The Eyes of Faith

Introduction

In our observance of the Lord’s Supper this morning, our Brother Barfield took us to one of the three stories that told about something lost being restored. That lost son, but before that there was the lost coin and the lost sheep. And all three of those stories have a lot in common, but one thing they have in common, all of them, is their ending, and their ending ended in rejoicing. And that was certainly our experience, our last Lord’s Day. If you weren’t here with us last Lord’s Day, we ended up having five people who came in obedience to Jesus Christ and were baptized for remission of their sins and were added to the Lord’s body. And what a wonderful, wonderful day that was. And it was a day full of rejoicing, as those stories tell us, rejoicing by the angels in heaven and rejoicing by the saints here.

And so we’re certainly still writing that experience, that wonderful experience, and still rejoicing with those who made the most important decision of their life, and that is to put on Christ in baptism. And it’s already been pointed out by others and will continue to be pointed out, we need to make sure that we do our part, the obligation that we have to support them and to encourage them and to help them grow as they will help us as well. You know, in a lookout over our audience this morning, I see several pairs of eyeglasses. I have to I’ve worn glasses for years, and I see so many of you who wear eyeglasses. And I know, because I know so many of you that many of you who aren’t wearing eyeglasses are wearing the substitute for them, and that is contact lenses.

I’m too big of a wimp. I can’t do contact lenses. But I know many of you are wearing contact lenses instead of glasses. And even others among you have had corrective eye surgery, LASIK or had cataracts removed and other eye corrective surgeries and procedures done. And that really highlights the fact of the importance of eyesight. That’s something that we don’t want to lose. As we get older, we have greater problems with that eyesight. You know, one blessing of that is that there’s less shock when you look in the mirror when you get older, but that eyesight needs to be corrected, and we take every measure that we can to correct our eyesight because we know the importance of seeing. And seeing and the benefit of seeing has just become a part of our vernacular as well.

You may use an expression such as, I see what you did there. And just, ah, now I see.

But the idea of knowing something and understanding, we understand the value of seeing, whether it be physical sense of sight, or whether it’s used in that expressive form of coming to some understanding. There’s a story in the Gospels found in John chapter 9. Would you turn with me there? We’re going to be spending our entire time in John chapter 9.

1. Jesus Heals a Man Blind from Birth

But there’s a story in John chapter 9 about Jesus performing a miracle. This is the miracle of restoring of sight. But there’s going to be a play on words of the idea of blindness and the ability to see as Jesus heals this man who has been blind his entire life. Join with me as we read and make some observations from this miracle of Jesus. In John chapter 9, let’s start our reading at the very beginning in verse 1, where it says, Now Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples ask him, saying, Rabbi, our teacher, who sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. Now, that might sound curious to us. We see someone with some kind of handicap or physical difficulty, such as blindness, and we think nothing of it.

As far as it being some kind of spiritual or moral implications, we recognize that just something physical happened in their lifetime. Maybe they were born that way, or some accident or something has happened, but his disciples kind of express what was a common thought among the Jewish people of that day, and that is that some physical malformity was connected to some moral deficiency. That this person was born blind because his parents did something bad. And I mean really bad. It’s not that they just tithed 9% instead of 10. And it wasn’t that they had forgotten one or two Sabbath observances, but his parents must have done something really bad for God to curse them with a blind child. They even was the thought that you could have done something in your life that retroactively would make you blind at birth, or maybe you had sinned before your birth, and so that you would be born blind.

All of these strange ideas were prevalent in that day. And so they just simply asked the question, what went wrong? Who did so who did the bad deed that this person was born blind? Jesus answers in verse 3 Neither this man nor his parents sinned. Now, Jesus obviously doesn’t mean that his parents never committed a sin or that this man never committed a sin. But what Jesus is saying is this man is blind, he sinned, but those dots don’t connect. They have nothing to do with one another. That’s not the explanation for his blindness, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. One thing that will come out of this blindness is not the observation or the knowledge that some sin is connected to it, but what will come out of that is the glory that will be brought to God through this miracle and the teaching that will follow.

Jesus said, I must work, verse 4, the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work, and as long as I’m in the world, I am the light of the world. Now let’s pause there before we get into the miracle and the repercussions of that miracle. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

But he’s going to see the light in two senses. Jesus is going to open his eyes for the first time, and he will experience physical sight and physical light for the first time. But more important, as important as that interaction with Jesus will be to this man’s life in transforming and changing his life forever, from going from being blind to being to having 2020 vision. More important than that is going to be the spiritual light that he will experience because of this interaction with Jesus. And so after saying that I am the light of the world, he says now in verse 6, when he said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and he anointed the eyes of the man with clay, and he said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam.

That is translated, sent. So he went and washed and came back seeing. Therefore the neighbors and those who had previously had seen that he was blind said, Is this not he who sat and begged? Some said, This is he, and others said, He is like them. He said, I am he. Now let’s think about what’s transpired in that short amount of time. Jesus has performed miracles in various different ways. This time he does so in a more tactile, more connective way. He he makes this clay out of mud and saliva, and he puts it on the eyes of that man and tells him to go and to wash, and as soon as he washes his sight is now restored. And it says that he went and he came seeing.

We don’t know how old this man is. We’re going to find out a little bit later that he’s an of adult age. His parents will say he’s old enough, ask him. And so he’s of what we’d say is of a legal age. He’s an adult. He can answer for himself as his own responsibility. So we know he’s at least, what do you think? Twenty at least, maybe much older than that. We don’t know. But what we do know is he was born blind and he had never seen until this day. That simple expression that he went and came back seeing. Can you imagine what that must have been like? I can’t. To have left the pool of Siloam, and now with the ability to see.

Looking up and seeing a bird. That’s where that beautiful musical sound comes from. Watching people’s feet on the cobblestone, making the sounds of footsteps that he had only heard before, and seeing people involved in conversations, and being able to put a face to what was only a voice before. And then we need to notice the expression that some began to ask, isn’t that? The blind man. The way he’s walking around, and I’m sure he probably was drawing attention to himself by looking around and seeing. And it was obvious now that this man has sight, and now they’re saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. This guy that’s looking around at everything, wasn’t he the blind man who always sat and begged? Now this is going to be important.

Two facts that we’ve already heard in this story are going to be important a little bit later. Just like I can imagine what it was like to go from blind to having full 2020 vision. I can’t imagine that not only the physical relief that that brought, but think about the unnecessary and improper social stigma that was associated with blindness in the first century. We’ve already seen that it was understood incorrectly so, but understood by the people that this man was a horrible sinner, or at least his mom and dad were. And so blindness would not only have brought with it that handicap, it would have brought with it a moral and ethical stigma. That these are bad people. Bad things happen to bad people. That’s wrong, but that’s the way they believe.

The other social stigma that would have been attached with that is that if in the twenty in the first century, if you were blind, you begged. And you became a beggar. And you’d have sat at the street corner. And if you’re going to be a successful beggar, you’re going to have to be at a very popular street corner where everybody walked. So everybody would have seen this man sitting there. And probably almost everybody would have said, Oh, there’s that sinner. Are those those sinners, kid, you know, and whispered about that. And oh, he’s begging. And with the shame that was attached with that. And so not only has his life changed in the sense that he was blind and he can see, but all of that now has been lifted off of him.

2. I Was Blind, But Now I See

The social, the moral stigmas that attached itself so incorrectly to the deficiency of blindness, had now been alleviated. And so he said, I am he. Verse 12, they said to him, or excuse me, verse 10, they said to him, How were your eyes opened? And he answered, A man called Jesus, made clay and anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and I received my sight. And they said to him, Where is he? Speaking of Jesus. I don’t know. And so they brought him who was formerly blind to the Pharisees. The Pharisees, the experts in the law, the self-appointed police of religion and faith of that day. We’ve got a question, we’ve got something we can’t understand.

Let’s take it to those know it all Pharisees. And that’s what they do. And verse 14 says, now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. We’ll pause there and make this observation. Surely it was no coincidence or accident that Jesus performed so many miracles on the Sabbath. He was destroying not the Sabbath law, but he was destroying their man-made concept of what the Sabbath day was supposed to be. And so it was a Sabbath day when this miracle was performed. And so the Pharisees, verse 15, asked him and said how he had received his side, and he said, He put clay on my eyes, and I washed and I see. Therefore, some of the Pharisees says, This man, speaking of Jesus, this man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.

They were faced with what in their mind were two conflicting views. Number one is he had performed a miracle. He had performed an act of God, but he did so on the Sabbath day, and therefore for by doing had violated the Sabbath law, which he had not done, but they thought he had done.

Or he would have kept our idea of the Sabbath. And so it says, This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them. So they’re arguing about this. Now a man of God wouldn’t have done this on the Sabbath, but somebody else says, But how who could do this except the man of God? And so they’re debating these things. And they say again, verse 17 to the blind man, What do you say about him? Because he opened your eyes, and he said, He’s a prophet. He’s had a little bit more time. He’s come down off of cloud nine after receiving this miracle. He’s had a little bit more time to think about what has happened and who caused it to happen.

He’s heard both sides of the argument.

But nobody can do these signs except they be from God. So he’s heard all of this and he’s reasoned in his mind and said, Well, who do you think he is? Well, he has to be from God. So he falls down on the side of those who were saying, He is a man of God. That’s what the word prophet simply meant. He is on God’s side. He is a man of God. But the Jews, verse 18, the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of him who had received his side. And they asked them, they asked mom and dad, saying, Is this your son whom you say was born blind? Think about how idiotic that statement was.

You’re faking it. Whom you say was, oh yes, we made up this story. We loved having everybody gossip about us and say we were horrible sinners. And we we when we had a child, we saw he was a boy, we said to ourselves, I hope he grows up to be a beggar. What a question. Whom you say was born blind. What do you say about him? Notice the parents reply. And they asked them, saying, Is this your son whom you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind, but by what means he now sees, we do not know, or who opened his eyes, we do not know.

He is of age, that is of a legal age to answer legal questions of himself. Ask him, he will speak for himself. His parents, John explains in verse 22, his parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed that he was the Christ, they would be put out of the synagogue. That is, they would be excommunicated from their Jewish faith. And so those parents were afraid.

So again they called the man who was blind and said to him, Give God the glory. We know that this man, again, Jesus, this man, Jesus, is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know that I was blind, but now I see. You gotta love the gumption of this blind man. This is the best day of his life. You’re not going to ruin it. They ask him these questions. And he kind of, I think, is kind of poking at him a little bit. And he’s going to do that more. I don’t know all about this. You’re the Pharisees, you’re the so-called legal religious experts, but this thing I do know. I woke up this morning, I couldn’t see a thing.

And now I can see. Now, one thing we need to note about the contrast between these Pharisees, who in Jewish circles would have been the most highly educated people of their day. By today’s standards, they would have had all these initials after their names with all the degrees that they held from all the religious universities. And so these were experts, knowledgeable people. How much education, again, in the first century, how do you think how much education do you think a blind man had? Did he go to college? Major in begging. No. He wouldn’t have gone to high, he wouldn’t even had any education. Again, the sadness of this event in that time period in that culture was there was no point in educating a blind child.

He’ll grow up to be a beggar. That’s his only future. So absolutely no education standing in front of people who were the most intelligent and highly educated. And so he says, This I do know. I was blind, but now I see.

And so they ask him again. Verse 27, I told ask him, verse 26, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples? And they reviled him and said, You are his disciples, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, pointing to Jesus again, we do not know where he is from.

That you, you religious experts, do not know where he is from, and yet he’s opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, the blind man says, It is unheard of that anyone open the eyes of him who has been born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. Wow. Totally intimidated by these people who to a great extent held his future in their hands. He could excommunicate, they could excommunicate him from his Jewish faith in his Jewish community. They were so learned and knowledgeable, he had not one day of formal education. They said to him.

They reviled him and said to him, You are his disciple. We are Moses’ disciple. Verse 34, they say again, you are completely born in sin. And are you teaching us? And they cast him out. Verse 35 says, Jesus heard that he had been cast out. Now, before you get the misunderstanding, cast him out doesn’t mean that they just threw him out of the room. I’m sure they did that. But remember what his parents were afraid of, that they would be cast out of the synagogue. That’s not being thrown out for a day. That means you’re out. You’re not a part of our community anymore. You can’t come worship God here anymore. So this is what we call they were excommunicating him. So Jesus heard that he had been cast out, and when he found him, he said to him, Do you believe in the Son of God?

And he answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? In other words, he’s saying, I figured out, in listening to this argument and this debate back and forth, and what you did for and to me, that you’re a prophet, that you’re a man of God, that God is with you, because no one could open the eyes of someone born blind unless God was with them. And so if you tell me, you being a man of God, you tell me who the Son of God is, and I know you’ll be telling me the truth from God, and I’ll go and I’ll find that person and I’ll believe in him. Jesus said in verse 36, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in Him?

3. The Progression of His Faith

Verse 37, Jesus said, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. You imagine the goosebumps on that blind man. First of all, when he said, You have seen him. And it is he who is talking to you. Then he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. Very quickly, let’s notice some lessons that we can learn. First thing that we notice is the progression of his faith. Notice the first thing this blind man said about Jesus when asked about the miracle. This man that’s called Jesus. I know his name. He made some mud, put it on my eyes, and I went. That’s no grand pronouncement of faith. This man called Jesus. The second thing, after hearing the debate about the Sabbath day versus miracles, then he has more time to think about it and to reason with himself, and then he says, He’s a prophet.

In other words, he’s saying he is from God. He is a man of God. Then, when presented with more information, when he comes back to see Jesus, Jesus says, I am the Son of God. Then he says, Lord, I believe. One of the most profound things about this miracle is not the miracle itself, but it is the progression of this man’s faith. Of how, as he is presented with more evidence and more information, his faith grows. Well, there’s an application to be made for us. First of all, our faith, that’s the way it ought to be with us. When we first become a Christian, when we’re baptized for the remission of our sins, admittedly, we don’t have to know a whole lot. All we have to know is that we’re a sinner and we’re lost and we’re separated from God.

And we have to know that Jesus is the answer for that. And that if we come in contact with him through baptism, that we can have our sins washed away. There’s so much more to learn about God, though, isn’t there? And our faith needs to grow. And this man’s faith grew in the course of one day. It’ll take us a little longer than that, but our faith needs to grow as we get more information. And we will grow and we’ll say, you know, I became a Christian, but I was still doing this. But I learned that I wasn’t supposed to still be doing this. And so I’m going to grow. And I’m going to take a greater statement of faith. And I was, I was still having problems with this, but but as I grew and I grew closer to God and greater knowledge of his word, I figured out I shouldn’t be doing that, and I should start doing this.

4. Accept the Evidence; Faith Demands Reason

And so our faith should grow as this man’s faith grew. The second lesson is we need to accept the evidence that we’re given. There is enough evidence. Romans chapter 1 lays out the fact that God is here. And he has made himself known. And he’s made himself evident. If man will just pardon the expression, open their eyes and see that God is real. And if we’ll just accept the evidence, that’s what he did. He accepted the evidence. He saw the evidence that was in front of him. Another lesson we learned from this blind man is that faith demands reason. Faith is not an enemy of reason. You don’t check your brains at the door when you become a Christian. Faith demands reason and accepts that reason.

This man’s faith grew not through, again, pardon the expression, not because of some kind of blind faith, but because he could see. He saw the evidence that was placed before him. He reasoned in hearing the debate among the Pharisees and the Jews about whether he was from God, that is Jesus, or whether he wasn’t, whether he could be or whether he couldn’t be. And he reasoned within himself. It was a logical decision to come to faith. But let’s look at some of the other parties involved in this story. We have his parents.

5. His Parents Blinded by Their Fear

This should have been the greatest day of their life. They should have followed their son’s example and said, I don’t know, I don’t care what you say. Our son was born. They should have been the most grateful people in the audience. Jesus had healed their son and had removed the social and moral stigmas that had incorrectly been applied to them in that society. They should have run to Jesus. But they had no faith. And they were blinded by their fear. It says that they didn’t take that step of faith because they feared the Pharisees and what they would do to them. We think about some today who are blinded by fear. Fear of the repercussions of their social circles or their family, what they might say about them or do to them if they obey the gospel and began living the Christian life.

6. The Pharisees Blinded by Prejudice

Maybe just the fear of change. I don’t want to make that radical change in my life. But that fear had them blinded. We see the Pharisees in this group and their blindness. Those today that we think about who won’t accept the truth when it stares them in the face. If anybody in all of this story, if anybody should have come to the correct conclusion that Jesus was the Son of God, it was the Pharisees. They had more information than the blind man. They knew more than the parents of the scriptures that prophesied about Jesus. They knew they had the intelligence, but they refused it, even though the truth was staring at them. And we think about people today, who the fear of whatever is keeping them from obeying.

Did they really have faith? It says that they believe, but because of fear they did not respond. We think deeper about the Pharisees’ blindness, those today who reject the truth because of prejudice. That was really the Pharisees’ problems. They were blind. The parents were blinded by fear. The Pharisees were blinded by prejudice. This isn’t what we’ve always believed. That was their problem with the Sabbath day. We’ve always believed this about the Sabbath. It was unthinkable to them that they could have been wrong. We’ve always thought this about the Messiah, what he would be like when he would come. And there are some today just as blinded by their prejudice, that they’d rather believe a lie than to believe the truth of the gospel. And so when we consider these Pharisees, again, they should have been the most receptive of Christ, and they were blinded by their prejudice.

True faith demands that we have a reset and say, you know, it doesn’t matter what I’ve always believed, what I’ve always thought, what my parents always believed and taught me. What do the scriptures say? And that’s what I will believe. Jesus finds this man, tells him who he is. Let’s finish the story in John chapter 9. Jesus says in verse 39, for judgment I’ve come into this world, that those who do not see may see. Is Jesus talking about healing blind people there? I don’t think he is. He did that. He took people who did not see, this person’s a case in point and made them see, but I believe he’s talking in a spiritual sense. For judgment I’ve come into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind.

Some of the Pharisees who are with him heard these words and said to him, Are we blind? Are you talking about us? Are we the blind people also? And Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, We see, therefore, your sin remains. See how he took their prejudice and their misconceived notions and turned it on his head? They thought if you were blind, it was because you were a sinner. And Jesus said, No. You are a sinner because you think you can see. The physician, Jesus would say in another place, the well have no need of a physician. It’s only when we recognize that we are blind, and we need the light of God to shine in our lives to show us what truth really is.

Conclusion

It’s only then that our vision can be corrected and we can truly see. Would you see the light this morning? Would you recognize that in your own sense, in your own ways, you are blind? Are you blinded by fear, blinded by prejudice? Well then why not open your eyes this morning and see the truth of God’s word? Then and only then can your eyes truly be open to who God is and what he can do in your life. We can help you this morning in any way as you render obedience to the gospel. Let it be known right now, as together we stand and as we sing.