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(upbeat music) - Hi, I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions. This is
Pastor Tom Holliday, and we're going to be looking at John chapter nine this week.
Verses one to seven today, as we launch into this chapter, I just want to say to
you, get ready for another miracle.

In fact, this entire chapter focuses on a miracle of Jesus. He heals a man who
has been blind since his birth. It's a miraculous thing that Jesus does, but
alongside of that miracle, there's also the incredible thing of the development
of faith in this man's life.

Now, it's interesting, you'd expect that this great miracle, he's been blind
since he was born, would create nothing but joy. Instead, in the beginning part
of the chapter, it creates nothing but conflict with the crowd, with the
Pharisees, even with the man's own parents. And then, at the end of the chapter,
Jesus resolves this conflict in his conversation with the man whom he had
healed.

It's interesting, as we walk through John chapter nine, you're going to see that
through this conflict and resolution, we learn some things about seeing, about
seeing that which is most important, about seeing spiritually. We learn about
seeing what God wants us to see. This chapter is all about how we grow in belief
so that we can see, or how we get more and more stuck in our unbelief so that we
stay spiritually blind.

Here's what happened in John chapter nine, verses one to five. As he, Jesus,
went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who
sinned, "this man or his parents that he was born blind?

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so
that the work of God "might be displayed in his life. "As long as it is day, "we
must do the work of him who sent me. "Night is coming when no one can work.

"While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. " John keeps letting us
see that, even though there were these great crowds around Jesus, Jesus always
took time for the individual. And here he sees, his disciples see this man who
had been blind since he was born.

And notice the disciples' first thoughts. They show that they suffer from a
malady that has kept countless of people from seeing the truth, from seeing
God's work in their lives. They suffered from what I would call either or
thinking, either this man sinned or his parents sinned.

They narrowed their thinking to only two options. Instead of seeing this man
with compassion, they saw him as sort of a case study. And you might wonder why
they asked exactly the question that they did of Jesus.

They asked it because they had a misunderstanding. This is the same
misunderstanding that many people in that day had. The misunderstanding was
this, sickness meant that someone had sinned.

So if somebody is born blind, if sickness meant that somebody had sinned, was it
that God knew this man was going to sin? That's why he was born blind? Or was it
that somehow his parents had sinned and that had caused the man to be born
blind?

And Jesus says to him, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're suffering from either or
thinking. You're looking at this in the wrong way. In that day, they thought
that sickness meant someone had sinned.

Today, many people think that not being healed means that someone doesn't have
faith. It's just two sides of the same false teaching. This man was sick because
he lived in a sinful world, not because of some sin that he or his parents had
committed.

And Jesus said, God is going to use this sickness for his glory. Now, let me
just say this. Does this mean that God made him blind?

Of course not. He was blind because of a sinful world. And that is because of
mankind's choice, not God's choice.

But God worked for his glory even through this blindness. God worked for his
glory even in this sinful world, even through the sins that we have brought upon
ourselves, the suffering we've brought upon ourselves because of our sins. These
disciples suffered from either or thinking and both of their options were wrong.

Jesus said, here's a third option. And let me just say to you, if you feel that
somehow God has you trapped, the way that you're thinking about God, about the
Bible, about God's truth, has you trapped in a sinful or a depressing life,
something is wrong. Now, yes, you may have a problem.

You may have a handicap even that's going to last the rest of your life, but
that's not the whole story. If you're caught in a depressing life and you feel
like God has provided you no way out, something's wrong. You need to look for
God's third option.

Open your mind to the fact that God wants to work for his glory, even through
the difficulties in your life. Jesus was great at this, especially with the
Pharisees. They would bring him an either or question.

He'd always say, well, what about this? And they'd walk away amazed. Whenever
you feel like you're in an either or trap, look for an option from Jesus that is
so radically different.

You know it's him. In this case, the God option shows us why Jesus does
miracles. Jesus does miracles not to show off his power.

Jesus does miracles not to show up his enemies. He does miracles to show us his
love, to show us his character. In fact, he says that here, as long as it's day,
the night is coming, as long as it's day, I need to do the works of him who sent
me.

Jesus knew that he only had a certain amount of time before he went to the
cross. Time through his actions to show us what God is really like. The amount
of time that he was going to be on this earth, that is the light of the world.

While I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. When he's gone back to
heaven, we can't see him anymore. Not like when he was on this world.

So Jesus says, I want to bring you light. And he does it through working this
miracle. So verses six to seven, here's what happened.

Having said this, Jesus spit on the ground. He made some mud with the saliva and
he put it on the man's eyes. Go, he told him, wash in the pool of Siloam.

This word means scent. And so the man went and washed and he came home seeing.
Here's a man who was blind from birth.

In fact, this is the only from birth healing that's recorded in the New
Testament. Can you imagine that moment in his life? He's never seen anything,
never seen any color, never seen any tree, never seen any person, never seen any
light.

And here he sees. This chapter is about not just this man and the miracle of
what happened in his life, the excitement of that moment. It's about all of us.

How can we see what we've never seen? What enables us to see spiritually? And if
you look at what Jesus did in this man's life, he tells us, he shows us where it
begins.

Look at what Jesus asked this man to do. He asked him to obey him by doing
something that was ordinary. Where do I begin to see spiritually?

I begin by obeying Jesus in the ordinary. This man is going to do a number of
things and enable him to see throughout this chapter. We're going to build
throughout this week, seeing how he sees more and more spiritually.

But the first one is here. He just obeyed Jesus in the ordinary. Like the
nobleman that we looked at back in chapter two, who just did what Jesus said.

He took Jesus at his word. This man does what Jesus said. Go and wash in the
pool.

As if he hadn't washed his eyes a thousand times. Can you imagine this man
walking through the city streets thinking, this is never going to work. I'm going to
look like a fool.

I've got mud on my eyes. I can't see them, but I can sense them. They're looking
at me, but I'm going to do it.

Because I somehow trust in what that man says. I didn't see his eyes, but I
heard his voice. And it was a voice that I could trust.

A miracle always starts with someone deciding to obey Jesus in an ordinary way.
Someone deciding to obey God in an ordinary way. The Red Sea split when Moses
lifted up the stick over the Red Sea.

When Lazarus was raised, we're going to see this in John chapter 11. It begins with
them rolling away the stone. The feeding of the 5,000, we looked at a couple of
weeks ago.

It began with one boy giving his lunch. The walls of Jericho fell when they
marched around them. Ordinary obedience.

That's how God works. Are you willing to do something that says in a tangible
way, I am depending on God to do this. I'm not depending on myself.

We always want to do something big, something spectacular. God says, no, here's
something ordinary to do. Something that just says you're trusting me.

I don't know what that means for you, but you do. It might be an ordinary phone
call. It might be an ordinary visit to a doctor.

It might be an ordinary meeting with a friend. It might be an ordinary
conversation. It might be an ordinary gift that you give to someone.

It might be an ordinary step in ministry. It seems ordinary, but you know it's
what God is asking you to do. You might even think it won't work.

It's not going to work to get me to the kind of life that I know that God wants in
my life. The first thing you do is you do what God asks you to do. That, that is
where you start.

Now the rest of this week, we're going to look at how God developed faith in this
man's life. So I want to pray, as we begin our look at John chapter nine today, I
want to pray that he'll develop faith in my life, in your life through this week,
as we study this chapter together. I invite you to pray with me.

Let's pray together. And as you pray, just say, Jesus, I pray that as I walk
through John chapter nine, walk with you through your healing of this man and
your ministry to this man, how you helped him to begin to see spiritually, that
you'd help me to see, to see with eyes of faith like I never have before. I pray
that, I pray that you'd show me even today, how I could put faith in you in an
ordinary, simple thing that you're asking me to do.

God, put it in my mind again right now. What is it that you're asking me to do?
What's the next step?

God, I don't trust in the thing that you're asking me to do. I trust in you. So
if you ask me to do it, I pray for the faith to do it, the strength to do it,
because I trust you.

I pray this, Jesus, in your name. Amen. Well, join us tomorrow.

We're going to continue our look at this story of the healing of the blind man in
verses eight to 12.