The Power of Your Personal Testimony
00:00:00.000 | In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, we read a remarkable story of a man born blind,
00:00:10.080 | made to see by the miraculous healing power of Christ.
00:00:13.480 | It was the kind of miracle, like so many of them, that could not be kept a secret.
00:00:19.000 | Word spread far and wide of what Jesus had done to this young man, but the power players
00:00:24.040 | of the day rejected the news.
00:00:26.840 | And so we read that "the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his
00:00:31.640 | sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them,
00:00:35.960 | 'Is this your son, who you say was born blind?
00:00:39.720 | How then does he see?'
00:00:41.200 | His parents answered, 'We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but how
00:00:46.280 | he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes.
00:00:50.280 | Ask him, he is of age.'"
00:00:52.480 | That is, he's at least 13 years old.
00:00:54.600 | "He will speak for himself.
00:00:56.960 | His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already
00:01:00.920 | agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the
00:01:07.360 | synagogue."
00:01:08.360 | So, there's a power move here, an intimidation factor at play.
00:01:13.760 | John continues, "Therefore his parents said, 'He is of age, ask him.'
00:01:18.120 | So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, 'Give
00:01:21.600 | glory to God.
00:01:22.600 | We know that this man is a sinner.'
00:01:25.240 | He the healed man answered, 'Whether he is a sinner I do not know.
00:01:29.080 | One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.'"
00:01:34.640 | John 9, 18-25.
00:01:37.320 | Was blind, but now I see.
00:01:39.320 | That famous line worked into John Newton's famous hymn, Amazing Grace.
00:01:43.920 | It's such a great statement.
00:01:44.920 | John 9, this whole chapter is a key in explaining God's plan for physical disability, but it's
00:01:51.880 | also a key chapter for understanding how we as Christians, changed by the grace of God,
00:01:57.280 | can testify of Christ before the world's most powerful and educated people.
00:02:03.240 | Here's Pastor John to explain.
00:02:06.640 | Conversation number four, verses 24-34.
00:02:11.520 | This is the longest one.
00:02:14.000 | And here we see the full-blown courage of a beggar, a mere beggar, standing up to the
00:02:20.880 | most religious, most educated people of the land.
00:02:25.880 | And we see here full-blown blasphemy in response to that kind of courage.
00:02:33.680 | So verse 24, "Give glory to God.
00:02:40.080 | We know this man is a sinner, so join us in blasphemy, or we'll excommunicate you out
00:02:48.600 | of the synagogue."
00:02:49.880 | That's not like being excommunicated out of Bethlehem.
00:02:52.440 | Do you know what happens if we do discipline on an unrepentant person?
00:02:56.680 | They go join another church, in spite of any letter we might send.
00:03:02.360 | There are churches of all kinds, just move on.
00:03:05.520 | That can't happen here.
00:03:07.840 | When you get kicked out of a synagogue, you get kicked out of Judaism.
00:03:12.000 | This is life.
00:03:13.000 | It's like you, you're a Muslim, everybody's a Muslim.
00:03:16.960 | You can't be here as a Christian.
00:03:22.120 | It won't work.
00:03:24.640 | This is huge.
00:03:25.640 | Don't, don't here, we'll kick you out.
00:03:27.840 | We will get rid of you from the synagogue.
00:03:29.600 | That means you're out of the community.
00:03:32.840 | This is huge.
00:03:33.880 | What this man was standing up against.
00:03:37.000 | He says, and this is his most famous sentence.
00:03:40.160 | People all over the world know this sentence, even if they don't know the Bible.
00:03:44.400 | Verse 20, it's still 24.
00:03:48.240 | Whether he's a sinner or I don't know.
00:03:51.520 | One thing I know, though I was blind.
00:03:55.720 | Now I see.
00:03:59.040 | I hope you feel something here.
00:04:02.440 | You don't think of yourself as a theologian.
00:04:04.720 | You don't think of yourself as a scientist.
00:04:07.680 | When you got people coming against your faith with every manner of argument, historically,
00:04:14.760 | scientifically, experientially is coming against you.
00:04:19.440 | If you try to be a bold, regular witness, and I want you to feel the power of this,
00:04:26.040 | a personal testimony, Trump's arguments when they're bad arguments and they're all bad
00:04:34.760 | arguments when they're against Jesus.
00:04:39.600 | Don't be intimidated.
00:04:40.880 | This man was way less educated than everybody in all these rooms.
00:04:47.640 | And he'd been blind all of his life.
00:04:49.760 | And he just simply said, with all boldness, look, you may know some things I don't know,
00:04:54.840 | but I can see.
00:05:00.600 | And one of the reasons I teach and preach on the doctrines of grace is because there's
00:05:06.480 | so many Christians who don't know how they got saved so that they don't know they have
00:05:10.920 | a stunning testimony that they sheer believe.
00:05:16.160 | Your belief is a miracle.
00:05:19.240 | You didn't choose it.
00:05:22.720 | Of course, if you have a theology that says I did it, you've got no testimony to the power
00:05:31.760 | of God in your life.
00:05:33.800 | But if you believe that at age six or 16 or 36, when you saw Jesus as needed and beautiful
00:05:43.080 | and sufficient, and you confessed, I'm a sinner, I need you, I receive you, a miracle happened.
00:05:50.440 | A miracle happened.
00:05:53.560 | That's why these theological things matter.
00:05:55.780 | You can stand up in the front of the Senate and say, I don't know much about what you
00:06:00.860 | guys deal with here.
00:06:01.860 | I just know one thing, I was blind once and now I see the glory of Christ as self-evidencing
00:06:09.600 | and compelling and I will die for him.
00:06:12.120 | I'll stake my life on the truth of what I've seen in Jesus.
00:06:16.280 | That's what you can say.
00:06:18.840 | That's very powerful.
00:06:19.840 | It is here.
00:06:22.080 | It will come to a point where they can't handle him anymore.
00:06:26.360 | So that's what he said.
00:06:28.160 | I hope you're willing to say it.
00:06:29.520 | I hope you have enough understanding to say it.
00:06:31.600 | And if you don't, I hope you study about how you got saved so that you will know if you're
00:06:37.920 | saved, you can say it.
00:06:41.400 | His courage becomes scorn.
00:06:43.980 | Verse 27.
00:06:47.200 | Why do you want to hear my story again?
00:06:49.200 | You want to become his disciples?
00:06:52.280 | Whoa.
00:06:54.800 | What are you doing, man?
00:06:57.000 | Get yourself killed.
00:07:00.500 | They're very hostile.
00:07:01.580 | Of course, verse 28, they reviled him saying you are his disciple, but we are disciples
00:07:08.520 | of Moses.
00:07:10.320 | We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know where he comes
00:07:15.120 | from.
00:07:18.720 | Now the controversy has revealed another deceit.
00:07:24.400 | They're not disciples of Moses.
00:07:28.660 | They think they are.
00:07:30.840 | They're not.
00:07:33.200 | Because Jesus said in John 5 46, if you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote of
00:07:45.520 | me.
00:07:47.920 | You don't know Moses and you don't know God.
00:07:54.040 | You talk about Moses.
00:07:55.600 | You read Moses.
00:07:56.880 | You talk about God.
00:07:58.400 | You read God's word and you don't know God because if you knew God and you knew Moses,
00:08:03.400 | you know me.
00:08:05.680 | So again, the controversy is revealing what's really going on in here.
00:08:12.720 | And now we are seeing who's really blind here.
00:08:16.200 | They take the first five books of their Bible and they do this and they don't see anything.
00:08:26.520 | They're blind.
00:08:28.120 | So we're watching a man whose sight is becoming clearer and clearer and clearer and courage
00:08:33.640 | is becoming stronger and stronger and we're watching these Pharisees reveal more and more
00:08:38.760 | blindness.
00:08:40.300 | You don't want to be a part of that.
00:08:44.360 | Verses number five, verses 35 to 38 between Jesus and the beggar after they cast him out.
00:08:55.400 | And what makes this conversation so amazingly significant or one of the things that does
00:09:02.440 | is that Jesus sought him out and found him.
00:09:07.680 | This man, verse 34, you were born in utter sin and would you teach us and they cast him
00:09:17.480 | out.
00:09:18.480 | Now that's, as I said, really serious.
00:09:22.200 | To whom will he turn when he's just been cast out of the community?
00:09:28.600 | To whom will he turn?
00:09:30.900 | He doesn't have to turn anywhere.
00:09:32.940 | Jesus turns to him.
00:09:35.160 | We've seen this before, haven't we?
00:09:37.720 | Jesus found him.
00:09:39.440 | Jesus seeks him.
00:09:43.160 | And here's what they say, verse 35, Jesus heard that they had cast him out and having
00:09:48.960 | found him, so I'm going to put in a little princess here.
00:09:53.720 | It is no accident that the next chapter is about the good shepherd who gathers his sheep.
00:10:00.880 | It's no accident.
00:10:03.800 | Everyone knows what he's doing.
00:10:06.280 | He found him.
00:10:07.880 | That's one of mine.
00:10:09.320 | Nobody else wants him right now.
00:10:10.720 | I want him.
00:10:12.400 | And that's what I'm praying he'll do to you in the next five minutes of this sermon.
00:10:16.360 | He's after you.
00:10:18.560 | He's going to find you.
00:10:20.920 | It's why you're here.
00:10:21.920 | It's why you're there.
00:10:24.220 | Jesus heard that they cast him out and he found him.
00:10:28.240 | He found him, he said, do you believe in the son of man?
00:10:34.280 | He answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?
00:10:40.440 | And Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you.
00:10:47.640 | And he said, Lord, I believe.
00:10:54.320 | And he worshipped.
00:10:56.200 | So the last thing we see him doing, he's gone out of this story.
00:10:58.840 | He never says another word.
00:10:59.960 | We never see him again.
00:11:01.600 | The last thing he does is worship Jesus.
00:11:04.800 | I pray that's the last thing I do.
00:11:08.200 | Jesus does the works of God.
00:11:10.840 | Jesus is the glory of God.
00:11:13.400 | Jesus is to be worshipped.
00:11:15.760 | That's the point of the story.
00:11:19.880 | He's blind.
00:11:21.680 | He calls Jesus a man.
00:11:24.040 | Then he calls Jesus a prophet.
00:11:26.120 | Then he defends him at huge risk to his life.
00:11:29.680 | And then he worships him after he is found by Jesus.
00:11:35.560 | Jesus came into the world to seek worshippers.
00:11:38.000 | That's why he's here.
00:11:40.400 | Do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony?
00:11:49.720 | No big apologetic reasoning.
00:11:52.160 | Some of you are called to that, but most of you aren't.
00:11:54.720 | You're just called to be witnesses.
00:11:56.960 | You see a car, hit a person, you can be a witness.
00:11:59.760 | You don't need any education at all.
00:12:02.240 | I saw.
00:12:04.240 | 95% of Christians are saved that way.
00:12:09.800 | No big argument.
00:12:10.800 | Just I saw.
00:12:11.800 | Finally, I saw.
00:12:13.080 | I was reading my gospels and I couldn't resist this man anymore.
00:12:16.920 | He was real.
00:12:18.560 | He's real.
00:12:19.560 | He's true.
00:12:20.560 | He's exactly what I need.
00:12:21.560 | He's what the world needs.
00:12:23.080 | He's real.
00:12:24.080 | He's not made up.
00:12:25.600 | You saw.
00:12:27.560 | And so I simply ask, do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony?
00:12:34.800 | I was blind and now I see.
00:12:37.120 | Powerful.
00:12:38.120 | This is from the sermon titled The Works of God and the Worship of Jesus preached on John
00:12:42.600 | 9 verses 1 to 39, preached on June 4th, 2011.
00:12:47.480 | You can find the whole thing at DesiringGod.org.
00:12:50.600 | Francis sent the clip into us.
00:12:52.600 | Dear Pastor John, I've been listening to your sermons on the gospel of John and have
00:12:56.080 | been deeply blessed by them, he writes us.
00:12:58.960 | I am so thankful for the way you, through the power of the Holy Spirit, have made the
00:13:01.980 | glory of God in these texts so clear and powerful and drawing.
00:13:06.360 | Of all your sermons on John, this clip is at the top, and through it I have found strength
00:13:10.160 | and courage to be bold and sure about my faith in Jesus.
00:13:14.680 | Amen.
00:13:15.680 | Francis, thanks for sending it in.
00:13:17.600 | And thanks for listening to today's sermon clip.
00:13:19.360 | All our clips are now crowdsourced.
00:13:20.800 | You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons changed your life and we share that clip with the
00:13:24.000 | ABJ audience.
00:13:25.000 | If you got one, email me.
00:13:26.360 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in
00:13:30.800 | the audio and tell me how it impacted you.
00:13:32.600 | Put the word "clip" in a subject line of an email and send it to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:13:38.840 | That's our email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:13:44.400 | Hashtag blessed.
00:13:45.880 | It's a social media tag for when someone feels blessed and who has or is getting everything
00:13:50.720 | they dreamed of.
00:13:51.720 | It can range from getting a new girlfriend, a new job, a pay raise, finding a $10 bill
00:13:56.520 | on the sidewalk, or getting surprisingly good news.
00:13:59.960 | But what does it mean to be truly blessed according to Scripture?
00:14:03.920 | Now, that's a very different discussion, one initiated by a discerning listener to
00:14:09.960 | the podcast.
00:14:10.960 | That's up next time.
00:14:11.960 | I'm your host Tony Renke.
00:14:12.960 | We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:14:15.480 | We'll see you then.
00:14:16.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:14:24.440 | [ Barking ]