In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, we read a remarkable story of a man born blind, made to see by the miraculous healing power of Christ. It was the kind of miracle, like so many of them, that could not be kept a secret. Word spread far and wide of what Jesus had done to this young man, but the power players of the day rejected the news.

And so we read that "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 them, 'Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he 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.'" That is, he's at least 13 years old. "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 Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue." So, there's a power move here, an intimidation factor at play.

John continues, "Therefore his parents said, 'He is of age, ask him.' 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 the healed man answered, 'Whether he is a sinner I do not know.

One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.'" John 9, 18-25. Was blind, but now I see. That famous line worked into John Newton's famous hymn, Amazing Grace. It's such a great statement. John 9, this whole chapter is a key in explaining God's plan for physical disability, but it's also a key chapter for understanding how we as Christians, changed by the grace of God, can testify of Christ before the world's most powerful and educated people.

Here's Pastor John to explain. Conversation number four, verses 24-34. This is the longest one. And here we see the full-blown courage of a beggar, a mere beggar, standing up to the most religious, most educated people of the land. And we see here full-blown blasphemy in response to that kind of courage.

So verse 24, "Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner, so join us in blasphemy, or we'll excommunicate you out of the synagogue." That's not like being excommunicated out of Bethlehem. Do you know what happens if we do discipline on an unrepentant person? They go join another church, in spite of any letter we might send.

There are churches of all kinds, just move on. That can't happen here. When you get kicked out of a synagogue, you get kicked out of Judaism. This is life. It's like you, you're a Muslim, everybody's a Muslim. You can't be here as a Christian. It won't work. This is huge.

Don't, don't here, we'll kick you out. We will get rid of you from the synagogue. That means you're out of the community. This is huge. What this man was standing up against. He says, and this is his most famous sentence. People all over the world know this sentence, even if they don't know the Bible.

Verse 20, it's still 24. Whether he's a sinner or I don't know. One thing I know, though I was blind. Now I see. I hope you feel something here. You don't think of yourself as a theologian. You don't think of yourself as a scientist. When you got people coming against your faith with every manner of argument, historically, scientifically, experientially is coming against you.

If you try to be a bold, regular witness, and I want you to feel the power of this, a personal testimony, Trump's arguments when they're bad arguments and they're all bad arguments when they're against Jesus. Don't be intimidated. This man was way less educated than everybody in all these rooms.

And he'd been blind all of his life. And he just simply said, with all boldness, look, you may know some things I don't know, but I can see. And one of the reasons I teach and preach on the doctrines of grace is because there's so many Christians who don't know how they got saved so that they don't know they have a stunning testimony that they sheer believe.

Your belief is a miracle. You didn't choose it. Of course, if you have a theology that says I did it, you've got no testimony to the power of God in your life. But if you believe that at age six or 16 or 36, when you saw Jesus as needed and beautiful and sufficient, and you confessed, I'm a sinner, I need you, I receive you, a miracle happened.

A miracle happened. That's why these theological things matter. You can stand up in the front of the Senate and say, I don't know much about what you guys deal with here. I just know one thing, I was blind once and now I see the glory of Christ as self-evidencing and compelling and I will die for him.

I'll stake my life on the truth of what I've seen in Jesus. That's what you can say. That's very powerful. It is here. It will come to a point where they can't handle him anymore. So that's what he said. I hope you're willing to say it. I hope you have enough understanding to say it.

And if you don't, I hope you study about how you got saved so that you will know if you're saved, you can say it. His courage becomes scorn. Verse 27. Why do you want to hear my story again? You want to become his disciples? Whoa. What are you doing, man?

Get yourself killed. They're very hostile. Of course, verse 28, 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 don't know where he comes from. Now the controversy has revealed another deceit.

They're not disciples of Moses. They think they are. They're not. Because Jesus said in John 5 46, if you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote of me. You don't know Moses and you don't know God. You talk about Moses. You read Moses. You talk about God.

You read God's word and you don't know God because if you knew God and you knew Moses, you know me. So again, the controversy is revealing what's really going on in here. And now we are seeing who's really blind here. They take the first five books of their Bible and they do this and they don't see anything.

They're blind. So we're watching a man whose sight is becoming clearer and clearer and clearer and courage is becoming stronger and stronger and we're watching these Pharisees reveal more and more blindness. You don't want to be a part of that. Verses number five, verses 35 to 38 between Jesus and the beggar after they cast him out.

And what makes this conversation so amazingly significant or one of the things that does is that Jesus sought him out and found him. This man, verse 34, you were born in utter sin and would you teach us and they cast him out. Now that's, as I said, really serious.

To whom will he turn when he's just been cast out of the community? To whom will he turn? He doesn't have to turn anywhere. Jesus turns to him. We've seen this before, haven't we? Jesus found him. Jesus seeks him. And here's what they say, verse 35, Jesus heard that they had cast him out and having found him, so I'm going to put in a little princess here.

It is no accident that the next chapter is about the good shepherd who gathers his sheep. It's no accident. Everyone knows what he's doing. He found him. That's one of mine. Nobody else wants him right now. I want him. And that's what I'm praying he'll do to you in the next five minutes of this sermon.

He's after you. He's going to find you. It's why you're here. It's why you're there. Jesus heard that they cast him out and he found him. He 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?

And Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped. So the last thing we see him doing, he's gone out of this story. He never says another word. We never see him again.

The last thing he does is worship Jesus. I pray that's the last thing I do. Jesus does the works of God. Jesus is the glory of God. Jesus is to be worshipped. That's the point of the story. He's blind. He calls Jesus a man. Then he calls Jesus a prophet.

Then he defends him at huge risk to his life. And then he worships him after he is found by Jesus. Jesus came into the world to seek worshippers. That's why he's here. Do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony? No big apologetic reasoning. Some of you are called to that, but most of you aren't.

You're just called to be witnesses. You see a car, hit a person, you can be a witness. You don't need any education at all. I saw. 95% of Christians are saved that way. No big argument. Just I saw. Finally, I saw. I was reading my gospels and I couldn't resist this man anymore.

He was real. He's real. He's true. He's exactly what I need. He's what the world needs. He's real. He's not made up. You saw. And so I simply ask, do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony? I was blind and now I see. Powerful. This is from the sermon titled The Works of God and the Worship of Jesus preached on John 9 verses 1 to 39, preached on June 4th, 2011.

You can find the whole thing at DesiringGod.org. Francis sent the clip into us. Dear Pastor John, I've been listening to your sermons on the gospel of John and have been deeply blessed by them, he writes us. I am so thankful for the way you, through the power of the Holy Spirit, have made the glory of God in these texts so clear and powerful and drawing.

Of all your sermons on John, this clip is at the top, and through it I have found strength and courage to be bold and sure about my faith in Jesus. Amen. Francis, thanks for sending it in. And thanks for listening to today's sermon clip. All our clips are now crowdsourced.

You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons changed your life and we share that clip with the ABJ audience. If you got one, email me. Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio and tell me how it impacted you.

Put the word "clip" in a subject line of an email and send it to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. That's our email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. Hashtag blessed. It's a social media tag for when someone feels blessed and who has or is getting everything they dreamed of. It can range from getting a new girlfriend, a new job, a pay raise, finding a $10 bill on the sidewalk, or getting surprisingly good news.

But what does it mean to be truly blessed according to Scripture? Now, that's a very different discussion, one initiated by a discerning listener to the podcast. That's up next time. I'm your host Tony Renke. We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday. We'll see you then.