JOHN 9:13-41 Lesson # 20

CONFESSION AND WORSHIP & KNOWING YOUR BLIND SO YOU CAN SEE

I.? Introduction:

RQ? Are people right who say that “There aren’t any free rides” and “You get what you pay for”??

Q? Is this true in the spiritual area?? Are there any free rides spiritually?

Q? Salvation is the free gift of God, but does it cost us anything to follow God?

Note:? Last week we saw the amazing miracle of the man who was blind from birth receive his sight when he was anointed by Jesus and sent under directions to the pool called “Sent” or Siloam.? He was healed, but the Gospel of John does not let us end there.? The miracle becomes the pretext for John showing even more truth.? Jesus will now take the “healed man” another step deeper in the faith and simultaneously show the cold hearted religious people how to receive the very healing they need.? It has to do with who they are and Who God is.

II.? The Fire-Storm After the Miracle in Three Rounds:? John 9:13-34.

A.? Round One:? The Pharisees and the Blind Man:? John 9:13-17

Note:? A fire storm starts because of the miracle that Jesus performed.? It is a fire-storm that Jesus deliberately sets….

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:13-16.

Q? What do we learn for the first time about this miracle in verse 14?

An = Jesus healed on a Sabbath.

Q? What did Jesus do that brought about the charge of him not being a “man from God”?

An = Jesus is working on the Sabbath.? He not only healed on the Sabbath, but seemingly went out of His way to “do work”, with His making of the mud.? It now seems clear why Jesus made mud in this particular healing.

Jesus’ enemies seemingly were looking for “loop-holes”, for some way out of not believing in Him, or not acknowledging His claims that the miracles substantiated.?

Q? Jesus supplies such “loop-holes” deliberately, why?

Q? According to the end of verse 16, what does Jesus cause among them?

An = He causes division between two types of people, those who are impressed by signs and those who are impressed by the strict interpretation of Scripture.?

Q? Which side does Jesus seem to come down on?? What is disturbing about this?

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:17

Q? What are the Pharisees trying to do to this man?

An = They are seemingly trying to bully him.? However, this man does not cave in.? He is different than the man who was healed after 38 years of sickness in chapter 5.? This man calls Jesus a prophet.? He makes a confession of loyalty.

Q? What has the fire storm produced in this man who was once born blind?

An = It has created a pressure cooker and this pressure has produced loyalty.

Q? How valuable do you think such a quality is to God?

B.? Round Two:? The Pharisees and the Parents of the Man Born Blind.? John 9:18-23.

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:18-23.

Q? Do the parents cave in to the bullying of the Pharisees?

An = Yes, they seemingly do.? They refuse to answer the Pharisees in their dilemma and plead ignorance.? Then they pass the buck onto their formerly born blind son.?

Q? What causes their reaction according to verse 22?

An = They faced public pressure and being ostracized from the community.? The parents do confirm the miracle but do not want to pay any public or social price for their son’s healing.

Q? What prices will we be asked to pay?

An = >>>? Have three different people read Matthew 10:32-33, Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:23-26.

Q? Is coming out publicly for Jesus Christ optional when it costs us something?? Can we witness only by our deeds?

C.? Round Three:? The Blind Man and the Pharisees.? John 9:24-34.

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:24-25

Q? When the Pharisees apply pressure again to the man how does answer, what does he fall back on?

An = His experience.? He may not understand all the fancy turns of religious debate, but he knows what he has experienced.

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:26-29.

Q? What do the Pharisees mean when they say we do not know where this man is from?

An = They do not know whether Jesus is from God or not.? Because Jesus breaks their understanding of the biblical commands concerning the Sabbath given by Moses, they claim to see no need to acknowledge the miracles.

Q? What was associated with Moses when he first spoke to the Jews in chapter 5 of Exodus and when Moses claimed to be from God when he spoke to Pharaoh?

An = Moses performed signs.? Moses performed miracles.? The signs were to free people.? Moses freed them from slavery, and Jesus freed the blind man from blindness.

Note:? Bultmann notes that the blind man treats their “insincerity” in the asking of their questions with great irony:? “Do you want to be disciples too?”? His answer brings on their abuse (Bultmann, p.336).

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:30-34.

Q? What problem does the formerly born blind man have with the position of the Pharisees?

An = Their lack of good logic.? >>>? Have two people look up and read the following passages Proverbs 15:29 and Psalms 66:18.? These are just the tip of the iceberg.?

Q? Did it cost the blind man anything to be associated with Jesus’ actions, to be logical, to be loyal?

An = Yes it did.? It will cost us too!? If we are loyal to what God has done for us, it will cost us.? Jesus predicted this for His followers (Matthew 10:16-20).

Q? Where is Jesus when all this is happening?

An = In all three rounds, Jesus is not around.? He will often let us alone to see what we will do when all alone we face pressure from those who do not approve of our experience.? He will wait for a while, then He will come.

III.? Jesus Joins the Discussion:? John 9:35-41.

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:35-38.

Q? Who found who in verse 35?

An = It is the seemingly absent Jesus that finds us.? William Temple says the deepest truth of the Christian faith is that Jesus found me (Temple, 160).

Q? What is Jesus now asking of this man?

An = Are you willing to move from experience to knowledge.? Bultmann reminds us that our experience of God must be tied to the spoken word and the spoken word will reveal the meaning of our experience.? We must confess Jesus is the Christ.? We must confess that the “Son of Man”, the man Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ, the Messiah.? (Bultmann, 339)

Q? What does the man then do?

An = He worships.? He does not treat Jesus as a man or even as a miracle working healer, but as a divine figure. (Bultmann, 339).? When we experience His power and we accept the teaching of the Word of Jesus then it leads naturally to our “bowing the knee”.

Note:? When Christ works in our lives and we tell the truth about our experience, it leads to further “words from our Lord” and if in that following crisis of decision, we confess Him as God, it will lead to our “worship”.

>>>>? Have someone read John 9:39-41.

Note:? Starting with verse 37 to the end of the chapter (5 verses) the word see and not see (blind) are every where:? 37, 39 (4x), 40, 41 (2x), a total of eight times.

Q? What is Jesus point about seeing, who sees and who does not see?

An = Those who know they are blind (to the truth) can see, but those who claim to be able to see the truth are really in sin and do not know it.? They remain condemned.

Q? What is our safe guard against being spiritually blind as serious students of the Bible?

An = To be like Paul, who acknowledged his sin, the great apostle was the “chief of sinners”.

>>>>? Have someone close by reading John 3:19-21.