is our defender he is our advocate he is our justifier he's the one who took the stripes on our behalf so that we might draw near an intimacy to god and i just want you to hear that this morning god wants to have an intimate close relationship with you this is what we see throughout the gospels what we see throughout jesus's ministry let's just let's dive in even closer because this is it's so good in fact as i even think about this like first email 10 26 just past your mind that saul went to his house in libya and the noble men whom god had touched their hearts went with him the hearts of the men that god touched went with saul back to his house i hope god touches our hearts this morning this brings us to our second point we got to dive into the miracle itself right so we we can witness throughout mark god is a god who is near all right jesus is a near savior now what is he doing what is happening in this verse so here's our next point the master storyteller shows us what coming to faith is like guys i can't even tell you how long i just labored trying to find a like way to put this into one sentence what we're about to look at is so beautiful and so like transcendentally complicated and yet so simple at the exact same time something you have to understand about god is that he is telling us a story nothing jesus did was done without a purpose and so when he heals people there are two things happening one the person's getting healed great day for that person right amazing but he's doing something else he's demonstrating that he's god he's also doing something else he's pushing back what deuteronomy calls the curse of sin and so he is absolutely fulfilling multiple things at once every time he does a miracle demonstrating his divinity pushing back the curses that god promised would come upon unrepented israel all the way back in the old covenant he's fulfilling the law he's doing it all he's demonstrating his messiahship he's also forecasting that he's come to save israel that he's come to save his people
so now we get to see the glorious beautiful writing of god so first let's just let's look at it let's look at the miracle and then we'll see how this plays into god's redemptive history it says he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him he asked him do you see anything the man looked up and said i see people but they look like trees walking then jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes his sight was restored he saw everything clearly and he sent him to his home saying do not even enter the village so let's ask the first question what's up with the spit the spit super random in fact as i read this as a as a 21st century like american i'm like bro anyone spitting and touching me is just not okay like that's like from me to you don't do that like i'm drawing my boundary don't spit on me what is jesus doing why is why is he doing this because back in chapter seven he did it to the deaf mute guy as well he spit on his hands and then touched the guy's tongue and the guy's mouth was able to speak it's really interesting jesus doing something here he is taking a common medical practice in 1st century a.d so if you were to hang out in greece or rome or judeo or in jerusalem and you had something wrong with your eyes let's say you were or even have like a cut on your arm or something wrong with your ears one of the things that they might do is create like a cell a type of medical paste rub it on the wound one of the thoughts in their culture was if you got someone who is righteous they could they could apply some of their spit to the south and it might have healing properties and so again this is this is random this doesn't come from the old testament this comes from a cultural norm of this time it would be very similar to say you walking into the doctor's office and the doctor walking in wearing a white coat white coat doesn't make you any better the stethoscope around his neck doesn't do anything unless it's employed there's just a cultural norm if i go to the doctor and you show up in board shorts i'm gonna ask for another doctor thanks man i'm looking for the guy in the white coat i need some credibility here so these are common practices that people do to attempt healing but they don't really work why does jesus choose to use them well one you got to think about whose hand he just grabbed i want you just to imagine for a moment you've got to read the bible with just a little bit of imagination this guy's blind he can't see anything i mean you might close your eyes and just imagine what it would be like to have been deaf for years and years your hearing is incredibly acute your your sense of smell is incredibly acute and you're being rushed through the streets by your friends and they're saying come on hurry up we got to go the teacher's just around the corner if we don't get to him you're not going to get this healing you're nervous you're anxious what's going on i can't really see we're moving quickly i'm losing count of my steps normally i can kind of figure out the distance of these streets but i don't know where we are and all of a sudden you stop you hear the voice of someone you've never heard before there's like some basic greetings going on shalom hey teacher what's up hey this is our guy would you please please please please touch him please lay your hands on him and you're like i don't even know where this guy is like where am i and all of a sudden someone grabs your wrist and you feel a hand you've never felt before and because your ears are so acute and your sense of smell is so acute and you can't see your touch is acute as well and you immediately start thinking about who is this guy his hands are rough as if they handle wood or that they swing hammers is this the guy i thought teachers had like the soft like like real soft hands this guy feels like he could be a carpenter and also you just feel like a gentle nudge and all of a sudden this man's leading you away from your friends you hear their voices disappearing in the background and as the scripture says jesus leads this man out of the village i have no idea what this guy would be feeling the scripture really doesn't tell us but i would be nervous am i going to get healed like the healing hasn't happened yet where's this guy taking it i'm lost i'm in the dark and all of a sudden i feel spit applied to my eyes which for us would say you for him he says oh he's going to heal me he would have been a signal to this blind man i'm your healer you're expecting a healer i'm going to do something that you will understand i'm stepping into your context your culture so that you will feel the comfort of knowing what's about to happen to you is healing which is just a cool little common grace is jesus using the culture to take one step closer to this man's heart so that's what's up with the spit
do you see anything the man's eyes open it's really cool too because in verse 24 says and he looked up that word looked in greek means look he can see the man was completely in darkness and now there's light and there's images and he can see but he can't see in full he sees blurry people and so what does that let us know one some of either his friends or the disciples have followed him out of town they're alone but they're not quite alone my guess is these are the disciples probably his friends because they're curious as to where is jesus taking him let's go let's follow do you see anything and he looked up and said i see people but they look like trees walking guys that's a it's it's a simple use of figurative language what he's saying is there are tall skinny things with hair just like a tree is skinny and has leaves so he's just giving us a euphemism this is i see people that kind of look like trees what is he really saying everything's blurry nothing's clear yet then jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes and sight was restored and he saw everything clearly jesus sent him home saying do not even enter the village and what's cool is we really have no reason to doubt that this man obeyed jesus there's been some back and forth with the healing some people obey some people don't here we get nothing to indicate he was disobedient he goes home so now you should be asking this question why this miracle why right here what does this miracle serve in order to understand that you've got to understand a literary device called foreshadowing foreshadowing is the idea that an author writes some details into his story that when you get to the end of the story when you think back on the movie or the book as a whole you go ah i should have seen that coming everything makes sense and he was kind of giving me clues that it was going to be that way the whole time so this passage doesn't just sit all by itself you got to think about what came before this you've got the disciples and they're in the boat with jesus and jesus has a come to jesus moment with them in the bi in the in the boat now i don't know if you ever have gone through it come to jesus moment but having a come to jesus moment with jesus himself is way more intense than probably any of our come to jesus moments and he calls them out we're halfway through all throughout the book of mark we've been asking this question who is jesus in the boat when he calms the storm they go who is this man that can calm storms who is this man who turns like seven loaves of bread and feeds four 000 people who is this man who blasphemes god who is he who is he who is he and in the boat jesus literally says this why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread do you not yet perceive or understand are your hearts hardened having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear the very next person they run into is a blind guy the person he just healed before this was the deaf guy jesus is trying to make a point with these miracles his disciples what is he doing he's doing something called foreshadowing i want to give you a cool example in 2004 probably my favorite pixar movies ever came out the incredibles um and if you've ever seen the incredibles i want to introduce you to a carrick a character named edna all right so edna is this little uh like very just mal mouthy uh fashion designer and she designs uniforms for heroes so here's a picture of her and uh she has a confrontation with mr incredible all right so mr incredible comes back from his very first mission he's got a tear in his suit he goes and finds edna and is like oh of course you know twist my arm i'll make your suit he goes oh that'd be great maybe we could add something you know really retro like a cape and she goes no capes and he goes well isn't that my decision isn't that up to me and she goes she goes no darling no drawing no no capes don't you remember uh thunderhead snagged on a missile don't you remember strata girl got caught up in a chat a jet turbine or metaman on the express elevator don't you remember dyna guys snagged on take off splashed down sucked into a vortex no capes there's this big back and forth and she goes but i'll call you when it's ready goodbye walks him out no capes the very next scene mr incredible meets his arch nemesis and look at what the very first picture of the archnemesis reveals
take a wild guess how this guy ends up dying at the end of the film through the cape that's ingenious storytelling that's really good here's this whole thing what's the deal with the cape why are capes even matter what's the point to the story when he gets killed at the end of the movie you're like oh yeah no capes
seth why are you telling us about the incredibles what does that have to do with mark chapter 8 because jesus is saying you can't see let me show you how you're going to see that's right you can't see i want you to see how you're going to see and it's going to be in part it's a two-step process first you're going to see them part and then you're going to see and hole i had to bring all my notes up here because i wanted you to see all the parallels that go with this here here's just how these things run together you got to remember when jesus laid into them he said do you not yet perceive or understand are your hearts hardened having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear he said them do you not yet understand
even that is foreshadowing that they will understand that understanding is in the docket for the disciples how is it going to happen first check this out the blind man is in darkness he cannot perceive jesus the disciples are in spiritual darkness they cannot perceive jesus's identity that's your first step second jesus takes the blind man and leads him the disciples have been handpicked by jesus and though they do not understand they're being led by him so they're not like the crowd the crowd is demanding signs of jesus the disciples aren't like that they're not like the pharisees the pharisees are blaspheming jesus by accusing him of blasphemy which is really funny and ironic and sad at the same time so the disciples are in a different camp they're being led but they're in the dark third jesus heals the blind man but he doesn't give him clear sight it seems partial blurred veiled in a sense not everything is made clear in the very next story like and i've got to be real careful because scott's preaching on it next week you really want to come and listen to next week's sermon but jesus asked the disciples on their walk up north who do the people say that i am and peter says something revelatory he says you're the messiah the son of the living god and jesus says what you didn't figure that out on your own peter that was revealed to you by my father and have that was given to you you didn't come up with it you didn't even figure it out that knowledge was made available to you by god what happens right after that the very next scene jesus gets uh jesus says hey guys guess what i'm going to be killed and i'm going to resurrect what did he just tell to the pharisees the only sign you guys are getting is the sign of jonah which was what jonah went into the fish for three days and was what came out again it's a sign of resurrection so he goes hey pharisees you want to know who i am look for resurrection hate disciples you want to know who i am look for resurrection and peter says what not on my watch jesus i'm not going to let you get resurrected i'm not going to let you get killed and jesus says what get behind me satan so what are we seeing we're seeing that the disciples are going to gain an unclear understanding of who jesus is but they still don't get what the purpose of the messiah is what brings about clear sight for the disciples the empty tomb the resurrected christ amen you're gonna take a bunch of guys who can't put uh two boats in a straight line can't understand jesus can't perceive him god's gonna reveal his identity to them and then he's gonna resurrect his son and they're going to go from daughtering don't have it all together guys and they're going to preach their hearts out everything that they heard is going to be made clear and they're going to proclaim it with their mouths everything that they saw they're going to understand this is the beautiful masterful writing of verses 22-26 it is god foreshadowing the revelation of the spirit in the lives of the apostles so cool and so we've got to talk about that doctrine because this doctrine is not just beautiful for them but it's people for you this is the process of illumination illumination is nothing more than god flipping on the light switch in your mind so that you can see who jesus is and he does it through his word by the power of the holy spirit let me say that again if you were in a dark room illumination is turning on the light switch that's it it's as simple as we can think about it the question is who turns on the light switch the bible says it's not you that you don't turn on your own light switch that the holy spirit comes in and reveals who christ is to you so when peter says uh you are the son of god you are the messiah the son of the living god jesus says blessed are you simon bar jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you you didn't figure it out but my father who was in heaven that's matthew 16 17 that's one of the parallel passages to this one but look at how paul writes about this in first corinthians chapter 2 in verses 9 and 10 he says what no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man imagined what god has prepared for those who love no one has seen it no one gets it no one can connect with it in their hearts with their minds they can't it's imperceivable listen to this verse 10 these things god has revealed to us through the spirit
i love ephesians 1 18 because this is so beautiful it says having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints
john chapter 16 but when he the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth now that verse is to the disciples and he's going to guide them to write the rest of the new testament and so in second peter verse 119 says we don't have just our opinions but we have been carried along by the holy spirit we have a better prophetic word that come from god himself so god has revealed himself to us and he reveals himself personally to us intimately to us near to us in our hearts that's the doctrine of illumination it's so cool god turns on the light switch he lets you understand who he is so that you might be saved so how how do we apply that we've got to bring this into a place where we can actually run with it because i don't know about you but doctrine illumination sounds super ethereal and maybe something that only me and scott might like muse and laugh about back in his office it's not it's so much bigger than that first is this it will amplify and increase your praise of god why because god opened your eyes amen he touched your heart he opened your eyes he opened your ears he gave you the ability to proceed when you heard the gospel for the first time or the hundredth time the holy spirit supernaturally invaded your space and gave you understanding otherwise you would never have responded in faith because you are in darkness ephesians chapter 2 says we were dead in our sins and trespasses not barely breathing not cognizant but not moving we were spiritually dead and just like the disciples we were unperceiving if we were in church we were highly concerned with god's stuff and we had very little love for god himself if we were out of church we probably weren't even worried about god because those crazy christians are out of their mind they're believing mythologies this doesn't even apply to me but one day you heard who jesus was and you didn't figure it out god showed you who he was he opened the eyes of your heart what what do we do with that we fall on our knees and say why me why would you save me well
i love you thank you
it's a dad who draws near daddy says i'm not waiting for my sons to figure it out i'm going to call them i'm going to draw them that's why in john 6 jesus says all come to me the father draws he draws their hearts he opens their eyes not just in our praise in our worship but in our prayer life does this doctrine go crazy this is how you start praying for people's salvation when you go home and you make your list you think about all your friends and family members who don't know christ your prayer ought to sound something like this lord would you open their eyes to see who you truly are do for them what you did for the apostles do for them what you did for me give them understanding so that they have the empowered faith to move towards god because without you they can't do it lord when i talk to them about you as i'm speaking to them i can be praying lord open their eyes open their eyes show them truth i'm about to show them your word open their eyes it changes your prayers these are a warrior's prayers it's your arrow that you put in your quiver lord reveal yourself to them this is what we pray for our children it's what we pray for our families what we pray for the loss i pray that prayer over both of my boys every night i put my hand on my son's head and i say lord would you give them eyes to see you open their minds so that they can move towards you and put my hand on their hearts and i'll say lord would you open their hearts that they might love you because if god doesn't do that it won't happen i've got to lean into god's mercy and i've got to teach my boys about jesus
lastly is this every single one of us are walking the christian walk and some of us are having good days and bad days back and forth look we are human we are fallible there's something called the flesh we are in a spiritual war guess how i figure out where all my unhidden sins all my hidden sins lie through the power of god's spirit romans 8 13 says if you put to death the deeds of the flesh all on your own no that's not what it says if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the spirit then you live in fact later in the same past passage says we know not uh what we ought to pray but the spirit intercedes for us how amazing is that even when you don't know god knows but sanctification being grown up in holiness that's part of this having the eyes of my heart open to see what new sin i got to go to battle with today what god's putting to death in me today it's not what he's going to be putting to death to me 10 years from we're now closer we're getting near to jesus
so here's here's how i'd like to just end this morning i was at the zoo with my boys yesterday and uh and grant was getting all squirmy because he'd been in the stroller for like 45 minutes since i was like all right let's uh let's let the young lad go free and i'll just kind of stay near and so i let him out and he's toddling and tucker's running up to the giraffes and pushing the stroller and grant just kind of like veers off to the right and i don't i have no idea where he was going he didn't know where to go so i went over i grabbed his hand i said follow me and we walked this way you know what he did yanked his hand out of my hand and tried to go the other way
listen to me if you're running from god god is going to come grab your hand and help course correct you amen and when you yank your hand away from god you know what he's gonna do he's gonna say well i guess jesus says sacrifice on the cross wasn't good enough for that one no he's gonna come after you that's right he's gonna grab your hand again he's gonna say no son you're going the wrong way let me reveal to you what is the right way this is the heart of the father i want that relationship for you so much that's something between you the lord his word in this place and so my prayer is that this morning even as we're doing this the doctrine of illumination would be taking place that your heart is being opened to the truth about god this should go to your prayer closet as well every single night you ought to lay down say lord show me where i could walk with you better don't be ashamed to ask god where you're stumbling because it's in that moment you get to repent it's in that moment you get set free it's in that moment you to say i'm not the point you're the point i messed up and i'm sorry can you show me help me walk with you better we serve a god who is near god who is opening our eyes continually to the truth about who he is let's pray father we love you and lord i am just kind of in awe of how you weave foreshadowing into your gospel um that's super cool lord i pray that we would receive the truth of your word this morning that we need you to open the eyes of our hearts we praise you for that lord we pray for those who are here whom maybe the first time they're realizing jesus is who he says he is and i can respond in faith god we pray for all the people across tucson who don't know you would you use this church and the proclamation of your word to reveal yourself to them the lord we thank you for our dads and we thank you for the gathered body it's in the mighty name of jesus we pray these things
amen
you