What is Worship? Part 4-Doug Crum

All right, good morning.

Thank you so much, Stephen.

If you uh have your Bibles, uh please join me in turning into uh turning to John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

Uh that may be opening up a book where there's pages, it might be firing up your device, whatever it is.

Uh if you don't have a Bible, well, what we'd say when I was a kid is check the rack of the back of the pew in front of you, and there might be one.

Uh we don't have pews, and the racks are at the bottom, so do some searching.

But I want you to put your eyes on the text this morning.

And so while you're turning there to John 9, I just want to ask you a simple question.

What draws you into worship?

What is the trigger?

What is the catalyst that that allows you to find yourself kneeling before the throne, bowing your head, raising your hands, lifting your voice.

What is it that allows you to acknowledge, recognize, and proclaim God as our creator and Jesus as our Lord?

I want you to think about what brings you there.

And so we're going to be in John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

We're going to try to cover all 41 verses.

So I'll go as quickly as I can.

Otherwise, we we might not beat the Baptist to underwoods today.

So I will I will do my very best to get us through as quickly as possible.

Here we go.

As they went along, he saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents that he was born blind.

Let's stop for just a second.

The he, of course, is Jesus.

We don't know how he knew that this man was blind from birth, but Jesus somehow understands this.

This has been given to him.

And then there's this question, and immediately his disciples are trying to justify, to logically explain why this man blind.

Sometimes, maybe not even to others, although it can be to the others, but oftentimes don't we say that to ourselves when things aren't going right?

God, what have I done that you won't shine your favor upon me?

How how I go to church, I read my Bible, I pray, I even sometimes listen when Doug speaks.

Like, I mean, shouldn't that be worth something?

Why is this happening?

And somehow we try to have this correlation between I'm doing what I should, and so good things happen, and when good things don't happen, then something must be wrong.

I must have done something.

Picking up in verse 3, Jesus says, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus, but this happened, so 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.

No one can work.

Jesus does something he almost never does.

He actually answers a question with an answer.

If you go back and look, and I would love for you to do this, I encourage you to do this.

Go back and look through all the questions that Jesus was asked and how many times he responded with an answer.

You can count them on just one hand.

Most of the time, when he does answer, he's going to answer with another question.

And a lot of times, he's the one asking the question.

But this time he gives an answer, and it's one that probably leaves a few of us more than uncomfortable.

You see what Jesus is getting at here.

This man has a terrible affliction.

He's had it since birth, and his response is that God has allowed this to happen.

He says this happened so the work of God might be displayed in his life.

I'm not here to tell you that God is orchestrating every flat tire, every stub toe, every failed job.

But I do believe that even when we find ourselves struggling, that we can use those as opportunities to glorify God.

We don't have to wait until we're standing in the end zone to say, this is the work of God, that we can see God and show God even in those difficult times.

Picking up in verse 5, he says, While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Do a uh a word study, and John loves using the word light throughout his gospel.

It's a major theme.

But then something really, really weird and slightly gross is going to happen.

And I want you to think about this.

Imagine what's going on.

Having said this, Jesus says, I'm the light of the world.

Then he spit on the ground and made some mud with the saliva and put it on the man's eyes.

Okay, now we get some really really weird eye.

I don't want to try to demonstrate that would be what that would be like.

I'm gonna leave that up to your imagination.

But the sound of that, the what's going on, I'll just say it was probably really good that the guy couldn't see what was happening.

And it it begs the question, why would Jesus do this?

He doesn't have to do it this way, does he?

I mean, he's the son of God.

He has he can heal him anyway.

He can speak the word, he can have the thought, and the guy can open his eyes.

But Jesus chooses to do it in a way that is very unconventional.

The guy has to hear the sound of this, and obviously he can't see, but then he feels the wet, muddy hands of Jesus as Jesus wipes his fingers across this man's eyes.

I don't know why Jesus would do that this way, but I do know this.

He's Jesus.

And the way and the conventions in which he chooses to work can be different with everyone that he meets.

But he's not done yet.

Jesus says, go wash in the pool of Saloon.

This word means sent.

So the man went and washed, and he came home sink.

That's awesome! Like, this is this is a really good chapter.

We could just end it right there, but we still have a long ways to go.

But I want you to take note of this.

This chapter is 41 verses long.

We get Jesus for seven verses in the beginning, and then there is going to be like a panning away, and we are not going to see Jesus for quite a while.

And we're gonna get him back in the last seven verses.

So he's gonna book in, we're gonna see Jesus, and then he's gonna be talked about a lot, and then he's gonna jump back in in these last seven verses, but he sends him off, he says, go and wash.

He does this.

I love this.

I love the faith that this man displays.

This is not like the story of Naaman.

Anyone remember the story of Naaman, 2 Kings chapter 5?

2 Kings 5 · chapter mention

Uh he's uh he has an opportunity to be healed and is told uh to go uh to the Jordan River because of his ailment and he'd be healed.

And he says, Why would I do that?

That I have better rivers back home, but he's convinced to go do this.

This is not the case at all.

This man is blind, he's just had mud slash spit rubbed all over his face.

He's like, I'm going to wash off right now.

And he goes there and he comes home seeing his neighbors.

And those who had formerly seen him begging ask, Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?

Some others claim that he was, but others say, No, it only looks like him.

But he himself insisted, I am the man.

Even as people see him, and he now sees them for the first time, this miracle and this man is met with disbelief.

That people were just not ready and willing.

And then they do something crazy.

How then were your eyes opened?

This is an important phrase right here.

They demanded.

This seems kind of crazy to me, right?

I mean, this guy is having the best day of his life.

He is seeing things he's never seen before.

He's seeing family and friends.

He now can see what a tree looks like and a dog, and later on he's gonna get to see a sunset, and the next morning he's gonna get to see the sunrise, all of this, and people are mad, they're furious, and they're demanding.

How did this happen?

He's like, why can't people simply celebrate that a man was blind and now could see?

Because it didn't make sense to them, they were upset.

Verse 11.

The man they called Jesus made some mud and put it on his on my eyes.

He told me to go to Siloam and wash, so I went and washed, and then I could see he's very matter-of-fact.

Although I think it's important to point out that he did forget one minor detail in the retelling of the story.

What was that?

What did he forget to tell him?

Or choose not to tell him.

What?

Yeah, he he left that out.

I I think his story was already tough enough for some people.

Was he willing to say yeah?

And then he spit on the ground.

I didn't see it, but I heard it and and wiped it on.

He left that out completely.

I'm I'm curious why he chose not to tell them that, but he he did leave it out.

And they said, Where is this man?

They asked him, and he says, I don't know.

They brought to the that they brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.

This went from the best day ever to now the interrogation begins.

And and get ready, here becomes, here comes the conflict of this story.

Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was on a Sabbath.

You didn't even have to look in the Bible.

You knew that Jesus loves to heal on the Sabbath.

And I wish we could kind of unpack that a little bit more, but let's just say this.

It made so many Pharisees and teachers of the law furious that he would choose to do it on this day.

Here's the problem.

The Pharisees can't and won't and shouldn't believe that God could work on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees don't believe, they can't believe, they wouldn't believe, and they think that God shouldn't work on the Sabbath.

I just want to take a moment to talk about those three things.

They can't believe that God would work on the Sabbath.

They are limiting the power of God by saying that he can't do it on that day.

Second, they said that he wouldn't do it.

And this just reeks of arrogance because they think they know God so well that he could never do anything without them already knowing and believing that he could do it.

And maybe worst of all, they had the gall to think that God shouldn't do it on that guy.

Even if he was able, they don't believe he should.

And this might be the worst of it all.

Because they're now trying to decide the ways in which God can work and the people in which God can use, and God is not allowed outside of the box in which they've created and then put him in.

This is an important chapter, people, because this is not just something that happened in a small Jewish town several thousand years ago.

This is something that still happens today.

We create this box in which God can work in.

God is allowed to work in church buildings and on Sundays.

And when we worship this way and when we use these words, but if anybody dare work outside of the parameters in which we've created for God to work, then God can't do it, he wouldn't do it, and he shouldn't do it.

And anyone who believes that he might must be a sinner.

If they worship a different way than I worship, God will not accept their praise.

And they are sinners for it.

How arrogant is that when we begin to judge and assume the ways in which God can and will and should work.

Instead of recognizing a miracle, instead of these people thanking God, instead of these people bowing in worship to Jesus, who just did something that nobody could imagine, all they could do is say, God wouldn't and shouldn't work in that way.

And anybody who claims that he would must be wrong.

So let's uh pick up in verse uh 15.

The Pharisees, therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his side.

He put mud on my eyes, the man replied, and I washed, and now I see.

Some of the Pharisees says, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

But others asked, How can a sinner do such miraculous things?

And so they were divided.

Finally they turned again to the blind man.

What do you have to say about him?

It was your eyes that were opened.

And the man replied, He is a prophet.

The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents.

So again, okay, they can't believe that this happened.

And so now they said, Okay, there's no way that God could or would or should work on the Sabbath.

And so this didn't happen.

This guy is lying.

He just made up the story.

They call for the parents and say, Is this your son?

They asked, Is this the one who you say was born blind?

How can he now see?

And they said, Listen, we know this is our son, and we know he was born blind.

But how he can see or how he opened his eyes, we don't know.

Ask him, he's of age, he will speak for himself.

His parents said this not because uh 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 what happens when abuse and judgment and manipulation and bullying occurs.

The truth is suppressed.

Verse 23.

He's of age.

Ask him, they said, a second time.

They summoned the man who'd been born blind.

Give glory to God, they said.

We know this man, they're referring to Jesus, he's a sinner.

And he replied, Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know.

One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see.

Jesus did not fit into their equation.

Jesus worked on a Sabbath.

If you work on a Sabbath, you are a sinner.

Sinners can't do God's work, and therefore Jesus could not have healed.

They created this perfect little equation of this is how it works.

They weren't worshiping the right way.

They weren't, so therefore, they're sinners, and God does not accept their worship.

And that's it.

It's something that we can, if we're not careful, do ourselves.

Then they asked him, What did he do to you?

How did he open your eyes?

He says, I've already told you you wouldn't listen.

Why do you want to hear it again, too?

And I love this.

He gets kind of snarky here.

It gets a little sassy.

He says, Do you want to become a disciple too?

They won't give up, and he doesn't either.

Then they hurled insults at him and said, You are this fellow's disciples.

We are disciples of Moses.

We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from.

The man answered, Now that is remarkable.

You don't know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

They said this.

I just want you to know, I'm calling him out right now.

That is terrible theology.

That is awful.

And that is wildly presumptuous and arrogant for them to say God doesn't listen to sinners, he only listens to us.

But it doesn't end there.

Nobody has ever heard of an opening of the eyes of a man born blind.

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

And the response, listen to this, they're just spewing their toxic venom towards him.

They said, You were steeped in sin at birth.

How dare you lecture us?

And they threw him out.

They had no good explanation for how a man who had been born blind can now see.

They have heard multiple testimonies, including this man who was blind and from his parents, who said he was born blind, and they just can't believe it.

But I do find it a little odd.

Who's the one person they probably should be talking to?

Who is their beef with?

Is it with the guy's parents?

That was a question.

Are they upset with his parents?

I mean, is that what the real problem is?

No.

Is the real problem the guy?

Is that who their beef is with?

No.

Who's their problem with?

Jesus.

And who's the one person?

That they won't have a conversation with.

They bring in this guy, they bring in other people, they bring in this guy's family, and they're asking what's going on.

They're upset.

They're claiming that Jesus is a sinner.

There's no way that he could do this.

We believe in Moses.

You believe in this guy.

We don't know where this guy even came from.

They weren't even willing to have a conversation with Jesus.

And then we have the last few verses, and Jesus comes in.

But I want you to listen to the wording of this.

Verse 35.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him.

Stop right there.

What does that mean?

Let me read this again.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he what?

Found him.

What does that mean?

What is that a fair is that a fair assessment?

That he went looking for him?

I mean, that seems to be the case.

That if Jesus found him, I don't think it was by accident.

Jesus went looking for him.

Jesus was searching out this man in the same way that he still searches out for each one of us.

He found him and he says, Do you believe in the Son of Man?

And the man says, Who is he?

Tell me so that I might believe.

This man is so eager to know who it is and to believe.

Now I want to stop for just a second and ask a question.

We're almost done.

But I I asked you early on when we started, I said, What like what leads you into worship?

What what is the trigger, the catalyst?

And so um, let's see.

Um, trying, I won't I won't make you stand up, but I I do want to ask you, you you played tennis, right?

You you like playing tennis.

I've seen you play tennis.

You're a great tennis player, great pickleball player.

Um what okay, let's say this.

Let's say you you make it to state and you you serve the winning point, right?

And all of a sudden you have just one state.

What does that look like?

Physically, what does your body do?

Let me ask you this.

What do your hands do when you just won state?

What what typically oh yeah, and we're in the church, and so it's it's this, right?

But I mean something like this.

Um how many has anybody ever in here run track before?

You have any track runners in here?

Okay, what happens?

What happens when you cross the finish line and everybody else is behind you?

What do your arms do?

They go up in the air.

How about this?

How many of you, bless your heart, cowboy fans?

How many of you are cowboy fans?

If the cowboys accidentally stumbled upon a win, what would you do?

What would your hands do?

Yes! That's really okay.

So get this.

This is really interesting.

So we do this.

When when if we're in a wrestling meet and we win, the arms go up.

If we're in a track meet, we win, our hands go up.

If we play basketball and we shoot a three-pointer and make it, I've never done it before, but I've seen other people do it.

Our hands go up.

It's like awesome, it's exciting.

So there was a study done several years ago, in which the study conducted was based on what do athletes do when they win, when they have a victory, when they celebrate.

And that what they learned is that the people just across the board, the response was is that their hands went up.

But here's the deal.

You're like, well, that's silly.

Of course we know that.

But here was the little key in the study.

The study only involved blind athletes.

People who had never witnessed someone else lift up their hands in excitement.

We don't throw up our hands because we saw our neighbor do it.

We don't fall down on our knees because we saw somebody else do it.

We don't lift up our voices to God because the person next to us is doing it.

We do it because we're compelled to.

Because from our very hearts, we want nothing else than to just give God the glory.

And worship might be hands raised, but it might be falling to the ground.

Some of you may know that this last Monday my father had uh a procedure.

He had open heart surgery.

They replaced three of his uh arteries bypassed him.

It was a very intense surgery, uh, and he made it through.

And there have been so many of you who have texted and called uh and stopped me in the hallway, uh, even some emails and said, hey, just praying for your dad.

It it really means so.

I even had some folks that that drove all the way from Brownwood up to uh Richardson, which is north of Dallas, and sat in a waiting room uh while my dad was in surgery.

Man, I just we felt the prayers.

It was so, so great.

Uh and my dad came out of surgery and it was good, and then he is just struggled and struggled and struggled.

All the things that were supposed to go well.

They said you'd be in the hospital a week.

Uh it's been almost a week now.

He's still in ICU.

Uh he had the uh chest tube in there, he went into AFib, all these crazy things.

And so, like this whole time, like I'm just trying to be faithful to God.

Like, God, like I'm I'm selfish.

I want to keep my dad for a little bit longer.

I love my dad.

We have an amazing relationship.

He is he is my hero in a lot of ways.

Um, and I'm just like, but I also know like it will be way better when he goes home.

It'll be way better.

I mean, he is 78 years old.

He has a body that got beat up in a terrible helicopter accident.

This is this is surgery number 25 for him.

He's had a broken neck, just all this, and so I'm like, it's God, you're gonna call him home, and that will be a win.

But but man, I just but I'm trying to be, I don't know, like, I don't know if I'm trying to be like just even keeled.

I don't know if I'm trying to be a little stoic.

I don't know if I'm just like, if I don't let it go to my heart, then what could happen is not going to happen.

And so we're we're uh just constantly he's had another bad day, he's had another bad night.

Uh, and then yesterday morning I get a phone call, and um it's it's his number name on there, which is unlike everybody's been using his phone to communicate, communicate, and call them.

My brother lives there and he's stayed at the hospital a lot, and he picked up the phone and goes, Hey, what's going on?

And I'm like, I'm like, Why are you so excited, Kevin?

That's my brother.

I'm like, what's going on?

And he keeps talking.

And I'm like, Dad?

Is this is this you like there was a part of me that could not just I I knew that was his phone, I knew that was his voice.

I also knew that he had had a chest tube in and like he he got the chest tube out.

And he called me and when he was talking I I'm not trying to be silly.

I I had not tried a tear.

I my vote my voice hadn't gotten choked up one time.

I'm like, hey, whatever's gonna happen, this is good.

He started talking.

I lit my knees started to buckle.

I'm out in my garage and I just it's awesome, and and I I want you to know if my if my dad has another fifty years left in him, um, praise God, I'm gonna give the glory.

And if God changes it and he and he goes home tonight, I'm I still want God to get the glory.

My the real the reason I wanted to share this that with you is because I want you to know is that like that wasn't like a planned thing.

It was just like my heart was so overwhelmed that he was doing well.

I mean, it was just I couldn't even hold it.

It was just it was just real and raw and authentic, and it and it there was nothing to it.

And so I just want to close it.

The whole reason why we did this is listen to this.

He says, Uh, who is this, sir?

The man said, Tell me so that I may believe.

In verse 37, and and and we'll we'll stop here.

We have two verses.

It says, uh, Jesus says, You have seen him, and in fact, he is the one speaking with you.

And the man said, Lord, I believe.

And then what are the next four words after that?

Verse 30 eight.

He says, Lord, I believe, and then what?

And he worshiped him.

I just I want you to get an understanding of this and we'll be done.

I know we're a little long, but I just I want you to think about this.

When did the text talk about him worshiping?

When did he worship?

Did he worship him the moment his eyes were open?

The moment he worshiped was when he believed who Jesus was.

Folks, we don't have to wait to worship God when he has healed us, when he's fixed us, when everything is going great.

The moment that the text talks about that he worshiped him, when he bent his knee, when he bowed his head, when he cried out, I don't imagine he might have grabbed his feet and said, Oh, thank you, thank you.

He worshiped him not because of what he had done, but because of who he was and he believed.

What brings us into worship today and what will carry us on into worship this week is not what God does for us and not who's around us and not what the preacher says or what the song leader sings.

That's not the catalyst for worship.

What worship is, is when we believe in Jesus Christ our Lord.

We believe that he lived and he died and he went up and he's coming back and his spirit is with us.

That is the catalyst for worship for all of us.

We don't have to wait until somebody sings our favorite song for this to be worship.

We don't have to wait until the preacher says something good for us to worship.

Worship comes from within and we can't hardly contain it or control it.

It is with joy that I found myself just weeping that I heard my dad's voice.

And it's with joy that we can worship God this week.

Because we believe what he did.

Your science books, they're lying to you.

They're telling you there's no God.

You can listen to podcasts and news, and they're going to talk about all these things, but we worship because we believe when the rest of the world doesn't, Paul says they'll gather around them a great number of people to say what their itching ears long to hear.

They will turn away from the truth and they'll turn aside the myths, but we won't, because we believe and we will worship.

And my prayer is that you will continue to worship this week like we talked about last week, Romans 12.

Read that and say, God, this is my worship to you.

I give myself fully to you.

And my prayer is that you'll do this.

If we can join you in this worship as you enter in and as we go out, if we can help you continuing to worship, if we can pray for you, if you want to come and join us as we attempt to be a family that worships God, we want to ask you to join us now this morning as we stand and sing.