Good morning, church. We're going to go into a time of offering now. You can go ahead and give your offering electronically. But if you brought your physical check, you can submit them in the offering box in the back. Let's go ahead and pray for the offering. Dear Lord, we just thank you for bringing us here this morning.

We thank you that we have the privilege of coming into your presence and worshipping you freely, God. We pray for our brothers and sisters who are at family retreat, God, that they would be having a blessed time, that they would have just a great and sweet time of fellowship with one another, Lord.

And I pray for our own service that we would just come here with worshipful hearts and that our hearts would be refreshed as well. We want to lift up the offering to you, God. I pray, Lord, that you would use it to expand your kingdom and that you would be honored even in our time of giving, God.

We thank you. In your name we pray. Amen. Can we all stand for a time of worship? From the brightness of his glory, Jesus, the Son of God, descends. Takes on the nature of a servant, Jesus, obedient to death. A Father well-tempered, crushing, to sacrifice for sinning. Resatisfied by justice, and in victory brought again.

A power in His arms, the people of the world, worthy of worship. A reigning in the glory of Jesus, your God, from the breath of your Holy Spirit, descends into the highest heaven. In the name of the Lord, all other names. To His empty cross He's rising, Jesus, lamb of Jesus.

Angels never cease to worship Jesus, heaven above. To Him belongs the power of the finest strength. Glory and dominion to the Father, and to the Son. A power in His arms, the people of the world, worthy of worship. A reigning in the glory of Jesus, your God, from the breath of your Holy Spirit, descends into the highest heaven.

On His abode, our tongues proclaim that you are Lord of all. On His abode, our tongues proclaim that you are Lord of all. On His abode, our tongues proclaim that you are Lord of all. On His abode, our tongues proclaim that you are Lord of all. You are highly exalted, name above all names, worthy of all praise.

You are reigning in the glory of Jesus, your God, king over everything, exalted to the highest heaven. Give Him the name above all other names. Come, O now, fount of every blessing, turn my heart to sing thy praise. Streams of mercy, whoever sees thee, call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sounding, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mountain fixed upon it, mount of high returning low. Here I raise my heaven-raiser, and abide thy command. And I hold thy bag of pleasure safely to my right hand. Jesus saw me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.

He too has stood, free from danger, winter blows his passion. O to grace how great a debtor, daily unconstrained to be, that thy goodness, like a fetter, bound my wandering heart to thee. O to wonder what I feel, and to be loved by thy love. Here's my heart, Lord, take it in, soon it'll fall like a tree.

O that day when free from sin I shall see thy face. O when in the world I stand, how I'll see thy sovereign face. I'll no longer tarry, take my ransom, solo praise. And angels, bound to carry me to realms of endless glory. I'll no longer tarry, take my ransom, solo praise.

Send thy angels now to carry me to realms of endless day. You may be seated. We have a guest speaker today. This is Pastor James Lee. He's a graduate from UCLA and Talbot Seminary. He is the Associate Pastor of Family and Counseling at Lighthouse Bible Church in San Diego.

And before that, he planted and served as a Senior Pastor at Lighthouse Orange County. He will be married for 17 years this coming November to his wife, Sandy. And they have three children, Tobias, Piper, and Kristen. So let's just give him a warm welcome. Well, good morning, everyone. What a joy and privilege to worship with you this morning.

And I want to extend the greetings from my family and the Saints at Lighthouse Bible Church San Diego. Our text this morning is John, chapter 9. If you turn to the ninth chapter of John, John chapter 9, it is a bit of a long passage today, but I feel like it is one unit.

So I like to cover it as a whole. If you wouldn't mind, if you would rise for the reading of God's word, John chapter 9, starting from verse 1. As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

You must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam," which means "scent." So he went and washed and came back seeing the neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, who were saying, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some said, "It is he." Others said, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." So they said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" Verse 11, he answered, "The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know." They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes, so the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight, and he said to them, "He put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see." Verse 16, some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them.

So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet." The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked him, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind?

How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

Therefore, his parents said, "He is of age. Ask him." Verse 24, "So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, "Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "Whether he is a sinner I do not know.

One thing I do know, that though I was blind, I now see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you will not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" And they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Why, this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes? We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born in utter sin, and you would teach us?" And they cast him out." Verse 35, "Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you." He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshipped him.

Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, "Are we also blind?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt.

But now that you say we see, your guilt remains." Will you join with me in prayer? Let's pray. Mercifully, Sovereign Father, cause us to see your mercy afresh this morning, but also to daily, hourly, and moment by moment, that it would comfort our souls, renew our strength, steal our conviction, embolden our witness, cultivate our unity, give zeal to our mission, and grip our hearts.

Let us know in our entire being, in our minds, in our affections, from the core of our being, the unfathomable depth and endless height of your eternal grace for those who are found, and I pray, will be found today in your Son, Jesus. In Jesus' name, for Jesus' sake we pray, Amen.

You may be seated. Now, of all the stories in the Gospels, this one of an unnamed blind man being healed by our Lord Jesus is, I think, probably my favorite Gospel account, because as a shy, backward, awkward man, I can identify with the nobody who was once blind but now sees.

Like Apostle Paul, when I'm in my right mind, when I'm not proud and, frankly, stupid, I know the sheer wonder of God's grace for this most unworthy sinner. I can identify with Paul in the opening chapter of 1 Timothy when he says, "That though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent of God, I received mercy, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost or the worst of all.

But I receive," and he says it again, second time, "mercy." I receive mercy. See, when you and I come to a place where we vividly see the rebellious autonomy of our past life, how we continue to see how we still fall short in daily life outside of a righteousness that is not our own, that we deserve just wrath and hell from a thrice-holy God, but instead we receive superabounding mercy, as Paul says, then we're really astonished.

That not only God saved us, but we get overwhelmed by any amount of privilege that he grants us, that he uses us, he changes us, he blesses us in ways we never imagined or even thought possible. It's texts like this one that I remember again. It's here I have to admit how undeniably loved I am regardless of the circumstances that I might be in.

Therefore I can say I am not ashamed, for I know whom, whom I have believed. I want us to see three things in our text today. Number one, in verses one through seven, the unfailing sight of Christ. Number one, the unfailing sight of Christ. Notice, the only person's name that is ever mentioned in this entire chapter is the name Jesus.

And ultimately, isn't that all that matters, right? That we know the one who knows us, life is all about Christ, and that's joy-giving and that's real security. It's really fitting because in a previous chapter, Jesus said that he is the light come into the world, and despite being in this constant conflict with darkness, we see him here in this chapter undeniably bring sight and light to a blind man.

In fact, multiple times, Isaiah, for example, prophesied that specifically the Messiah would "open the eyes that are blind." So here we have this incredible thing happening here. It's thoroughly messianic. The Messiah, the Son of God has come. He has arrived. And John's purpose, again in John 20, 31, the purpose of this entire gospel is that we might believe.

We might believe in him so that we might have life in his name. Sadly, we know most refuse to believe even now. Here is a fantastically encouraging chapter, text, record, because hope shines as the blindness of a beggar doesn't stop Jesus from saving him. We learn that the greatest blindness is the pride of unbelief, but even more that the greatest seeing is faith in Jesus Christ.

I'll repeat that. The greatest blindness is the pride of unbelief, but even more the greatest seeing is faith in Jesus Christ. I don't know if you know this, even here in America, despite all our incredible advances in modern medicine, a person goes blind about every 20 minutes in our nation.

In contrast, this man was born, born blind. And outside of people who maybe have been born with cataracts, so that even with surgery, their eyesight usually remains permanently blurry, if you're born with congenital blindness, you'll never see at least in this life, outside of divine miracle. So when Jesus arrives on the scene of this man's life, literally everything changes.

However, the greatest miracle is not the opening of his physical eyes, but the opening of the spiritual eyes of his heart. In order to see and to believe that Jesus is the one and only Savior. As Jesus passed by, we're told in verse 1 that Jesus takes the initiative.

Notice that Jesus saw, it says, "He saw a man blind from birth." He didn't just notice him, he saw him. Jesus was seeing very differently than how the rest of the people were seeing this man, including his disciples. Jesus saw him because he loved him. Likewise, I wasn't looking for Jesus.

I was running hard away from him. And before that, like the poor beggar, I couldn't see, and I would add, I wouldn't see. I didn't want to see until amazing grace caused me to see. So that we as believers can confess the truth of Ephesians chapter 2, 1 through 5.

Paul says, "And you were dead, past tense, in the trespasses and sins on which you once, past tense, walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived, past tense, in the passions of our flesh, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." And then verse 4 in Ephesians 2 says, "But God, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead, and no desire for God in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace.

By grace alone you have been saved." The disciples, we discover, they ask Jesus, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Sadly, they didn't see the man as an object of mercy, but as a subject now for theological discussion. They wrongly held to the widely held false theology that personal suffering is always, always due to some personal sin.

So in their mind, either it was his parents' fault, or it was the man's fault, even while he was in the womb. Of course, Jesus quickly refused this in verse 3. He says, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents." Of course, Jesus is not contradicting the universal sinfulness of fallen man, that we know, generally speaking, suffering is a result of sin, due to the fall, because Adam's disobedience brought sin and death into our world.

Yes, sin produces suffering, but not all suffering by an individual is a result of a specific sin that they committed. Now, that can be true sometimes, unknown to us, unknown to us, causing sickness, even death, as Paul warned the Corinthians. But we don't know, so we shouldn't go around accusing people of lack of faith or some specific sin, like Job's friends.

Other times, there may also be consequences from sin in this world, even to the children of parents, because of things like drinking alcohol when one was pregnant, or rejecting God so that your kids wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, or by no fault of one's own, by a blood transfusion.

But here, and in most cases, no particular sin led to this man's tragic blindness, to say otherwise here would be cruel and untrue. Jesus dismissed this simplistic theology of suffering, as does Deuteronomy 24, 16, which tells us, "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers, but everyone shall be put to death for their own sin." So again, there isn't always a direct link between one's suffering and one's sin.

The honest answer is that it often defies our explanation. It's certainly not karma. Rather, we would misheed what Jesus said in Luke chapter 13, that the people who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them, Jesus said they didn't die because they were somehow worse sinners than the rest of us.

No, Jesus says, "You too, your day might be coming, and you need to repent before it's too late." However, in this instance, we are given a divine answer. And there is in Greek a hint of purpose clause in verse 3. It says, "So that, or this happened so that, the works of God might be displayed in this man at this time in history." So the power of God might be shown forth providentially in this man's circumstance, that God's power and mercy and grace might be displayed and manifest.

F.F. Bruce comments, "God overruled the disaster of the child's blindness, so that when the child grew to manhood, he might, by recovering his sight, see the glory of God in the face of Christ." Again, we know that God is not morally responsible for the evils in this world sinful people are.

That is why you lock your car, right? Not because of God, but because of who? Fellow sinners. But in God's sovereign plan, he nevertheless uses this tragedy to bring about good. So Jesus says, "We must work the works of him who sent me, while there is a day when no one can work." There is an urgency.

Suffering is a call to work, not simply to reflect. Spiritual blindness is a call to witness and not wax on. Life is short. It will be time to rest when our day is done. The day, Jesus says, is for work. Now, there is a theology of rest. I'm not saying that there isn't.

But the disciples' focus here was backward, while Jesus' focus was forward. It was not about analyzing how this man became blind, but it was about giving God glory for such good. What happens next is the very demonstration of what Jesus had just declared. He sometimes healed by just saying it.

He is sovereign. Jesus does as he pleases. He is not subject to any kind of instrumentality. However, here, he decides to make some mud clay mixture of some sort, and he puts it on the man's eyes, commands him to go to the Pool of Siloam, and wash it off there.

It's interesting. More miracles of the blind being given sight are recorded of Jesus than any other category of healing. Because this was thoroughly messianic, as Isaiah predicted. This is of God. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we ever read of a man who was born blind being healed. Nor did Jesus' followers or disciples ever, as far as is recorded, ever do so.

Again, Jesus takes the initiative. No one asked him to heal the man. Not even the blind man asked him. Jesus just saw him, and he chose to give him sight. John inserts a little parenthetical about Siloam meaning "scent." That's the word. Siloam means "scent." The Holy Spirit doesn't put in filler material in our Bibles.

There's a purpose behind this. Repeatedly in this Gospel, Jesus is referred to as the one sent by the Father. If you go to the Gospel, John, you'll see that multiple times. Jesus is the one sent by the Father. Jesus also says repeatedly, "My time has not yet come. My time has not yet come, and then my hour has come." So we see these themes in the Gospel of John, and one of the most important themes is the word "believe." The word "believe" occurs 92 times in the Gospel of John, more than any other book in the entire Bible.

That's John's purpose. He wants us to believe that Jesus was sent by the Father so that we can believe. Now, going back to the story, can you imagine the blind man going there to the pool with his heart pounding in his chest with the possibility of seeing? What if this works?

He bends down, he washes the clay off. Perhaps the first thing that he sees when he rises up was his reflection in the water for the very first time. The people around him, the sky, birds, trees, the buildings. Before this, all that he knew was darkness. He had no conception of red, green, blue, orange, let alone sunset or the intricacies and glories of nature.

He never knew what his mother looked like. At best, maybe he could only feel the warm tears on her face. So he goes home seeing. And so do you really think he said, "Well, I should go back to my spot in the temple and resume my begging or summon my cut-in on my business." No, he runs home, he bursts into his house, he shouts to everybody, "I can see!

I can see! I can see!" He came back in wonder and being wondered at. When I became a Christian, it was sort of like that for me. I couldn't wait to tell everybody, my parents, my brother, my friends, my teachers, my classmates. And I did. I told many people.

Some rejoiced, but most could care less. It would change my life forever, like many of you. Matthew Henry said, "Souls go weak and come away strengthened. Go doubting and come away satisfied. Go mourning and come away rejoicing. Go blind and come away seeing." What a vivid illustration of our conversion.

Thus, if we know how blind and dead we once were, past tense, then we also know that God can send light into the darkest heart, soften the hardest heart, cause blindness and prejudice to pass away. Brothers and sisters, we should not give up on the lost or our loved ones.

We too were once spiritually dead, flat-lined, corpses six feet under spiritually, and now we've been made alive. Amen? Wonderfully. He can do that for others that we care about and pray for. He did it for us. Number two, I want us to see the unwilling blindness of unbelief. The unwilling blindness of unbelief.

Verses 8-34, the majority of our text will be here. The unwilling blindness of unbelief. His neighbors, the people who knew this man, of course they were astonished. But some refused to believe that was actually him. It was a sensation. It was the talk of the whole neighborhood and eventually the whole city.

People born blind just don't come home suddenly seeing. This kind of thing wouldn't go unnoticed even today. It is not just that this beggar sees, but his entire appearance, demeanor, and countenance have been utterly transformed. He sees, but he's also seen as a different man, a totally different person.

It was so shocking some didn't even believe that it was really him. Nah, it can't be him. It must be someone who looks like him. Others were kind of confused saying it seems like him. I think that's the dude. The verse 9 tells us, he kept saying in Greek, in Greek it says it's repetitive, right?

He says, I'm the man. I'm him. It's me. So finally asked, how did this happen? He answers, the man called Jesus made clay. Under my eyes told me to wash it to pull a salome and now I see. Well, where is Jesus? I don't know. I don't even know what he looks like.

Never saw him. I only heard him. I only heard him. In some ways this is also a beautiful illustration of our salvation. Christ pursues dead and blind and deaf sinners. He reveals himself to those who had no desire for him. I don't think it's the other way around, scripturally or in our experience.

We didn't find him. He found us or no one would be saved. Only by repentance and obedience of faith, humbly embracing the gospel is one saved. In contrast, and there's the irony, lots of irony in this chapter, the Pharisees use this man's joyous condition instead as an opportunity to attack Jesus.

These are the guys who knew the Bible better than him. In chapter 6, Jesus said, you've seen me yet you do not believe. In chapter 7, even his own brothers wouldn't believe. And despite speaking the truth boldly, silencing his opponents with irrefutable logic and undeniable evidence, in chapter 8, Jesus asked, if I speak the truth, why do you not believe me?

And in the last chapter, Jesus said there were children of Satan. They didn't like that. And that before Abraham was, I am. That he's God. So they tried to stone him at the end of chapter 8. And yet, there's a miracle that happens at the end of chapter 8.

They have stones and they're ready to kill him, to murder him. And he walks right through. I mean, they can't do it. And he just walks right through, unscathed. And despite that, that should have put the fear of God in them. They willfully refused to believe. We see a man's natural state is both unable and unwilling to believe.

Both. They're blinded by Satan, but also equally self-deceived. They are lying to themselves. They are in denial. The Pharisees again ask him how he received the sight. So he tells them. And how did the Pharisees then respond in verse 16? This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

According to their self-righteous man-made rules, Jesus violated the work prohibition of the Sabbath on at least three accounts. Number one, he healed on the Sabbath, which they said you're not supposed to do unless it's a matter of life and death. Number two, he made clay, which is like kneading bread, like dough.

That's work. And number three violation, he anointed the blind man's eyes, and that's work too. Thus they argue, good men don't violate the Sabbath. Jesus broke the Sabbath, ergo he's not a good man. So in their tidy thinking, he's not from God. Instead of rejoicing in the mercy of this miracle, all they can see is an invented reason to discredit Jesus.

Why? Because they are predetermined not to believe. They resolve that nothing will change their minds, no matter the evidence. That was once me. I hated the Bible, Christianity, Jesus and the church, anything associated with organized religion as some opiate of the masses, until he took a hold of me in love.

Leon Moore says, "Those so firmly in the grip of darkness saw only a technical breach of their law and could not discern a spectacular victory of light over darkness. They disputed with the man and in the process revealed their inward blindness." Yet some of the Pharisees continue to ask, they say, "How can a sinner do such signs?" Some of them were struggling with this.

They were conflicted. They were unable to explain away a genuine miracle with the man healed right in front of them. They likely knew this man. He was well known because of where he sat. So there was a division, or literally in Greek, a schism among them. For people will always divide over the true Jesus.

Thus they go after the blind man next. "What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?" Listening to these men debate, his understanding is growing. Jesus is no longer a man named Jesus as earlier, but now he says, "Jesus, he's a prophet." I mean, that's the highest place he can muster at that point.

So he's siding with the pro-Jesus camp, if you know what I'm saying. Once we're told, only we're told then in verse 18, "The Jews did not believe that he had been born blind and had received sight." How many get that? These guys are so prejudiced against Jesus that he's a sinner, that he can't be from God, that he can't be a miracle at all.

Their whole premise and presupposition is irrational, illogical, and indefensible. Their bias controls their entire investigation and their entire interpretation. We see that today in our culture everywhere. Imagine that this guy was blind and everybody knew it, but now they're saying, "You're lying. You're lying. You were never blind. You were faking it the entire time." Well, maybe Jesus used a twin, a doppelganger, and he switched beggars on us because they look alike.

They will try everything to explain away the obvious. So they say, "Okay, let's call the beggars' parents to prove our theory that this is all a farce." The parents arrive and they ask the parents, they ask mom and dad, "Is this your son who you say was born blind?

How then does he now see?" Note there are three questions there. Number one, "Is this your son?" Number two, "Was he born blind?" Number three, "How does he now see?" The first question attempts to discredit the miracle altogether, that Jesus isn't from God, so it couldn't have been a miracle.

Only he is God and it was a miracle. They act like they've already won the argument. By the way, that's how it's always been, more than ever. People don't care about the truth, can't handle the truth, because they don't want the truth. They only want to do whatever they want and to believe whatever they want in order to justify and keep doing whatever they want.

Well, the parents answer the first two questions honestly. "He is our son, yes. Yes, he was born blind." But the third question they answer evasively, not honestly. They pass the buck. "He's of age. He's a big boy. Ask him." See, they knew the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus, and they wanted to avoid the danger and trouble their son was facing.

They were very careful to neither incriminate themselves, nor to rejoice for their son, sadly. John tells us plainly why they didn't stand up for their son. In verse 22, we're told his parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

Therefore, his parents said, "Ask him." Proverbs 29, 25 states, "The fear of man proves a snare." These parents were not the first to trim the sails of conviction and conscience to a passing breeze for fear of a storm. And what we see here is really sad when you think about it.

I mean, mom and dad, they should have been rejoicing in the wonderful liberation of their son. But I think, I think, this is not, I can't ground this from the text, but I think, perhaps, this is a suggestion, that they had abandoned him long ago. Or they were just using him for the money that he can get them.

Hence, it's why we find them begging. He's not at home being cared for. He's not being educated. He's just become a burden. They weren't willing to pay the price for their son. Now, being put out of the synagogue, though, was an extremely serious penalty in that culture. Most of us don't really understand.

If you're put out of the synagogue, you're not, you don't just forfeit social relationships and religious status. You become a heretic in that culture. But you also might lose business, and in some cases, even the ability to buy and sell. You became a pariah, and you were seen as hellbound.

And you might literally die from hunger or have to move to live among, of all people, the Gentiles. So for the parents to abandon their son right in front of them, you can imagine, though, the pain the son felt. Even though, humanly speaking, it was understandable for them to fear the Jewish leaders.

How could you abandon your own son? Warren Wiersbe insightfully comments, "The Pharisees wanted to get rid of the evidence, and the people were afraid to speak the truth." Nothing has changed, has it? Disappointed by the interview of the parents getting no help from them, their bloodthirsty resolve of the Pharisees would not be satisfied until, what, Jesus' head is on a platter.

So they called the man back who had been born blind a second time. And actually, when I analyzed this chapter, this beggar was actually asked to repeat his story at least seven times, directly and indirectly, on top of the Greek implying in several places that they kept asking him, kept badgering him, in order to get in line with their hateful agenda.

Yet here, I think, is the most spirited part of the account. He withstands them with vigor. He calls their bluff. He turns the table on them. He exposes their bias with the utmost simplicity, and he takes these sophisticated elites to school. Far from shaking him, it causes the formerly blind man to clarify his position.

He comes out of this with a deeper appreciation of Jesus than he did before. Again, yet the irony is these Pharisees, these men of the Word, should have been the first to believe in Jesus. So they open next, their second interrogation, and they say this, "Give glory to God.

We know this man is a sinner." "Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner." Now, you read that, and it's like, that's kind of odd. Why would you say such a thing? What? Give glory to God? Why did they say that? Let me explain. Basically, they're trying to get him to promise that he will never again give Jesus credit for the great thing that just happened to him.

Remember they told Peter in Acts to stop speaking in the name of Jesus. Remember that? Kind of similar. But let me explain more. Giving glory to God, this phrase, this request or command to this blind man, formerly blind man, has two possible explanations or meanings with the one purpose in mind for both.

First, first possibility, it could mean in the spirit of Joshua 7, 19, when Achan is addressed, right? And Achan lied, right? He kept back some of the spoil. And they were basically telling the blind man in the same spirit, "Hey, own up. Fess up. Tell us the truth." "Admit your whole story is a lie and that you're a fraud." Because remember, God knows everything.

Give glory to God. You know Jesus is a sinner, so tell us that and we'll stop bothering you and we'll even forgive you. Okay? That's the first possibility. Second possibility, which I think is the right answer and the more likely situation is this. Give glory to God because you know what?

All that Jesus did, He just put clay on your eyes and tell you to go wash in the pool of Siloam. That's all Jesus did. So clearly Jesus didn't heal you. God healed you. You know what I'm saying? God healed you. Don't give Jesus any credit. Give God the glory.

God is the one who healed you. Not Jesus. We know the man. Jesus is a sinner. He eats with tax collectors. He breaks the Sabbath. Not from God. Give God the credit. Not Jesus. By the way, do you see more irony here? Now they're admitting that a miracle actually happened.

They're admitting it. Such hypocrisy. They knew it. They knew only God can heal a blind man. That's how hard their hearts were. They were the ones who were blind. They should have trembled at fear. In fear at this point, especially after the last chapter when they had rocks in their hands and couldn't throw it.

The fact of Jesus' identity as God incarnate was staring them right in the face. The truth of Christianity is an intellectual slam-dunk. It's a moral, spiritual problem. Despite all the evidence, despite the Bible bearing constant scrutiny of unbelief over millennia, attackers haven't proven one thing in our Bibles wrong.

Yet people will persist against it even now among people who claim to be Christians. We'll say the Bible doesn't say that or more commonly, I know the Bible says that but. But what? Why believe the Bible at all? Why bother? And I love the beggar's wonderfully authentic and powerful answer.

He answers in verse 25, "Whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." I don't know about Jesus. I got nothing bad to say about him. I barely know the man. But yo, I was blind but now I see.

He's not concerned with finer points of rabbinical law or their obvious politics. He's just overwhelmed by what? Divine mercy. And knows that Jesus is somehow at the center of all of this. Of course, the Pharisees don't like this. And he said, "We know." In fact, the "we" in "we know" is emphatic and arrogant.

We in our social, political, religious universe, we and not you, dumb beggar. We religious know and you don't know. Priest says, "I know, I know, I know." Right? In Hebrew, yada, yada, yada. That's what young men say with their lips or their attitude towards older men. Don't they? Mom and dad correct us and we respond, "I know, I know, I know." Right?

But maybe you don't know. Even if you do know, there's still pride. Rarely do they own up and if they do, conveniently say, "Amen," claiming that they thought and believed that all along. Only they forgot. It's all a game to save face. But be warned, fellow Christians, we not fall into our own haughtiness and pride.

The Pharisees revered and studied the scriptures more than all of us combined. They prayed, they fasted, they never missed a service, they gave sacrificially, but they were the principal agents of Satan in having Jesus murdered. And they are not extinct. Folks like Pharisees occupy the seats all over America.

We can all, even as redeemed believers, sometimes be mean and cruel and self-righteous and not kind and tender and humble, yet firm with the truth like our Lord who came full of grace and truth. Folks like that have lost their sense of joy in the grace of God. If we're honest, sometimes that's us, sometimes that's me.

Now continuing back, the Pharisees, they asked for the umpteenth time again, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" So he answers in verse 27, "I told you already, and you wouldn't listen to me." Now he's not intimidated, nor is he impressed by their knowledge or robes or high positions of authority.

He doesn't care. As a once blind man, you'd think he's not into outward appearance. Because he never was. But he was also never blind to human nature. In fact, because he once didn't have sight, I would argue it accentuated his ability to listen. No one was pulling the wool over his eyes.

He didn't just fall off the truck with dirt in his fingers and turnips in his pocket. He wasn't fooled. He knows that they failed with him, they failed with his parents, they failed with Jesus, and they've exhausted everything that they knew. They've got nothing left except to weary the poor guy with endless questioning again and again and again.

What is the tactic here? It is to force boredom and exhaustion so that they might catch him unguarded in some inconsistent statement to discredit him as a witness to his own healing. We say that they're what in our culture? They're fishing for something, something that's not actually there. That's what bitter, partial, hateful, suspicious people do.

They conjure up things, conspire narratives, plant evidence, exaggerate faults, attempt to make hearsay and gossip sound like irrefutable facts when it's a load of nonsense, let alone inadmissible in any court of law. They keep pressing, questioning, doubting, interrogating you. Why? Because it's out of this attempt to weary the man that they hope they would eventually catch him in some apparent inconsistency or find a little jewel or more so that they could then use against Jesus.

Against our mere say-so and we know so, he says, "I was blind, but now I see." Why is that not proof enough for you when it is? William Henderson says, "Facts are more stubborn than unsupportable opinions." Listen to the beggar's masterful sarcasm in verse 27. And I love it.

Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? And what do you think how they respond? They're pretty angry. They don't like that at all. I already told you. I already answered all your questions multiple times. You obviously don't need new information.

Do you want to become his disciples too? And so in their fury, right, they revile him. They kept asking really the wrong question. It was not how, it was who. It was not how, but who just changed the order of the letters. He's not inheriting his parents' cowardice. He's exasperated with their tactics, disgusted by their prejudice.

He brandishes then the sword of irony against them. So raging back, pulling themselves up by their own self-righteous bootstraps, they retreat in defeat after being taken to town by an uneducated beggar who wants to follow Jesus. Of all people, Jesus. So verse 28, it says, "They revile them, saying, 'You are his disciple?

We? We are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.'" They just abuse the poor guy. Notice they can't even bear to say Jesus' name. They refer to him as "this man." They're not the kind of people who would ever admit defeat.

Humiliated by a beggar, defying their supposed authority, they scurry into their hole with this weak sauce response. "You know who we are and who we know, right? You're a nobody following a nobody." And the beggar then responds, "Come on, now? This entire time you've been repeatedly saying, 'We know, we know, we know.' And now you're saying, 'We don't know?' Which is it?" That's interesting.

Because the man says, "This is the first time you've admitted ignorance about anything." And he kind of rubs it in. It's amazing, astonishing, marvelous, bewildering, remarkable. Those are synonyms for what we see. That you don't know Jesus is from God? You religious experts can't work out something obvious like this?

You pretend to know everything in the Bible, but you can't figure out where someone who just healed a man born blind actually comes from? Ever heard of a man born blind getting his sight back? Never since the beginning of time. Never recorded in the Old Testament. Never said this would happen when the Messiah comes.

The brother is giving them a practical theology lesson. And they're losing big time and they won't admit it. He says, "Because if Jesus weren't from God, then He couldn't have healed me." And I don't know about y'all, but I learned that in Sunday school, didn't you? He's defeating the Pharisees with their own previous argument.

The idea that God hears the prayers of the righteous, but rejects the prayers of the wicked is found throughout the Bible. 1 Samuel 8.18, Job 27.19, Psalm 18.41, Proverbs 1.28, Isaiah 1.15, Jeremiah 1.11, Ezekiel 8.18, Micah 3.4, Zechariah 7.13, John 8.21, Acts 10.35, etc., etc., etc. God does not listen to the prayers of the sinner, unless the sinner is repentant.

The very idea of giving Jesus credit was just obnoxious to them. Vested by a beggar, they're resorted to ad hominem. They attack Him and not His arguments. And so they say, "You must have been born in utter sin." And they cast Him out of the synagogue, just as His parents feared.

But brothers and sisters, we need to remember, they were powerless. And it will always be powerless to cast this man or any true believer out of the kingdom. Amen? 1 Corinthians 1.27, we know well. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. Number three and last, we want us to see the undeniable miracle of being found in Christ. The undeniable miracle of being found in Christ, verses 35-41. At the end of our text, you know, we could have ended it there, but I think this is a unit.

So Pharisees, they overhear this whole conversation. They observe even Jesus' love encounter with the formerly blind man and ask Him, "Are we also blind?" We know that Jesus did not primarily come to judge in His first coming, the first advent. John 3.16 and 17, right? God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, right?

We know that. Verse 17, He did not come into the world to condemn the world. In His first advent, that wasn't His primary purpose. Nevertheless, nevertheless, the result of rejecting Jesus rather than believing in Him is judgment. So if you pick up from John 3.16 and 17, go to the very last verse of John 3, verse 36.

Jesus says, "If you do not believe in the Son of God, God's wrath remains on you." It's interesting, Jesus' answer though is sort of paradoxical and kind of unexpected. You would expect our Lord to answer that question, "Are we blind too then?" from the Pharisees. You would expect Jesus to say, "Yeah, you're blind." Right?

That's what I would say, but He doesn't say that. And He reasons this way. He explains because He says, Jesus says, "If I say you're blind, then you might use that as an excuse. Because if you're totally blind, if you have zero spiritual understanding, then perhaps you can claim that you can't be blamed for being ignorant.

So I'm not going to call you blind because you know the truth." They were not just unable by Satan's blinding to believe, they were also unwilling by hatred to believe, eyes wide open. They were fully responsible because they sinned willfully against knowledge. They knew He was from God, but they dug in and denied it.

Therefore, Jesus says, "You're not really blind. Therefore, your guilt remains on you. You are not excused." It's all about realizing one's need. The self-satisfied Pharisees thought they had it all together, that they had arrived. It's not that they thought they were perfect necessarily, but they didn't know the seriousness of their imperfection or the sinfulness of their infection.

They claimed to see and they claimed to know. But if they had truly seen and truly had known, that they would have welcomed Jesus and believed in Jesus. Because they had just enough to know, yet acted against that knowledge. Jesus says, "You're guilty. You claim to see, but you choose to behave like you're blind.

Therefore, your sin is not taken away." By the way, mankind is not totally blind. Romans 1 says, "Unbelievers suppress the truth in unrighteousness." They know and they choose their way and not God. There are no true atheists. They suppress the truth. They know God exists and is true and righteous.

But the consequence of believing in Jesus and believing in the God of the Bible is that they can't live their sinful life. So therefore, God doesn't exist. But for the blind man, it's interesting. I see it was never a part of his former vocabulary until now. But not just physically, but more importantly, spiritually.

Sometimes you and I can sometimes act more like Pharisees. We can be prone to wander, as we sang earlier. It doesn't negate or nullify our salvation or position in Christ. But we can act like the Pharisees too. Because we can see sound doctrine. Because we can see the sins of the world.

We can see Jesus is the answer. We can see the moral degradation and chaos around us. We can see change in ourselves and wrongly congratulate ourselves. We're not talking about an over focus on our progress, nor lack of. But what we need to remember is that we are unworthy sinners, beggars who need to keep on seeing Jesus.

Therefore, as your brother, I feel I should never boast that I did this or that. Rather, I wonder why me? Me, of all people, the sinner, this sinner here. That I get to live, that I get to serve Jesus, to have you as my brothers and sisters and friends.

I get to eat and breathe and walk this planet. I get to smile over anything. Let alone have a wonderful wife and three precious children. Rather than getting the justice I deserved. Where I offended a terribly holy God whose wrath should have been mine, but now is no more forever.

As far as the east is from the west. That God treats me, not as my sins deserve, but as Jesus deserves. Those who know mercy, preach mercy, because we escape the justice of God purely by the sovereign kindness of our Savior. Well, back to Jesus. He takes initiative again.

I love this. He said, "Jesus finds him again." Right? Jesus is the one who finds them. He personally finds them. The Good Shepherd always cares for us sheep. You may feel lost, but you're not lost. He knew his parents abandoned him, that he was mistreated and excommunicated. The man knows our Lord's voice, but not his face.

He would soon, in the glory of the Gospel and the face of Christ. See, it was not enough to know Jesus' name, or that he was a prophet, or a man of God, or some vague higher being. Thus Jesus asked a very personal, but very necessary question. Do you believe in the Son of Man?

That comes from the book of Daniel. It refers to the Messiah, the Son of Man. In Daniel 7. It's necessary, because what Romans 10.70 says, "Faith comes by believing," what? "By hearing the word of Christ." The voice of Christ in his word. So don't be surprised in the very next chapter, Jesus will say, "His sheep know his voice." Voice.

The man recognizes his voice. So you can imagine the man is like, "I think this is him. It's him." He answers with trembling excitement. "Who is he, sir, that I might believe in him?" Jesus says, "You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you now." "Lord, I believe." And the man worshipped him.

Belief and worship, they always go together, don't they? Belief and worship always go together. This is the one and only instance of Jesus being worshipped in the entire Gospel of John. By this blind man. This nobody. Like me. Blessedness is not getting a house. Blessedness is not growing a nest egg, going on vacations, surviving COVID, good things.

No, true blessedness is to know Jesus Christ. That's blessedness. If we never had any of those other things, that's blessedness. Like Paul's scourgings, the still bleeding knife wounds in my back from ministry, the tear-soaked pages of my Bible that, like meter's dents, all my life has witnessed that I am loved by God.

Even when I was exhausted, scared, abandoned, depressed, years ago I lost all confidence to ever step into a pulpit again. I remember for months weeping and being in the fetal position in my bedroom, crying and crying. I said, "God, I don't want to ever be in ministry again." Dreaming about how I can drive myself into a light pole.

Yet all my losses Jesus knew, all my failures he forgave, all my tears he has kept in his bottle, even for this worst of all sinners. He alone deserves our constant homage, our best affection, our deepest trust, our immediate obedience, our most intimate fellowship, and our undying proclamation. We should be thankful for so much, but most of all, our amazing, wonderful, unspeakable salvation.

We were blind, but now we see, brothers and sisters. G.C. Rao writes, "There is no kind of evidence so satisfactory as this to the heart of a real Christian. His knowledge may be small, his faith may be feeble, his doctrinal views may be at present confused and indistinct. But if Christ has really wrought a work of grace in his heart by his Spirit, he feels within him something that you cannot overthrow.

I was dark, and now I have light. I was afraid of God, and now I love him. I was fond of sin, and now I hate it. I was blind, and now I see. The hungry man eats and feels strengthened. The thirsty man drinks and feels refreshed. Surely the man who has within him the grace of God ought to be able to say, 'I feel its power.'" Do you?

Do you? If you don't, I invite you. Go to the cross. Repent of your sinful autonomy and rebellion if you are not a Christian. Turn away from your sinful lifestyle and turn instead to Jesus Christ who welcomes you with open arms, and he will save you. If God does not judge sin, then he would not be good, right?

He would not be good. But precisely because he is good, we should expect his justice. Yet God in his grace has made a way for us to be fully forgiven and also transformed. We're all sinners. We need to beg his mercy to trust his promises and follow him. We are spiritually bankrupt.

We have nothing to offer him. We cannot save ourselves. We have to humble ourselves. Therefore, I urge you, if you don't know Christ, I urge you, I beg you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today. We have folks all around this church who care for you and love you.

I'm glad to walk you through that, as long as it takes. Now let me end with this. This is for the rest of us. Let me end with this. Think about the blind man. He's abandoned by his own parents, excommunicated from his culture, and rejected by his entire community.

Do you think he had a hard day? It was a hard day in those respects. But it was the best day of his life. Best day of his life. Why? Because he saw Jesus. Because he saw Jesus. Not just that he saw, he saw Jesus. That's all you and I need to know on this Lord's Day, in 2022 and the rest of our life.

So let's just see Jesus moving forward. We need to continue to see him. That's our greatest need every single day. And it's a need that will always be met. Let's pray. Join with me in prayer. Father, so strong and so kind, the greatest privilege is to know you, to know your son, to know your spirit.

No amount of worldly acclaim or health or wealth or security can ever substitute for knowing you, to live as Christ and to die as game. Thank you for loving every one of us, for knowing what each of us as individuals goes through. For we know things that no one else knows but you know, that in your omnipotent grace, we can cast all our anxieties and worries on you because we know that you care for us.

So we humble ourselves knowing that in due time you will exalt us. Time and time and time again, you have proven yourself faithful, yet we long for your return. We long to not just hear your voice and your word, but we long to one day see you face to face.

In Christ's name we pray, amen. We all stand for our final praise. Let me close us in prayer. Let's pray. Loving Triune God, to whom else shall we go? Your Son has the words of eternal life. May your people hear, and the saints everywhere around the world, enjoy the warmth of the sunshine of thy smile this week and forevermore.

In Christ's name we pray, amen. God sent his Son. They called him Jesus. He came to love. Heal and forgive. He lived and died. To buy my pardon, an empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone.

Because I know he holds a future. And life is worth the living just because he lives. ♪ Of our efforts stand ♪