God allows us to be together and so if you would turn in your Bibles, go to the book of John, John 9:1-7, is where going to be today. I want to talk to you about what Jesus sees. We look at a service today and we can see where we've had a little glitch here and there and I forgot to do some things and Jesus sees something totally different. He looks past where we're doing today and how we're performing and He looks to the heart of why you are here today. Why in the world are you here today? It's rainy outside. There's other places to be. You could be home. I know there's not any football going on, but there's a whole lot of basketball. All you gotta do is turn on the TV, amen? Have you all seen so much basketball? It's everywhere you go. Tim doesn't even watch it, but I'll tell you what. There's a lot of other places you could be today, but you're hearing God looks to the heart and sees differently than what you and I see. Jesus sees something totally different. You look at somebody walking down the street and you judge them by their appearance, you judge them by the way they look and the things that they do, but God looks all past that and is able to see in the heart of all their problems, all their triumphs, all their tragedies, what Jesus sees is different than what you and I see, and that's a little bit about what I want to share with you today as we look at John 9, verses one through seven. If you would take your Bible and stand with me, we're going to read John 9:1-7 before we get into the message and it says in verse one, Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth, And His disciples asked Him saying, Rabbi, who sinned? this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of him who sent me. While it is day, the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. In verse six, when He said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and He said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated Sent, so he went and washed and came back seeing. Let's pray. God, thank you today for Your scripture, what it means and how You're going to teach us what you want us to know today. I pray You bind any force that would keep your Word from being planted. Thank you for all that you have allowed us to do up to this point. We love You. In Your name we pray. Amen. Now the story that I read and sung about is a different healing, a little bit different. That one comes from Mark, I believe, but this one is out of John and the story here is a little different, but we look at this man who is going to be blind from birth. Verse One says that Jesus passed by and He saw a man who was blind from birth. Now, I don't know what you're taking from that, but I, I, when I read that Jesus passes by, He sees a man who was blind from birth. You and I walk by and we see a man who was blind. What are the clues to let us know he's blind, maybe has a cane, maybe has dark glasses. Maybe somebody's having to help him along. Maybe he stumbled some. Maybe we heard that he's a blind man, but when Jesus passes by, it says that He saw a man who was blind from birth and it lets me know that He instantly sees the man and He sees all that he has ever been. All that he ever will be. He knows this man already doesn't He? He already as the other song said we sung this morning. He knows his name, He's got his telephone number. He's got his email address. He knows exactly how to get in touch with him if he needs to and He knows him completely and He sees the man and he sees that he's been blind from birth. We wouldn't know that. We would assume maybe he was born that way, or maybe it was an industrial accident. Maybe it was a sickness that made him blind. We would know. We see a blind man, but Jesus sees it all and He walks past and He sees this man who was blind from birth and then in verse would go on there and it says his disciples in verse two, asking Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind. Do you think Jesus knew the answer can sin cause sickness, can sin cause consequences, can sin cause ailments and things of that nature. Absolutely sin can cause. Sometimes we bypass that. We say, well, no, not in this case. I want you to know that your actions can cause consequences. You can do things that cause you to be sick. You could do things that cause you to be injured. You could put yourself in jeopardy in a lot of different ways, but just because you're blind doesn't mean that you did. Amen? Sometimes you're blind just cause you're blind. That's pretty profound, isn't it? Sometimes you're blind just because you're blind. I may not be able to give you the exact reason why, but for whatever reason, God allows you to be blind. So you're blind because blind. Yes, you could have done something to cause it, but not necessarily. And the disciples are concerned it matters how they're going to approach this to them. It matters how they pray. And Lord, we want to pray for him. But if he caused it on itself, then we probably just, you know, he poor fellow, he got what he deserved. Have you met somebody? Sometimes you look at folks and you know, you see their condition and maybe they're, um, have lived a lifestyle that's caused him to be, ah, have sickness or maybe they're lived in such a way they maybe don't have a whole lot of money or, and, and we know the situation that they're in. We pretty much know that they caused it. They're there because they put their selves in it. So we, even though we shouldn't, we look at them a little differently, don't we? We say, well, that, you know, they, and I've said it, I'm not going to act self righteous and pious. I, I've thought it before, well, you know, I wish it wasn't that way for them, but they kinda got what they had coming. You said it don't act like you haven't. I'm not the only one in this room. And, and we thought if we've not said it and they're looking at this guy trying to figure out why he's blind, you know, God's not called us to figure out while people are the way they are. Cause that'll drive you crazy. God's not called you to figure out why somebody is the way that they are. It's enough for you to know they're that way because of sin and if they're saved, they're that way because of grace. It's enough for you to know those things. And yet we try to figure out, well, what has has this person done to put them in this position? And they're looking at this guy and then say, what caused him to be blind? Is it his sin or his parents' sin? Do parents have an effect on their children. Absolutely. You look at your kids and you, when they get grown and you say, my goodness, just look in the mirror and thank yourself for what a good job you did amen? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you look at them and you say, why? Now a lot of times you want to blame it on the other spouse. I understand that. The other parent. Isn't it amazing how you can do. You're just like your daddy. You acting just like your Mama. Ain't it easy to do that. I want to submit to you this morning sometime they acted just like you and we look at them and and, and it's easy to pin something. We always want to figure out what causes it. So what parents do does effect of upbringing affects other things in the kids life. Tell a kid over and over again. You love them. They're good kids. You're going to make it good chance that kids's gonna have confidence as they grow up and they're going to make it I believe. You tell a child over and over again, they're a loser and they'll never make it. They're failure. I don't know why you're here. I don't love you. There's a pretty good possibility that child will grow up with no confidence and a whole lot of issues, so we understand that a parent affects a child and we're not just talking about correcting children. Amen. I believe you ought to correct children. I believe you ought to do that. You got to do that cause you love them. Oh, saying it hurts. You hurts them more than it hurts. I don't know how that goes. That's not what I'm talking about today though, but there's a difference in discipline and correction and a constant beat down of their emotions and who they are. There's a difference and breaking a will and breaking the spirit. I. I'm a firm believer that as a parent you need to be able to break the will of a child because if you don't, there's going to be two wills trying to run the house and you're going to have a heap of problems and as long as you don't mind their will begin supreme then. Okay, but if you want your will to be in charge. You're gonna have to break the will of the child, amen, but we don't have any scriptural basis to ever break the spirit of a child. The beat them down so much that they don't believe they're loved. That was free but you needed it. Look at the next verse. Jesus answered said neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. You see there's a purpose in him being blind. Sometimes there's a purpose in people being sick. I don't like cancer, but sometimes there's a purpose in cancer. I don't like other sicknesses, heart attacks and different things and strokes and different things people go through the sometimes of purpose has worked out through those things, and I'm not saying that God is sitting in Heaven waiting to say Yes I'm going to hit you with a heart attack. I'm going to hit you with a stroke. I'm going to hit you with cancer, but God works through those things in people's lives sometimes. I know that's kind of hard to accept sometimes because that same question comes back, how could a loving God let something like that happen to me? Then I'm reminded, every good and perfect thing comes down from heaven, from the Father of Lights Scripture says, but I know every evil
Speaker 2:thing came into the world because of sin. It's called the curse, so we can't go around blaming. Well, God, why would you allow this to happen? It's already happened since we sin.
Speaker 1:God, why would you allow earthquakes to happen? Go back to the garden. We allowed it to happen. Why would you let tornadoes come and rip through places and damage property and hurt folks and I know that's real, a real possibility this time of year, especially in other parts of the country right now. God, why would you allow that to happen? Go back to sin. We allowed it to happen. We allowed those things to enter into the world so God didn't allow those things to happen, but God's going to use those things for his glory and our good. He says in verse four, I must work the works of him who sent me. While it is day, the night is coming when no one can work, as long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. There's a time coming when the work's going to be ending, you know, you think a little about that this time of year with the daylight savings time. I applaud You by the way, for making it here on time. You did good. Now we're missing some I know, but could be the rain, could be the time change most likely spring break. Thank you for being here, but this time of year with the time change we're looking, and we've mentioned it this morning in our Sunday School class, we're looking forward to for those that like to work in the yard, you're going to have a little bit more time. Daylight. a little bit more time to get out and push the leaves around and mow the yard. Tommy and all those different things a little bit more time, but there's still going to be dark and the time we'll come to a close on that day and the time will come to close in our time to work too, and Jesus says, I've got to get this done so He heals him. Verse six, he said, when he said these things, he spat on the ground and then I don't know why He did this, made clay. There's some healing properties in some clay and some dirt. There are some people believe there's a lot of healing properties in dirt. You've heard of people before who eat dirt for certain things. Have you not and and I don't think any doctors, very few doctors are going to prescribe get you a bunch of mud, but there's something there and I don't know the ins and outs, but in this case, Jesus spat on the ground, put some clay on the guy's eyes, told him to go wash it off. Jesus in other cases says you're healed. Sometimes he just looks at somebody that can be a he may say something. He may touch them. He may tell them to do something. I, I know this from all those things. Jesus can heal. And since He's Jesus, He can figure out how to do it, how he wants to do it, but in this case, this is how he did it, and he said to him, go wash in the pool of siloam. Which is translated, Sent, so he went and washed and he came back seeing, and this is where I'm stopping today from scripture. There's a lot more in the story then this. I encourage you to go read it, but I'm not going to hit the rest of it today, but I have three things I want to look at when we talk about what Jesus sees. Just three quick principles that I want to share with you and so when we look at this story, the first principle that we see is that when Jesus passes by Jesus sees with limitless vision. We're limited. When we look at something, we see what we can see and what our senses will allow us to look at and to see and beyond that we're limited for lack of a better word. But Jesus sees and saw in this instance with limitless vision, he could not just see a man who was blind, but a man who was blind from birth. He saw every moment of the guys life up to that point, every moment from the guy's point of life there to his death and beyond. It's that way. With us, you might be going through something right now. Jesus saw you before you went through it. You might be going through something horrible, something terrible, but Jesus has seen you in a good time. Jesus sees you beyond this bad time and he's able to look past all of those things. He has limitless vision. The second principle I want to share with you is this, that Jesus sees with eyes of clarity. You take a pair of binoculars, you can adjust them. You take a telescope, you can adjust it. You can focus in on what you need to see. Many of you love going to doctors, dentists, and optometrists. When you go to the optometrist to get ready for your glasses, put this big old. It's so much fun. I've done it a million times in my life because I'm blind just about. You put that thing on there and he'll say, okay, how's that look? Good? Is this better, worse, better? How about this? Better or worse? Sometimes I just play tricks with it. I throw him off, of course. Then I get some glasses that don't work, but I got to be careful about that. You gotta be careful. Do not get a little distracted sometimes. A little confused. There's been many times I've had to say to him hold on, let's do that again. I'm not real sure what focusing, but he has to adjust. He has to work. He's trying to get the vision exactly what I need it to be. Jesus sees with eyes of clarity. He zeroes in. You know Jesus sees everything that you are going through. He sees everything that you're doing for him. He sees everything that you're not doing for him. He sees every sin that you sinned before you accepted him in salvation and after you accepted him in salvation, he sees this morning, the ways you're holding back and working for him and loving him in relationship and he sees the struggles that you go through to do those things and he sees with eyes of clarity. When we look at this scripture, when he says, after he looks at him and they asked a question, he clarifies it for them he has to. Jesus answered, let me focus in on it for you. neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. Let me zero in for you. That's what he does. He focuses and puts things into perspective that you can see and that he can see. And He sees with eyes of clarity. The third principle is this, that I want to share with you this morning that Jesus sees with eyes of compassion. We look at what he does and it's real easy to say, well sin causes something or you get what you deserve, but Jesus goes past all of those things. And He heals this man. he sees with eyes of compassion, the church has to do that. The Christian has to do that because you're going to come into contact with a lot of people who put themselves in bad situations and they're going to ask you to minister to them. We had an opportunity this week, Brian, myself, and actually my boys got in on the thing that someone had called the church and they asked for some assistance. They didn't ask for money so you can cheer me on for that. I did good. I didn't ask for utility assistance or anything that, but they asked for something that I will almost always take care of if I'm asked this. Can we have some food. I hardly ever turn that one down. Actually, I can't think of a time I ever have. so we got some food together. I took Brian to do some shopping with me and we did quit. Rachel, I don't know if he does your shopping.
Speaker 2:He helped me. He doesn't does he. I can tell. I was trying to be nice.
Speaker 1:Between the two of us. We got out of there with a gallon of milk or jug of milk and a loaf of bread and peanut butter. and two or three different things. We took it to this household, so we opened the door and we could see that they didn't have very much and as I visited with the person came clear to me that there may be some reasons they're in this situation, but you know what? God didn't call me to figure out what those reasons God called me at that moment to take some food to some people. There may be a time that you have to make judgments and try to understand things a little bit better, and certainly you got to be. You know, you don't want to give just a lot of money to somebody that's just gonna, blow it and waste it. We all agree with that. Amen. Sometimes people are hungry. Did Jesus said something in scripture about that when I came to you and I was hungry, you didn't feed me when I was hungry, you didn't feed me when I was thirsty, you didn't give me any water when I was naked, you didn't give me any clothes. I don't want to have to face that one day and so it's easy to look and I'm sure there were circumstances, but I know what we did that day is what God called us to do. and you know, God is the one that has to clarify all that stuff. God is the one that sees everything they're dealing with and everything they're going through, but God also calls me and you to see and to look with eyes of compassion. It's difficult sometimes. It's difficult for us perfect people sometimes especially when we spend our lives being perfect, doing all the right stuff and we didn't do that. We didn't put ourselves in that situation. We didn't allow ourselves to get to that point, so why the world should I have to help them? Now?
Speaker 3:You're not perfect. I'm not perfect,
Speaker 2:and by the grace of God
Speaker 1:that could be you next week. You know, you could have an addiction, you can have an issue and a problem just like they have. Jesus sees with eyes of compassion. As they come this morning to prepare the invitation. I'm gonna. Ask you to think about those things, what Jesus sees. That's a real good question
Speaker 2:to ask. What he sees in your life even this morning.
Speaker 1:What does Jesus see when he looks at you? Remember that he does look with compassion. Clarity. Sees it completely.
Speaker 2:What does He see? Let's pray. Father thank You today for Your love, Your mercy. I pray that You will speak to the hearts that will hear. We love You.