This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to day three of our look through John chapter nine and
daily drive time devotions. We're going to focus in on verses 13 to 23 today.
Remember, we looked yesterday at the fact that Jesus does this incredible
miracle of healing a man who has been blind since birth, and then the battle is
on.

Why a battle? Why a conflict over a miracle? Because accepting the miracle would
mean accepting the reality of who Jesus is, and that is a reality that changes
everything.

That's why people have a hard time with miracles sometimes. Because if I accept
the miracle, I accept the power of who God is. Yesterday, we looked at the
reaction of the crowd, the doubt that they faced, and the answer of the man and
his testimony.

Today, we're going to take a look at the reaction of the Pharisees and then also
his own parents. And with each of them, we see something else that keeps us in
the dark, something that keeps us from seeing the light. With the crowd, it was
staying stuck in their doubt.

With the Pharisees, it's their pride. With the parents, it's their fear. Look
with me at John chapter nine, verses 13 to 17, and what happened when this man
first talked with the Pharisees.

Verse 13. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now, the day
on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath.

Therefore, the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He put
mud on my eyes, the man replied, and I washed, and now I see. Some of the
Pharisees said, this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

But others asked, how can a sinner do such miraculous signs? So, they were
divided. Finally, they turned to the blind man.

What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened. The man replied, he
is a prophet.

As you look at the Pharisees and their interaction with this man, you see
something that keeps us all from seeing spiritually our own pride. And if you
don't think you struggle with pride, you have a real struggle with pride. I
certainly do.

I've always liked what C. S. Lewis said about pride.

If anyone would like to be humble, I think the first step is this, to realize
that one is proud. We all struggle with pride in our lives. We know we're right,
so we get stuck in our way of thinking.

And we get so stuck that we can't sometimes see the miracles, the works of God
for what they really are. They couldn't accept this story from this man, this
miracle, because of one fact. It had happened on a Sabbath day.

And Jesus broke the rules. In fact, he broke the rules in at least three ways.
He spit on the ground.

That was a work that was prohibited on the Sabbath. He put that spit on the
eyes. That was a healing work that was forbidden on the Sabbath.

And then he healed the man, which was also a healing work that was forbidden on
the Sabbath day. These man-made rules had turned the Sabbath into a funeral
rather than a festival. They were afraid to do anything on the Sabbath, afraid
to walk anywhere, to talk to anyone, and it blinded them.

They thought they were keeping the rules, the laws of God, being holy, but it
blinded them. A man could walk and all they would see is the fact that he was
carrying a pallet. A man could see and all they could see was the clay that he'd
been healed with that somebody had made.

Now, it's easy to focus on the Pharisees here and to think about them, but the
challenge to me is to think about myself. Think about yourself for just a
minute. What do you do when a cherished belief is challenged?

Do you dig in your heels or do you dig into God's word? Do you react with pride
or do you react with a humble heart? This is one of the greatest challenges in
our lives, one of the greatest places where pride lives in our lives.

These Pharisees could not accept Jesus because that would have meant accepting
that they were wrong, and it's tough to admit, I was wrong, especially in places
where you stood again and again and said, this is right. It is surprising, it is
shocking what we will live with just to avoid admitting that we were wrong.
Companies fail, families disintegrate, lives stay in darkness just because I
don't have the strength, you don't have the strength to say, someone doesn't
have the strength to say, I was wrong.

Why don't we say, I was wrong? It's just pride, it's just simply pride. We don't
want to look foolish, we don't want to look wrong.

So is there a place like that in your life? Right now, you need to say, I was
wrong. It's blinding you, blinding you spiritually, it's blinding you to God's
love, to God's future.

You just need to say, I was wrong. Listen, your future does not have to justify
your past. God has a future for you that's above and beyond your past.

Why live in darkness instead of admitting you need some light? These Pharisees
struggle with pride, so they couldn't admit, most of them, they were divided,
but most of them couldn't admit, I need some light. And so because of that, they
bring the man's parents in.

And in this interaction with the parents, you see how fear can blind us. Let me
read for you verses 18 to 23. The Jews still did not believe that he had been
blind and had received his sight, until they sent for the man's parents.

Is this your son, they asked. Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it
that he can see?

We know he is our son, the parents answered. And we know that he was born blind.
But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know.

Ask him, he is of age, he will speak for himself. His parents said this, because
they were afraid of the Jews. For already the Jews had decided that anyone who
acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.

This is why his parents said, he is of age, ask him. What keeps us from seeing,
our doubt keeps us from seeing, our pride keeps us from seeing, our fear keeps
us from seeing spiritually. These parents were unable to rejoice that they're
spiritual leaders over what had happened because of their fear of what might
happen to them.

The parents' actions show us the power of the Pharisees over the people. By the
way, one of the reasons people like to be legalistic is because of the power
that it gives them over other people. I can tell you what to do.

I can control your life if I have rules that you have to keep. That's one of the
things that people fall in love with when it comes to legalism. And these
Pharisees had power over these parents.

When I read a moment ago, they would be put out of the synagogue. That was
extremely serious. That's a technical term for being put out of the temple, put
aside from the Jewish people.

It meant that you lost your welfare privileges. You were humiliated in the
entire community. You lost the opportunity to do business with other people.

You were no longer in the fellowship of the temple. They had a legitimate fear.
Remember, there was only one temple in that day.

It's not like they could go to another church. They'd be put out of relationship
with the people in their lives. And so they were afraid.

And their fear of the Jews kept them from publicly praising God for this miracle
in the life of their son. Their fear, like my fear so often does, their fear
caused them to be self-protective rather than God praising. And so the question
I encourage you to ask yourself is this.

Lord, what am I afraid of? Where am I afraid? In a way that's causing me to be
self-protective, wall myself off rather than praise you for what you want to do.

Now the answer to fear is always the same. The freedom to be willing to lose it
all for the sake of Christ. The answer to fear is not protecting yourself more
and more.

You can't protect yourself enough in this world. The answer to fear is to be
willing to lose it all for the sake of Christ. Because you know this world is
not all there is anyway.

You're looking forward to an eternity with him. A lot of people try to answer
their fears by making life safe. That's not the answer to fear.

Now, you should keep your kids safe. You should be wise in the things that you
do. You should drive safely.

That's not what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. There are
many things in life that you can control, but there are most things in life that
you cannot.

And when you try to make life safe from the things that you cannot control,
you're going to live in constant fear. The freedom to be willing to lose it all
for the sake of Christ. I'll admit, I'm not there yet.

But in those moments of life, when I get closer to being there, there's a
refreshing freedom from fear. Let's talk to Jesus today about the freedom that
he wants to give into our lives. And as you pray, just say to him, Lord Jesus,
we've talked about pride and fear today.

Lord, I don't want my pride to keep me from seeing what you can do in my life.
Help me to be willing to say the words, I was wrong. And then say to him, Jesus,
I don't want my fear to keep me from seeing what you can do in my life.

Give me the freedom to be willing to lose it all for your sake, to give it all
to you because I can trust you. This is not an easy prayer to pray. But with
faith, I pray it, Jesus, because I know I can trust you.

I pray it in your name. Amen.