How To Be Consequential

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For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Yeah, let's pray together.

Lord, we just want to confess today that uh our confidence is not in ourselves.

As the old hymn says, the arm of flesh will fail you.

You need not, you dare not trust your own.

So we're not here today to trust in ourselves.

Our confidence is in you.

And because of that, God, we need you to teach us something about you.

Reveal us something about you from your word.

This unchanging, certain, always true, never gonna lie word of God.

Reveal something from it that increases our confidence in you so we don't live as victims to our circumstance.

Well, we stay with Habakkuk of old, the old prophet.

Well, we've heard of your fame.

We stand in all of your deeds.

Renew them again in our day.

Said differently, God, do it again.

We don't want to just relate to you historically.

We want to be intimately personal with who you are and what you're doing.

And God, we want to be used of you.

We want to be your hands and feet to broken and needy people this week.

We don't want to just talk about Christianity.

We want to be Christians.

And so, Holy Spirit, lead us into that kind of thinking about the Christian life.

It's not something that sets on the shelf in a book and we pull it out on Sunday and expose ourselves to it, okay?

That's not what this is about.

And so, Lord, we just say, do it again.

Do it again, God, and involve us in the doing, we ask in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it open, open up to John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

If you're our guest today, let me say, Welcome.

We're going through the Gospel of John.

We believe the Bible is the Word of God.

We believe it's inspired.

We believe it's the truth.

And Jesus says this, he said in the last chapter, that you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

So, God's goal, God's agenda, God's desire for you today is that when you walk out of here in about 35 minutes or however long that takes, uh, that you're a freer cat than you were when you walked in here today.

That's fair enough?

Hello?

You got an extra hour of sleep, people.

Come on.

Y'all are coming.

I'm another dragon.

I got too much sleep.

My wife slept 11 hours last night.

I walked out of my bedroom at about 6 30 this morning.

She's on the couch, like, why not away?

Because, yeah, that's what happens when you fall asleep at 8 o'clock.

This isn't hard.

Uh anyway, I want to talk to you this morning about this, about how to be consequential.

How to be consequential.

Because most of us, if we're honest, we say, you know what?

I would like my life to have more of a consequence.

I would like my life to have a bigger impact, uh, not just on my kids or on my neighbors, but just kind of in the world.

And so I want to talk to you from John chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

I'll start reading verse 1.

I'll read to verse 17, we'll stop right there.

We'll pick up there next week, okay?

But just think how to be more consequential.

And by the way, let me just tip you off.

The way to be more consequential is not to focus on being consequential, because then you start fabricating things and it's your flesh, but it's not the spirit.

Does that make sense to anybody besides me?

It's not like I'm gonna go out here and manufacture some conversation that kind of makes me feel more Jesus-like.

No, no, no, no.

No, let's just read the Bible.

Let the Bible inform the path to being more consequential.

John 9, verse 1, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned?

John 9:1

This man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

And then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud, and he said to him, Go wash in the pool of Saloon, which means sent.

So he went and he washed, and he came back seeing.

Verse 8, the neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?

Some said, It is he.

Others said, No, but he looks like him.

He kept saying, I am the man.

And so he said to them, Uh, then uh, how are your eyes opened?

He answered, The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, Go to Saloam and wash.

So they went and washed.

He said, So I went and I washed and I received my sight.

And they said to him, Well, where is he?

He said, I don't know.

They brought him to the Pharisees.

Uh they brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight, and he said to them, He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.

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

But others said, How can a man who's a sinner do such signs?

And there was division among them.

And though they said again to the so they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him since he opened your eyes?

He said, He's a prophet.

And we'll just stop right there.

Now, a lot of times you can read things in the Bible and you miss what's happening right in front of you.

So let me just kind of rewind and give you like a one-minute summary of what's happening.

Jesus and his disciples, uh, people that were, they would have a rabbi.

Jesus was their rabbi, he was their teacher.

This was the day and age when you bestowed dignity and honor and respect upon teachers.

Nothing like the American classroom today, okay?

And so people would attach themselves to a teacher and they would follow them around.

And so you would see small groups of men walking together, typically the rabbi in front, and the men behind them, kind of like just just kind of living off the morsels of wisdom that drop from this guy's mouth.

And so they roll into a city and they see a man, and the Bible says this they saw a man blind from birth.

Now you should ask yourself, how did they know that?

Is he wearing a sign?

Hey, don't make fun of me.

I haven't seen forever.

They see a man who's blind from birth, and and the disciples, they kind of lean up and go, hey, Jesus, hey, Jesus, whose fault is this?

I mean, is it his parents' sin or his sin that this guy's born blind?

I mean, who, which who do we blame for this thing right here?

And Jesus is kind of, this is Jesus' kind of hold my beer moment.

He's just kind of like, hey, back up, give me some room here.

Hold this.

What's this?

He says, Neither one.

It's not his parents' fault, it's not his fault.

He's this way, so that the works of God can be put on display in his life.

And then Jesus says, by the way, Jesus says a few words and he disappears after this.

He didn't show back up in this chapter until verse 35.

Hey, and but but but get this.

I mean, you've been blind from birth, and so typically I have a friend that worked in blind rehabilitation.

She helped people that were sighted who lost their sight in an accident, kind of learn.

And she said this to me one time.

She said, Hey, when you lose your sight, all your other senses kind of amp up.

Your hearing gets better, your sense of smell gets better.

Why do I tell you that?

Because you have you've been blind forever, and Jesus comes to you, and you're like, hey, what's going on here?

And in the midst of this, you hear, ah, poo.

And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Who's spitting on who here?

And everyone's giggling.

He's spitting on, he's making a little mud pie.

And now he, and then all of a sudden you feel the sensation.

It's kind of like, oh, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Are you making fun of me?

I don't need a mud mask, okay?

Give me a break.

And so Jesus just here's what I'm saying.

Sometimes, in order to heal you, God's gonna humiliate you.

Y'all didn't hear a word I said.

Let me come over here to this side.

Sometime I'll come over here in the dark where there's no light.

Sometime for God to heal you, He's going to humiliate you, He's gonna expose you to things you won't be exposed to.

He's gonna put mud on your face.

And then Jesus said this, by the way, you gotta know that Jesus could have healed him right there on the spot.

He's healed other people.

And there's a guy in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Check me on this.

Mark chapter 8, this blind guy's like, hey, can you heal me?

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And he's like, Hello, who am I?

And he touches the guy's eyes, and Jesus says, Can you see?

And he goes, Well, I see people walking around, but they're like trees.

And Jesus is like, That ain't good, and touches him a second time.

And he goes, I see clearly.

So the Bible tells us he has the capacity to instantaneously change this man's life.

And instead, he wants him to have some skin in the game.

He puts mud on his face and then he says, Go wash in the pools of Saloon, in the springs of Saloon.

How far from where they're standing is this place that he's talking about?

Can you imagine?

He's just kind of like, okay.

Well, okay, somebody just spin me around and point me in the right direction.

How does a blind man find his way to the springs of Saloon?

Here's what I'm saying.

God's not always gonna make it easy on you.

We live in a day and age and churches get up here.

Right now, people everywhere in America are telling people, hey guys, God wants to be your buddy.

And you wonder why your kids are 14, they just roll their eyes at like this concept of a God who wants to be your buddy.

Hey, no, no, here's the biblical God.

He is changing the world.

Do you want to be a part of that?

Or do you want to just kind of reside in a three-foot circle called your world and try to make it look satisfying?

Because when you get in his world, things happen his way.

And the guy says, Jesus tells him to go, and he went, and he washed, and he came back seeing.

Some of you can't see today because you didn't go all the way to the spring.

You got about halfway and somebody said, Hey, there's water.

And you were like, That'll do.

And you, as you sit here, you wonder why Christianity doesn't work for you.

I'm just not like everybody else.

I mean, I try and I just how to be consequential.

Let me point to four or five things in the text this morning.

Number one is simply this is learning to see is a choice.

Learning to see.

Look at verse one as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.

He saw a man blind from birth.

Most of us are responding to all that we see right now.

Therefore, the problem isn't behavior but vision.

Let me say that again.

Most of us are just, we're we're trafficking everything we see right now.

And so the issue is not behavior, trying harder, doing more, reading more, hating yourself more.

It's just ask God, give you eyes to see.

Jesus responds to what he sees.

I love what Helen Keller said.

She said, the only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.

And when Jesus sees, it's you've got to understand.

I alluded to it a minute ago.

You should ask yourself, how does Jesus know he's blind from birth?

The text says he saw.

It's not just seeing with eyes, but perceiving with the mind.

Jesus, when the Bible says Jesus saw somebody, that sounds warm and glowy, but that was horribly indicting because he just saw right through you.

It's like when your kids try to lie to you and you're just kind of looking at them like, you're a little foolish self.

Go ahead and spin this lie out, and when you're done, I'm gonna beat you, so just make it a good one.

You know, when your kids were little and they were kind of like, My parents don't know anything, or your kids got to be about 17 and thought, you know, I'm gonna go out and drink and come home, and your dad's standing there in the hallway in the Batman pose.

Come here, let me smell your breath.

Well, you don't smell my breath for because uh keeps me from beating you up in front of your mom.

That's why, punk.

You can't get off of that.

Jesus sees right through him, he's he sees what's happening.

Look at me.

He sees what happened back here, and he sees what needs to happen, and then he acts accordingly.

And so when I say that learning to see is a choice, this is what I mean.

You ever heard the phrase turned a blind eye towards?

Hey, they knew this was going on, but they turned a blind eye towards it.

We should ask ourselves today, maybe sit around our community groups tonight, sip coffee and have snacks and say, hey, what in your life are you turning a blind eye towards right now?

What are you overlooking because you don't have the energy or the desire?

Second thing the Bible tells us about this becoming consequential is that we look for blame, but God looks for opportunity.

We look for blame, but God looks for opportunity.

Let me give you a heads up in just a minute.

I'm gonna put up here on the screen.

Not right now, I don't want you to try to write it down.

Just get your phone ready, you can take a picture of it if you're new to our church that doesn't bother us at all.

Because I don't want to make you eggheads, but I want to give you a framework for thinking through uh the problem of evil and suffering.

Let me just give you a little heads up, okay?

So when I say that we look for blame, but God looks for opportunity.

Uh, last week, it's verse two and three.

Now, last week, and we we read this last part of John, and we saw that Jesus answers one of the fundamental questions of human existence, that being, hey, what happens to us when we die?

Right here, he deals with the problem of evil and suffering.

Because there's a lot of people in our world, some of you may be here this morning, and if you are, look at me.

I'm glad you are.

It's people that look around and kind of say, you know what?

If God's really real and God's really good and God's really all-powerful, why is the world so messed up?

That's what's known in theology as the problem of evil and suffering.

The disciples ask it like this they said, uh, Rabbi, who sinned?

This man or his parents, that he was born blind.

See, they want to know who to blame.

Jesus is not into blame, Jesus is into opportunity.

He says in verse 3, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Back up.

I'm about to set the kingdom down right here, Jesus says.

They have no idea what is fixing to happen.

They're just answer asking a little question so they can get everything compartmentalized in their little box with a little bow on it where it all makes sense.

And Jesus says it's not about blame, it is about op it's about opportunity.

We have to think about this problem.

We've got to ask ourselves, how do I reconcile the problem of evil and suffering with the nature of a good God?

Here's why.

Because this determines how the culture will listen to you.

Let me say it again.

You have to reconcile this problem, the existence of evil and suffering in the world, and as we believe as Christians in the Bible teaches the existence of a good and sovereign and all-powerful God.

Because people are like, hey, if he's good and all-powerful, why does he not do something about all this stuff that's happening in the world?

The way you reconcile these two, it determines how people will respect you and listen to you.

And so it helps us.

Let me just give you a quote.

This is a college student who was asked about this problem.

Here's what she said.

If you think, oh, you're just making that up because you're the preacher trying to make it sound serious.

This is a college student who said, I just don't believe the God of Christianity exists.

God allows terrible suffering in the world.

So he might be either all-powerful but not good enough to end evil and suffering, or else he might be all good but not powerful enough to end all evil and suffering.

Either way, the all-good, all-powerful God of the Bible could not exist.

Now, there's people in the world that believe that.

That's their big obstacle to Christianity.

And here's where you and I don't help is when you just kind of throw religious phrases at them that you just heard and never thought through yourself.

We don't have a framework to kind of engage the culture with this.

And so here's one of the fundamental differences in God and humanity where we seek blame, God seeks opportunity.

And so if you're here today, let me apply that to your intellect.

If you're here that and you think I kind of relate to that, God sees your doubt, your skepticism, your cynicism as an opportunity for you to kind of move towards a posture of faith when it comes to this fundamental problem of human existence.

Now, let me just tell you, uh, like I'm like a loser, I'm like a nerd.

Like I was watching Alabama LSU last night, and I got so bored, I turned it off and started reading.

I just thought, I've seen this before.

Alabama just slowly grinds you down, and the other team never scores, and the announcers try to make it sound like, oh, LSU could come back.

No, they just they're just curb stopping LSU.

Sorry, Wade Burgess, your team's not good.

They're not gonna make it into the national championship playoff, and they shouldn't.

I mean, put anybody else in there, but it's like there's Alabama and then there's everybody else.

It's like men whipping up on boys.

It's it I just feel like I'm watching abuse take place.

So I just turned the TV off and I picked up a book and I just started reading.

Because I'm a loser, that's why.

And so what I'm fixing to put up on the screen, I kind of I was influenced in my thinking by men like there's a guy named Alvin Plantika.

He's a philosopher, he's kind of a very nerdy guy, but he's brilliant.

C.S.

Lewis, Tim Keller, and a Catholic theologian who teaches at Boston College.

His name is Peter Craeft, K-R-E-E-F-T.

And so this is what I refer to as a framework for thinking about suffering.

We can just put all that up on the board if it'll all fit.

It's just kind of a five-step process.

I just want to read through it.

Don't try to write it down.

Just take a picture of it.

If you don't have a camera, just come up to me and say, hey, could you email me that?

I'd be glad to.

Here's how we need to think through things like this in a way that unbelievers listen to us and kind of go, Whew, I gotta think about that.

Here's the first step.

When you think about it, the existence of evil and suffering is actually evidence for the existence of God because people have a sense that what is happening is wrong and shouldn't be happening.

You should be able to say to people, hey, yeah, I agree.

The problem of evil and suffering is a big deal, but actually it redounds to the existence of God.

It does not deny his existence.

Because when you say that, you got them on the hook.

They're like, What are you talking about?

Here's the next uh step in this process.

Upon what is this, because people are like, how could this be happening?

I mean, this is wrong, it shouldn't be happening.

Then the next question becomes upon what is this sense of injustice founded?

How do you know this is wrong?

If there is no God, why do you know to expect better, desire better, and are angry when it doesn't happen?

I say to people, you are angry about this because you're created in the image of God, and God too is angry about the existence of evil and suffering.

And at that point, they're like, Well, yeah, yeah.

Third step: evil and suffering causes us to feel the limits of our humanity.

We can feel how deeply we want to stop the suffering all around us, but we cannot because of our human limitations.

Therefore, it is hard to conceive of a God who has the capacity, who is all powerful, and yet he chooses not to do something about all of this.

See, that's one of the hardest things about being human, is we we bump up against the limitations of our humanity.

We can only do so much.

And when we hit those limitations, the proper response is not just more anger.

Fourth, God has done something, but he just didn't do what we would have done if we were God.

We all want to do away with evil and suffering in ways that are insufficient because they're temporary.

God has chosen to deal with the problem of evil and suffering in a way that is eternal.

At this point, when I say this to somebody, they are kind of like, What are you talking about?

And I'm like, I am glad you ask.

And I say to them, hey, we could get all the collective anger of all the activists in the world, and we could not together cobble together a sufficient response that is eternal, that has what they call eternality on it, that is always going to exist in response to the problem of evil and suffering.

Only God could do this.

One guy said to me, Then, then, okay, what did your God do?

And I looked this man in his eyes and I said, God's response to the problem of evil and suffering was God put himself on the hook in the middle of evil and evil and suffering.

Here's the way I wrote it out, and I write it out for myself just to kind of be reminded.

Because Jesus did come.

God did put himself on the hook of human suffering in the person of Jesus.

Because of this, evil and suffering has a context.

God is making all things new.

He created a world that is to be governed by love and goodness.

And it will one day be.

In the meantime, my life can be used as a single candle added to the flame of God's goodness that announces to the dark and suffering world there's a way out of this darkness that you find yourself in.

See, there's a lot of people in the world that don't take Christians or Christianity seriously because we don't have any kind of framework for thinking through the problem of evil and suffering.

Like this past week, I got a phone call and somebody said, Hey, this lady and her husband are struggling, and they kind of need some money to pay their bills.

And I said, Okay, and because they don't go to our church, I didn't use any church resources.

But I have friends that have money, and they're like, hey, we're not rich or anything, but we've got some extra laying around.

And I said to them, most of us do.

We just like to make it sound like we're on our last dime, so no one will expect anything of us.

And when we get to heaven, God's gonna say, Hey, you made me look stingy down there.

Can we talk about that?

So I called these people because I called the lady and I said, Hey, tell me about your situation.

Oh, I just need about$250 to pay my bills and blah, blah, blah.

And then look at me.

There's there's there that there's a like a like like a solution, and then there's an answer.

You know there's a difference in those two, right?

There's a solution, like, here's the problem,$250.

And I said, she, because the lady spelled it out, we're all both on Social Security, and then we got this, and we got a reverse mortgage.

Don't ever get a reverse mortgage.

That's a horrible idea.

That just does not work.

And I said, So what are your bills and blah, blah, blah, and our health care keeps going up?

And so basically, so if I just in my mind, I said, ma'am, if I give you$250, we're just kicking the can down the street next month or two months later, you're gonna need$250 more dollars.

What's your biggest like monthly draw?

Well, our vehicle payments$470,$475 a month, but we only have one vehicle and we gotta have that in mind.

Uh ma'am, you don't have to justify.

It's not like, hey, you should drive around in a$50 car if you love Jesus.

I said, How much is your payment?

She said,$475 a month.

And I said, okay, what's the buyout on that right now?

And she said, I have no idea what you're talking about.

How much do you owe on that?

And she goes, Why do you want to know?

I said, That's my business.

Answer my questions.

And she chuckled and she said, Well, you're an invasive little fella.

What I didn't tell her is, no, I'm the light of the world.

Woman, I'm back, I'm back in home.

Oh, because I sense Jesus coming to go.

Hey, put her some space here.

The whole time I'm talking to her, the Holy Spirit's whispering in my ear.

What do you see here?

What do you see here?

I don't know.

Oh, there's somebody else who wants money from the church.

No, I'm church.

I call, I'm thinking, I know exactly.

I'm writing their names there.

I play golf with these people.

I'm writing their names down.

Uh-huh.

I bet he could give a thousand.

He probably got that in his truck ashtray right now.

And so I said, ma'am, what she goes, well, I don't know.

I said, call your company right now, tell them you want what's called a 10-day payout.

Here's my number, call me back.

Well, what are you gonna do?

I'm gonna set the kingdom of God down in your life today.

And she said, Well, what is that?

Why doesn't this woman know this?

How many churches are in the city she lives in?

Hundreds.

And so she called me back.

Oh, sir, you may have gotten in over your head.

Ma'am, I've got a big head, okay?

I look like the little brother of Butterbean, okay?

Give me a break.

And I said, How much is it?

She goes, Well, it's$3,684.

I said, tell what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna send you a check for$250 for your utilities month, and I'm writing this down in 84 cents, okay?

And I'm gonna send you a check made out to don't give poor people cash.

I love you and everything.

I used to be poor.

You're always on the play trying to get over on people.

So I said, What's who's this finance?

Okay, why are you asking?

Ma'am, stop asking me so many questions.

Don't make it so hard to help you.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I've just never been helped.

I said, listen, you don't you don't want to be in the position of always needing help.

You want to pray tonight that one day God's gonna so bless you, you become the helper.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And so I said, How much is it?

All right, I'm gonna mail you a check right now, put it in the mail today for this amount.

You pay your truck off, that way you got a$475 cushion starting next month.

Burst into tears.

Well, sir, can I ask you what would motivate you to do something like this?

I got a person inside of me.

And she said, excuse me.

Stop crying, tears dried up.

I said, I've got a person living inside of me, and he owns me because with his blood, he purchased men for God.

I I've been purchased by God for God, so I don't get to live with myself anymore.

Oh, okay.

Well, I'm not quite sure what that.

Oh, then she's like, uh, I gotta get off the phone before he tries to give me some religious literature or something.

I said, No strings attached, ma'am.

I have been delivered from myself, and so I I can live now for the glory of God.

So this is not a joke.

You're gonna send me this.

Ma'am, what?

What do you think I'm doing?

You think I got nothing better to do than to have practical jokes on some woman?

Well, I just don't know.

She called me back yesterday.

I got the check in the mail.

All I said back on the phone was, what'd I tell you?

Now stop living paycheck to paycheck.

Why do I tell you that?

Because the third thing, third way you become consequential is that you realize there's this urgency that's born of identity.

There's this urgency that's born of identity.

Look at verse 4.

He says this.

Jesus says, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Hello.

Do you hear how it implicated you are in that process?

We must work the works of him who sent me.

Jesus is saying, Hey, I'm not here to be appreciated, I'm here to be imitated.

You cats should be doing the things that you see me doing.

And they're like, Oh, yay, Jesus, you're awesome.

Go, Jesus, and Jesus is like, No, go you.

You get off your blessed assurance and get in the game and do something.

Hear it again, verse 4.

We must work the works of Him who sent me.

See, there's an urgency that's born of identity.

Now look at me.

Urgency void of identity is activism.

And we got enough of that.

It's people out in front of a building with signs screaming about Tuesday.

Give me a break.

If Tuesday, the midterm election on Tuesday is the biggest thing in your life, you need a bigger life.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming.

And it ain't Tuesday, by the way.

Night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.

You hear that?

See, it starts off with urgency and it ends in identity.

If what you do, if your activity is not urgency, it's not desperation, it's intentionality.

It's oh, and by the way, when I got the phone, I called two friends and I said, Here's the deal.

I just obligated us on the hook, and I gave them the number, and one of them, the first one said, Thank you so much.

Thank you, because I got money.

I just sitting around and I trust you.

And so, yeah, he said this.

He said, Hey, I'm in on all your schemes.

No, no, no, no.

It's not a scheme.

I don't like that word.

Well, you know what I mean.

I mean, I trust you.

How much?

I said, This is what it was.

I want to have some skin in the game.

I'm gonna be on the hook for this much.

You and Potsy got to split the other half.

He's like, Who's Potse?

I'm like, You didn't see Happy Days growing up as a kid?

I say to my kids every once in a while, sit on it, Potsi, and they're like, Dad, what does that mean?

It's not on Instagram, never mind.

So the guy said, now hey, I'll just pay the whole thing.

And I said, No, don't pay the whole thing because you can.

This other cat's got some money.

He needs to realize he needs to put his job in a bigger context than a newer truck.

Let's leave some room for him to get in on this.

Why?

Why?

The lady asked me again yesterday, why?

I said, because we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.

It's urgency that's born of identity.

Fourthly, it's this it's obedience that leads to experience.

It's obedience that leads to experience.

Verse 6 and 7.

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud of the saliva.

I love that I worship a God who spits.

You should spit today before you go to bed.

It's not very dignified.

That's why you women, some of you women don't know how to spit.

You've never spit in your whole life.

I remember my kids were like three and four.

I took them in the backyard and said, You need to learn how to spit.

My wife's like, What were you doing out there?

Teaching my girls to spit.

Why?

Because the day's gonna come, they're gonna have to spit on some boys.

I want them to be good aim.

My wife was like, What do you do these things?

I mean, what?

I went, wouldn't you want to be a guy that's a girl?

She's like, hang on a second.

And she just spits, and you're just like, Did you just spit?

Yeah, Jesus spit.

Two things you should know about Jesus.

Number one, Jesus spit and Jesus took naps.

Be like Jesus.

Take a nap today.

It says right here in the Bible, he spit of all the things he could have done.

He just spit, kind of like, hey, you don't have me figured out.

You think I'm gonna zig?

I'm about to zag on you here.

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and he made mud with the saliva.

Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud.

Sometimes he anoints you in ways you're not prepared to receive.

And he said to him, Go wash in the pool of saloon, which means sent.

So he went and washed and he came back seen.

What if he'd have gone but never washed?

Does he come back seen?

See, some of you, your problem in your life is not God's fault.

It's that you don't know how to obey.

Because every time God tells you to do something, you interpret it through the lens of your willingness.

Well, I mean, I know Jesus said, I know the Bible says this, but preacher, you know, you know, no, I don't know.

Enlighten me.

Jesus anoints his eyes and says, Go wash in the pool of saloon.

Anything short of saloon.

Now, by the way, sometimes I told you before, sometimes the Bible yells at us because we're thick-headed.

Sometimes the Bible kind of winks at us.

It's winking at us right here because earlier in this passage, Jesus refers to him.

He says, Hey, we must work the works of him who sent me.

Remember that?

We that that little triangle, we must work the works of him who sent me.

Now Jesus tells him, because remember, John, the goal of the gospel of John, he's trying to get these religious Jews to believe.

They don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

That's why in chapter 20, about verse 30 and 31, he says, These things that are written unto you, that you may know that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Jesus is replacing all their religious rituals one at a time in every chapter of John's gospel.

And he says, Go wash in the pool of sloan, which means scent.

The sent one tells him to go wash himself in the scent pool.

Jesus is kind of saying, Hey, good load of me.

Immerse yourself in me, experience me, and you won't be blind anymore.

And you'll see later on in the chapter, these Pharisees are kind of like, hey, are we blind?

And Jesus is like, Well, now you're not blind anymore.

I've kind of set it down here in front of you.

You don't have an excuse.

So you've gone from being blind to being guilty.

And they're like, uh oh.

But again, let me just say this obedience leads to experience.

If you wonder why you don't experience the juice that the Bible talks about, I wish there was a better word for it, but that's my word for it.

The juice.

One of the guys I called, that's like I was so excited.

He stayed on the phone 20 minutes.

Well, how are things, man?

How Marsha and the girls?

How's your church?

He just, I said, he's kind of euphoric.

I was like, what's that?

Did I realize?

Oh man, he's tasting the juice.

He's tasting this kind of giddiness that comes from obedience.

Most of us never experienced that.

Because again, we run the commands through the filter of our willingness and we interpret what we think Jesus kind of meant.

So you walk around mud on your eyes, because if your life really changed, then in what would you find your identity then?

There's two things I just want to point to.

Just by way of reminder, the blind man does not experience the healing until he goes all the way.

And he does what he's supposed to do, and he comes back.

Secondly, the sent one says, I want you to go wash yourself in this in this place called sent.

Here's the last thing, and I'm done this morning.

It's just this evangelism born of explanation.

By the way, Jesus disappears in the story after chapters, after verse 7.

He doesn't show back up until verse 35.

It's all about this guy.

People are freaking out.

What I mean, evangelism born of explanation.

Look at me.

I'm done in two minutes.

You still awake?

Look at me.

You don't have to know a lot of verses in the Bible.

You don't have to have, well, I've got a theological framework for the problem of evil and suffering.

My pastor read it to me one Sunday.

I didn't understand a word of it, but a chair on my phone somewhere.

No, yeah, you gotta whip that thing out.

It's fun though when you're like somewhere and people are talking about just to kind of be familiar, put it in your own words, and don't kind of win an argument, but just kind of lead people to think about the implications of what they think.

Because people want to reconcile.

How can God be good and all powerful and the world be messed up?

Amen.

Yeah, I get it.

Anger is the byproduct of bumping up against your human limitations.

But God is not human, so therefore, God is not limited.

He has a response that's beyond our capacity to always understand.

But he kind of pulls back the curtain and lets us see every once in a while.

That's why the Bible says, God says, hey, my ways are higher than your ways.

Okay?

You're working at about a 40-foot level.

I'm at about 40 million miles above, okay?

So pardon me if my view is a little more expansive than yours.

What I mean, evangelism born of explanation.

You ain't got to know all this stuff.

All you gotta know, look at me.

All you gotta know is who you used to be and who you are now, and the difference God has made in you.

Now look at me.

That's the problem with some of you.

There's not a real big difference in you.

Except you go to church on occasion.

Look, the blind guy.

They are and they are, oh man, verse 8.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, Is this not the guy who used to sit and beg?

Some said, it's he.

Others said, no, but he is like him.

He kept saying, I am the man.

He was so changed because people had given up on the idea of him being anything else.

You know, you got people in your life that have given up on the idea of you being anything other than what you've always been.

And they're coming to your house for Thanksgiving, too.

Yes.

Some of you have already started day drinking at the thought of him showing up.

Yes, because they're like, well, yeah, yeah, you got that religious plaque on the wall.

I know what you're really like.

You're my cousin.

Others said, no, he's like him.

He kept saying, I am the man.

So they said to him, Then how will your eyes open?

Here's a question for you.

What do you find hard to explain to people about yourself?

I mean, how will you?

How'd you get this way?

He answered, the man called Jesus made mud anointed my eyes and said to me, He's just explaining.

That's all he's doing.

He's just explaining.

This is how God has worked in my life.

And he said to me, Go wash and go to Saloon and wash.

And so I sued him for giving me an opportunity, but not ensuring the outcome.

That's not what he does.

That's not what the guy says.

He says, So no.

I went and I washed and I received my sight.

And they said to him, Where is he?

He said, I don't know.

They brought him to the Pharisees.

You got to go to the principal's office.

You're in trouble.

The man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a Sabbath day, and when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

And so the Pharisees asked him again, how he received his side.

He said to them, He put mud on my eyes, I washed and I see.

How do you sum up your transformed life in one sentence?

What's the one sentence?

This is another question you should think about.

What's the one sentence that summarizes your transformed life?

This guy says, He put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see.

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

Others said, How can a man who's a sinner do such things?

And there's a division among them.

So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him since he opened your eyes?

He said, He's a prophet.

Look at me, and I'm done.

God likes to so transform people.

Look at me.

He likes to so change people and then send them back to their circles of influence.

And so people see the change in them and they say, Hey, what do you say about Jesus?

And then you have an opportunity just to explain.

For this guy, he's like, he's a prophet.

This guy's not very smart.

He's been blind, he never read a book.

Been blind his whole life.

Sitting by the road begging.

And all he does is explain.

And explain.

Would you be willing to walk out of here this week and just explain?

Just get you one sentence that summarizes the change in your life.

And just explain it to somebody.

Let's pray together.

If you're a guest, just relax.

What we do is we like to teach the Bible and then give you some soul space to think about it.

So just take a moment right now and just ask yourself, hey, what stood out to me?

What jumped out to me?

What kind of said, hey, woohoo, talking to you here?

What was convicting?

What was alluring?

What smelled good and what stunk?

What was like, ooh?

You don't have to be smart.

You don't have to be rich to be consequential.

You just have to be willing.

You have to know what God has done in you and be able to explain it to other people.

You've got to be willing to obey.

Is there anything that God's told you to do that you're like, ah, I hadn't gone all the way to Siloam?

That scares me.

I feel threatened by that.

You don't have to be.

He sees us today.

And he's gentle.

And he's compassionate.

And he's God.

He sees us.

He sees our blindness.

Just where do you just need Jesus to just kind of come and just apply some of that mud on you today?

Let's think about this.

God, sometimes when you're so when you speak so plainly in the Bible like you do in this chapter, we don't need a lot of words sung over us.

We just need that warm, that hot bath of a good sounding guitar just to kind of sink ourselves into and just kind of warm up our bones to the opportunity before us.

God, we're tired of being cold and creaky and cranky religious people.

I don't think there's many of those people in this room right now because they they don't really fit in here.

Not that they wouldn't be welcome, but church is not a noun, church is a verb.

So, Lord, give us a sentence that summarizes the transformation, the change that you've made in our life.

Give us eyes to see.

We're not snowmen.

We don't walk around with coal and just kind of go, I don't know, I can't see.

Therefore, I'm not responsible.

No, we see.

We're not gonna kick the can down the street this week.

We're gonna say, This is my moment.

God's involving me in what God is doing to redeem the world.

So let's just put our signs down.

Activism will never change the world.

It'll get people elected, and they ain't gonna do nothing either.

What changes the world is when people have an urgency that's rooted in their identity.

It says, hey, the night is coming when no one turks.

As long as I'm here, I'm the light of the world.

Let's get at this.

So, God, let us be about what we can be about while we can be about it.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

And everyone says, Amen.

Amen.

If you're our guest, let me say thanks for being part of our church, our church service today.

If you have any questions, some of our pastors will be available and our elders will be available down front.

Uh there's a lot of opportunities, a lot of things going on in our church.

Let me make you aware of a few of those by way of announcement.

So if you would, uh just give your attention to the screens.

But while this, before this kicks off, let me just say this.

If you're our guest, all we ask of you is if you just pull one of those cards uh in your row, a little guest card, fill it out, and when you leave here in just a couple minutes, drop it in one of these wooden boxes by the doors.

Let's let's uh be reminded of some opportunities for involvement that are coming up here at our church.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

Today is a community group Sunday, which means 22 groups of people will be meeting around our city to unpack and process today's service.

We believe it's biblical and necessary to know and be known by others outside of Sunday morning.

Community group is a great place for us to have it.

We meet twice a month and childcare is provided.

Head to our website, look for a group you like, and contact the leader so we can plan for your visit.

Church Community Builder, or CCP, is an important tool we use to contact everyone extra.

If you haven't used it or updated it in a while, help us out by going to our church website.

Scroll to the bottom, and click on the link to CCB.

Enter your username and your password, head to your profile, and update your phone number, email address, picture, and any other information you would like to share.

If there's anything you've heard today, if you have questions, some of our pastors and elders will be in front of the stage at the conclusion of our story.

One last thing I'll remind you of is that you see these boxes here.

If you've been at our church any length of time, you know that we opt we participate in what's called Operation Christmas Child, uh, where we take a shoebox and a little pamphlet that gives you the information, and we fill that with certain toys and stuff, and they'll be sent to a child that lives in poverty uh uh in in another country along with the gospel.

And so if you'd like to take one of those, and I'd like you to limit yourself to one, uh, because we have a second service and a third service.

And typically, the third service, they get here and all the boxes are gone.

Uh because you're such a generous people, it's a great problem to have.

But if you'd like to do that, just a minute when you're dismissed, just come grab one, grab a pamphlet, and as a family fill it.

It tells you that, hey, these things go in here, these things don't go in here, okay?

Uh, but it's a very tangible way uh uh of expressing the goodness of God.

We believe here at Grand Park way that sometimes the works of Jesus prepare people for the words of Jesus.

Make sense?

Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

He sees you.

Not like a cop that knows you're speeding, but like a father that knows what you're capable of.

You've been seen.

You've been in the In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.