Tragedy and Triumph: Week 1

On the way to church this morning, I was in

my truck and I was thinking the Lord. I was like, Lord,

thank you that it's so warm, and that I, you know,

I have the privilege of getting out in this And

then I had this thought this morning. Then I thought

about this all the way here, like what are the

Amish doing today? Do you ever think about that? Like

they had to go out and get a horse, They

had to put a horse on a buggy. Then they

had to take that horse and buggy to a barn

and they all meet together in a barn and they

have a worship service. And then I started thinking like,

well do they have fireplaces? And so I was just

completely consumed. So that's what I'm going to do this afternoon,

is I'm going to study Amish worship services in very cold,

frigid weather. But other than that, I'm fine. How are you? Hey,

we just talked about this, minished. Let me tell you

just a little bit real quick that I don't know

if you know this, but there are so many families

in our area that can't go to church because they

have a child with unique needs, and so they'll come,

they'll try church, and then their child just has a

really rough morning, and then mom and dad ended up

getting called out of the service and then they just

like forget it and they stop coming. And that's happening

all over our city. For each and every volunteer we

get that will be a buddy for these children with

some unique challenges. That's a whole family that can come

to church every weekn let me tell you these families

that have children who struggle. If anybody needs community, if

anybody needs a morning of encouragement, they need that. And

so I would encourage you to please pray about it.

We'll train you, will help you. But it's an awesome,

awesome ministry today. We've got a long text to go through,

but it's a good text. And let's pray and ask

God to prepare our hearts today. Father God, we just

call on you today and we give you praise that

even despite the weather, we can come and hear and

warm up, dig into your word. But most importantly, today

help us to adjust our life to your calling and

your convictions. In Jesus' name, we pray amen. A few

years back, there was this psychological test done. A lot

of you have probably heard of this, but basically what

they did was they invited a group of people in.

They set them down in front of the television and

there was a basketball game going on, and they said,

all right, just pay attention to the men and the

white shirts, and just count how many times the men

in the white shirts make a pass. That's all you

gotta do. Just count how many times the men in

the white shirts make a pass. That's all they had

to do. So they sat there and watched it. Well,

about halfway through the game, a man dressed in a

gorilla outfit actually walked halfway out into the court, beat

his chest, and then walked back off of the court.

Now here's what was frightening about. You know, their conversations

that they had afterwards, and here's what shocked everyone. About

half of the participants. Guess what never saw The gorilla

wasn't hidden, wasn't subtle. And here's why it was because

they were focused on something else. And researchers discovered something unsettling.

When we focus on one thing, we can become blind

to something obvious, even when it's right there in front

of us. Again, this study wasn't about eyesight. It was

about attention, and it raises an uncomfortable question for us today.

What else could we be missing out there? See, often

we don't see reality as it is. We see reality

as we expect it. And the truth doesn't just apply

to psychological experiments. We could be blind to what's happening

right in front of us. And this applies to our faith,

to God and to Jesus. And John chapter nine, Jesus

performs an undeniable miracle. Okay, there's a blind man who

recees his sight. Okay, it's public, it's dramatic, it's life changing.

And yet the people who should have seen it.

Most clearly, the religious leaders, the religious people, they completely

miss it. They had eyes, they had scripture, they had knowledge,

but ultimately they were blind. And that's the tension of

John chapter nine. Today. A blind man sees while seeing

men remain blind. A blind man sees while seeing men

remain blind. Out here is a question that we all

have to wrestle with today. And here's the main point.

You're here today. This is what I'm asking you. Is

it possible for us to be around God, know the Bible,

attend church and still miss what he's doing right in

front of you, or what he's asking of you? In

other words, is it possible that for some of us

that we've been going to church for so long that

we can come in, we can go through the worship songs,

we could be a part of the groups. But yet

we are not being changed by the convictions of God.

We're not adjusting our life to the written word when

we come upon scriptures that show us here's what we

were to do now. Instead, when God calls us to

do something that's out of our comfort zone, do we

say now? And so is it possible? Is it possible

for us to come here we in and weak out

and actually miss all that God is calling us to do.

And that's what John nine is really about. See now,

here's what I want you to do. Now. Picture a scene.

Jesus and his disciples are walking and his disciples have

some really bad theology, and they asked Jesus, They said, hey,

why is this guy blind? And back then they typically

had three beliefs for why somebody was blind. Okay, One,

they believe that, maybe, you know, somehow in the womb,

this child sinned. Okay, they actually had that belief. A

lot of people believe that maybe it was their parents

who sinned.

And then he had some people believe that maybe.

This person who was blind in this life had done.

Something evil in a former life.

Now, the Bible doesn't say anything or give any creedis

to multiple lives, but people actually believe this back then.

So they're wondering, why is this man blind. Now, here's

what you also need to understand. Blindness was a common

thing back then. As a matter of fact, because of

the desert sun, the swirling sand, and the lack of

medical care. It was common for people to get infection

after infection after infection, and then eventually they would go blind.

There was one disease called trockma and trachoma was where

you would keep getting these infections and then after so

many infections, your eye lids would actually flip inside out,

so your eyelashes was constantly scratching your cornea. Well, after

this did this for a while, you would go blind,

and so it was a common thing for the disciples

to see blind people. It was a common thing and

during that time. But here's what you something you can

to understand. If you were blind and you didn't have

a job, you lived in poverty, you were outside of

the community. And so they come to this guy whose

life is pretty much hope us from the outside, and

they say, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents?

That he was born blind. Now here's what you need

to understand. More than likely they had bad theology because

of the way they applied a scripture from the Old

Testament that was probably thrown around a lot, and this

is probably the scripture. It says, for I the Lord

your God, am a jealous god visiting the iniquity of

his fathers on the children on the third and fourth

generations of those who hate me. So people would read

these passages and he would say, well, surely you know

if my father or your father was sinful, well, because

of their iniquities, their children would be punished for it. Well,

here's what you need to understand about that scripture. That

scripture is spoken to a nation. Okay, that scripture is

spoken to a nation, not individuals. And we see this

that if one generation is wicked, there will be repercussions

for future generations. If one generation in our country is

very wicked, guess what it's gonna impact the next few

generations of our nation. And so this was a national

scripture because there is nowhere in the Bible that advocates

people being punished for other people's sins. Matter of fact,

when we look at Deuteronomy twenty four says his fathers

shall not be put to death for their sons, nor

shall sons be put to death for their fathers. Everyone

shall be put to death for their own sin. In

other words, everybody's accountable for their own sin. So the Disciples,

they have this bad theology. They think for some reason,

maybe this, maybe that, But here's the reason. They're looking

for a reason why this person is blind. But then

Genus says this, Listen, guys, neither this man nor his

parent sin, but this happens so that the work of

God might be displayed in him. And so here's what

Jesus does. Jesus says, listen, you guys got it all wrong.

He didn't send his parents. But here's the point. Whatever

the reason why he's blind, you need to know this.

God's gonna get glory from this moment. God's gonna get

glory from this.

And so here's what we have to understand. I see,

I think so much.

We we enter into these trials, we have these things

happen in our life. Are we get in a car wreck,

we lose our job, or we just go through these

trials and and and for some reason we focus and

we keep looking for this, this reason, why did this happen?

Why did this happen? Why did this happen?

When in reality, those of us who are followers of

Christ often we should just simply say, I don't know

why this happened. But here's what I do know, because

I'm a follower Jesus, God's going to get glory through

this trial. I don't know why this happened. I don't

know why I'm going through this. I don't know why

my family has to deal with this, but we do

know this. God is going to get glory out of this.

Look at this next slide. See, sometimes our trials aren't

about finding some thing or someone to blame, but it's

about making room for God's glory to be revealed. And

so Jesus is trying to get the guys stop trying

to find a reason. You guys got bath theology. Listen,

at the end of the day, God is going to

get glory from this. And then Jesus switches up to conversation.

Pay attention to what he does. Really quickly, he says,

as long as it is day, we must do the

works of him who sent me. Do you catch that?

I almost say it again, As long as it is day,

we must do the works of him who sent me.

So here they are the disciples. They're focused on why

did this happen? Jesus says, don't worry about it. God's

gonna get glory. And by the way, we got some

work to do. Let's just do something about it. Let's

just help this guy. Let's just let's trying to figure

out why they're in this situation. Let's just do something

about it. Often, when if we will find out why

someone is suffering, sometimes it can give us an excuse

not to help someone.

Sometimes somebody could.

Be in a situation, a financial situation, or are there

in some other type of situations. You know, we're like, well,

if they hadn't done this, or they hadn't done that,

they wouldn't be in this situation. So why should I

have to help them? And I think that if Jesus

was speaking to us today, I think Jesus will say

this to all of us here at this church. Let

us focus on how to meet the need rather than

on why they have it. Church. If I can implant

this into our DNA. Okay, we have a lot of

opportunities in this area to help a lot of people.

And we can get caught up and trying to figure

out why they're in the situation they are in, or

we can follow Jesus's example here and everybody saying, oh,

is it because of this? Is it because of this?

Is it because of this? And Jesus says, listen, let's

not try to figure out why they're in trouble. Let's

just do something about it. And can I just tell

you how proud I am of this church. Let me

tell you when I think about those who serve in

our mercy ministries through one more. Every time this market

opens up, we feed hundreds of people. Okay, we love them,

we pray for them, we feed them, and then we

invite them back. That's be in the hands the feed

of Jesus Christ. Our Celebrate Recovery ministry. We love people,

we listen to their stories, we walk with them through

their heel. And here's something else I love about Celebrate Recovery.

Our leaders share their own struggles, so they say, hey,

I know what you're going through, I understand you. I'm

here for you.

Let's walk together.

That's the hands and feed of Jesus Christ. Our homeless

ministry that simply feeds and clothes and unlet's the unhouse

in our community. Know hey, you are seen and you

are loved. That's the hands of feed of Jesus Christ.

Our Passport to Employment Ministry, which by the way, is

just one person away from having twenty five hundred jobs

that they've helped people get. This ministry walks besides people

whose lives have been flipped upside down because of unemployment,

and they walk with them, they equip them, they care

for them, and they help them. That's being the hands

and feed of Jesus Christ. And not to mention all

the people who's been held through our free legal clinics

that's changed people's life situation. Or what about these American

citizenship classes that we just started, that's gonna change some

people's lives.

Immigrant Connection is not ready to get running.

That's gonna help some people with significant ways. And also

we have some English classes that we hope to get started. Listen,

that's being the hands and feed of Jesus Christ. And

so we as a church, God has planted us right

here on the tip of the highway for sixty five.

He's put us in this little region here, and God says,

look around at the needs. Look around and find out

the needs, and we go and meet them. We don't

do analysis of why you got this going on, or well,

if you had done this, or if you'd have done that,

or if you've been a little bit better, if you'd

have planned a little bit longer. See the church soft

and so they're so focused on people having to justify

why they could be helped that we miss out on

the miracles all the time. And Jesus will simply said, hey, hey,

let's not become fixated on why they're in the s trouble.

Let's just do something about it, and let's meet the

need and trust of crossing. That's what you're doing. You

honor people, you give them dignity, You simply help. Now

let's get back to Jesus and a black man. Jesus

approaches the black man. He spits on the ground, he

grabs up, makes into some mud, puts it on his eyes,

and then he says, all right, you need to go

wash that off. He says, go wash in the pool

of Ceeloim. This being sent the man obeys, and for

the first time in his life, he starts to see

figures and shapes, and he starts to see faces. And

you can see buildings, see a palm tree, he can

see the beautiful blue water. He can see the sun rise.

And let me tell you something, there's no way that

any of us in this room could even imagine. But

here's what I want to do. I love this video,

so I just want to give you a little glimpse

that maybe just gives you one one thousandth of what

this man felt like. There's a these videos out there

of people who have been collar blind their whole life,

but there's these glasses that can put on, and when

they put on all these glasses, they can see collar.

So I'm gonna show you a video of a person

seeing collar for the first time and watch how they

geek out over just seeing the collar of a balloon.

And that should hopefully just give us a little glimpse

to what it must have been like for this man.

Check out this video.

Yeah, from all of those but mine, Kah, how does

it look? That's weird?

Look can you see with our eyes?

Now?

Baby? What colors? You see?

Those?

You see colors?

Now?

Oh? H Now you have rose colored.

Now you see with our eyes?

Do you like the balloons?

Yeah?

Oh m hm? Turn around?

What about the flowers on the house.

Oh, my goodness, doesn't look like.

It looks like greater mud.

I love that video. I love that video. But he

saw the movement of his heart, just being excited, just

over being able to see color. Could you imagine being

able to see people, your family for the first time.

You're like, this was a major miracle. Jesus changed this

man's life forever. And so it's public. People know about it,

and so they start talking about it. They start debating,

and so let's look at the text here. He says,

isn't this the same man who used to.

Sit and beg?

Some said yeah, that's him, other says no, it just

looks like him. But he himself said no, I'm the guy.

And then they asked, well, then how did your eyes

get open? Well, he said, well, this guy named Jesus

Mayson Muddy. He put it on my eyes, told me

to go to this pool and wash it off. So

and wash it and I could see. And they go, well,

where's this man? And he goes, I don't know. Why

didn't he know because he had no idea what Jesus

even looked like. Jesus left him and said, go wash

your eyes off in this pool.

And so at this point that it's this.

Amazing, feel good story lifelong blindness healed, a life totally transformed.

And you would think that everybody in Jerusalem would just

be celebrating, but not everybody's happy with this miracle. And

here's where we enter into scene two of this story. See,

some of the people went and got the Pharisees, the

religious people, the church attenders, and they said, hey, you

might want to go check out this miracle. And they

went to the religious authorities and they said, and by

the way, these Pharisees, they had strict observations of the law.

They knew every detail of the law, and just to

make sure that no one broke any the laws, they

build all kinds of rules and traditions around these and

they start acting like those were the laws. And unfortunately

this may this group of men very critical and quick

to judge. And so the Pharisees would not have been

happy of Jesus for three reasons. One, he heals somebodle

on the Sabbath. You weren't supposed to work on the Sabbath.

Number two, you know when Jesus put that mud together, Well, well,

you weren't supposed to need any dough on the Sabbath,

and that's considered work. And so Jesus doing that little

work with mud, that would have been considered doing work

on the Sabbath. And you weren't supposed to say, hell, anybody,

or do you know medical work on the Sabbath. So Jesus,

according to them, has broke one of God's laws, but

more importantly, two of their made up laws. And so

some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God,

for he does not keep the Sabbath. To them, Jesus

cannot be a godly person because why would he? How

dare he break some of their man made rules? And

they said, how can a sinner perform such signs? So

the crowd split. So what do they do? They go

get the healed man and asked his opinion. They goes, well,

who do you think this guy is? He says, well,

I think he's a prophet. Well that's the highest honor

that he could think of. He said, hey, he must

be some prophet, somebody from God. And unsatisfied, they go, well, yeah,

you don't know much. You know, you just started up singing.

So they went and got his parents and they said,

all right, tell us a little bit about this guy.

And their parents were like, yeah, he was born blind.

But then as they kept asking questions of parents, figured out, oh,

if we make these Pharisees upset, they're going to kick

us out of the synagogue. And by the way, if

you got kicked out of the synagogue, they're lost your

you know, there goes your status, your job, connections, your community,

your friendships, your whole life. And so they don't want

to be kicked out of the synagogue. So they said,

you know what, you go ask him. He's a big boy.

He can answer you. And so they come back to

him and they say to him, listen up, give God glory.

Just tell us the truth. We know this man is

a center and I noticed that we know he's a sinner.

They've already made their minds up about Jesus. Now, why

couldn't they just open up their eyes and see you?

They possibly this man has been said by God, and

possibly God is working through them, but they can't allow this.

They have to keep their eyes shut.

To this. Why, because if Jesus did this, then that

means that Jesus is now the authority, not them. Jesus

is now the one who has influence, not them. Jesus

is the culture changer, not them. He's the one who

will tell people right from wrong, not them. He's the

one who would lead to people, not them. And he's

the one who had power, not them. So they saw

all the things that they can lose if Jesus truly

did this, And so they try to discredit him, say

he's a sinner, he's not a man a god. And

I love this. What is the held man say whether

he's a sinner or not. I don't know. But one

thing I do though, and this is one of the

greatest lines in the whole Bible. I was blind, but

now I see. I love it. He's like, I don't

know if he's a sinner, but all I know is

this that I met him. I was blind. Now I

can see that's my story. And so he's like, I'm

not getting into a theological debate. Here's what happened to me.

So they demand again, you know, what did he do

to you? So that he's got a little bit of boldness,

and he says, I already told you and you didn't listen.

Do you want to hear it again? And then he

gets really sarcastic. Here he goes, do you want to

become his disciples? Do you want to know his trade secrets?

Do you want to do what he does? Do you

want to be little Jesus'? And man, that was enough.

They explode in anger and they said, you are this

fellaw's disciple. We are disciples of Moses. We know God

spoke to Moses, but that's for this fellow. We don't

even know where he comes from. And then there's this

undounted remarkable reply astonish, and he says, well, that's remarkable.

You don't even know where he came from, but he

opened my eyes. And then he says, if this man

were not from God, he would not be able to

do anything. In plain terms, He's like, how could Jesus

do this miracle of God was not with him? Now

this is simple logic. It was air tight, and he

religious leaders could not refute it at this point, so

pay attention. They completely lose it. And I remember at

the beginning the disciples had bad theology and they had

assumed that this man was in this situation because of

somebody's sin. And now you have the Pharisees, who know

the Bible through and through. They know about that verse

that says you should not no man is punished except

for his own sins. But then what do they say

to him? They know the truth. But now look who's lying.

The Pharisees say, you were born in utter sin, and

you're a lecture in us. And then this man who

just received back his whole life, now he has an

opportunity to get a job, come out of poverty, have

a home. They throw him out of the synagogue. And

now the man is not gonna have those connections. They said,

you were born in sin. Now here's the tragic irony

of this story. Okay, the man is born blind, but

he clearly sees more than all the religious experts. Those

who knew scripture backwards and force were too blind to

recognize God's work right from their eyes. Now, as we

pile on the Pharisees, and you guys, if you've been

around here for a while, you know I love to

trash the Pharisees. It's like a it's like a hobby

for me. I love kicking them while they're down. I

don't know what it is about Pharisees. I just don't

like them, Okay, But here's what I want is all

to understand. It's easy for us to miss God's work

when it doesn't show up in the ways we expected.

Many people miss Jesus as the Messiah because well, he

didn't fit the expected mold. You know, he didn't come

up royal robes and fan fairness. He was a carpenter's son.

He was a blue collar, he was a fisherman. He

hung out the outcast, and so they failed to recognize

God's son because he didn't come in the package that

they wanted him to come. But now Jesus wonders, well, well,

this man who just received sight, will he be able

to see who I am even though the religious leaders can't.

So he goes and he says, After the man was

thrown out, Jesus found them and asked, do you believe

in the son of Man? And he goes, well, who

is he? Sir? Tell me so that I may believe

in him. And Jesus said, well you have now seen him.

In fact, he is the one speaking with you. And

a that the man exclaimed, Lord, I believe, and then

he began to worship Jesus. In this moment, the man's

spiritual eyes were opened just as his physical eyes were.

And not only had he received a miracle from Jesus,

but now he has faith in Jesus. Now here we

have this big moment, this big conversion moment. And then

Jesus says this very unique thing to in our episode here,

and he says this for judgment. I have come into

this world so that the blind will see, and those

who see will become blind. All right, how do we

unpack this riddle? In other words, Jesus is warning us

it's actually possible for us to know God's word, to

be around God's truth, to be a part of the

religious activities and religious services, and we can still be

spiritually blind. Jesus wants people to see that spiritual blindness

isn't about eyesight, It's about a heart. The right heart

will see God's truth and then you're going to adjust

your life to it. You see truth, and you adjust

the heart and heart, the religious heart, they're gonna become blind.

So here's a question I have as we close up today,

who and here has been in church for more than

five years. Raise your hand ten years twenty. All right,

so let's talk for a moment. I grew up in church,

and you know as well as I do. We can

learn how to come and enjoy discermon, enjoy Bible study,

enjoy fellowship. But also we've learned how to sit through

a message and clearly see something that we're supposed to

do to change our life, and then not do it.

We know how to bump off conviction. We have learned

how to justify so that we don't have to make

changes in our life. We know how to become spiritually

blind over time. And so what I want to do

is we close up. I want to look at three

signs of spiritual blindness. And as we look at this,

I want you to ask yourself some serious questions. Number one,

the first sign of spiritual blindness is there's no conviction

over sin. In other words, nothing will bother us about

our sin. And it's a sign that we're comfortable if

ignoring God's word. In other words, we've learned how to

play church. My dad was amazing at this. My dad

used to love going to church. He went to church,

you know, two three times a week and My dad

was one of those guys who who loved the amen

at the preachers. He loved the good sermon. He would

go Amen, Amen, am Bruscott, Hallelujah. And I would watch

my dad thoroughly. Those of you have no idea. So

sometimes when a preacher says something good, there's a response

other than just staring at them. Okay, But anyways, my

dad loved church, and then I will go home for

years and watch his behavior be the same. And when

I was very young, it was confusing. But by the

time I got about nine or ten years old old,

I started learning how to do that. Ah. So when

we're in this building or in these situations, we act

like this, but that has no impact on when we're

outside of this building, and that can happen. You can

come here Sunday after Sunday, especially those of you who

grew up in church. Read your hand if you actually

grew up in church. All right, we'll boo. Okay, that's

my testimony. We can quickly ignore the conviction of sin

in our life. We can do that. Number two, hearing

God's word without change. See, if God's word doesn't move

us to change, and we basically we're going to stay

in control of our lives instead of allowing God to

control life. And I'm not talking about sending here. I'm

talking about those prompts that God gives and says, why

don't you serve over here? Or why don't you give here?

Or why don't you help here? Or why don't you

make this in your family or in your career? And

what we do is we say, all right, God, I

know you want me to do this, but here's the thing.

I control my life. I can't let you control my

life because if I hand my life over to you,

I don't know what's gonna happen. But if I control it,

then I just somehow feel better about my life. And

we learned to do that, and over time we could

become spiritually blind. Number three selective obedience, and that's partial obedience.

In other words, we do a lot of the things

that the Bible teaches us to, but not all the things.

And this partial obedience allows us to feel faithful while

still not doing all everything that God's asked us to do.

You know, when I was beginning of my eighth grade year,

I was at a retreat with my youth group, and

me and my best buddy. We were talking and we

were like, yeah, we the youth group's surely given their

life to Christ. Maybe that's something we should do. And

now remember this is before, this is right, this is

the season before I walked away from Jesus. And we

were like, yeah, we'd like to follow Jesus. But we

start talking and said, but we both have girlfriends and

we like to fool around. And so we're like, you

know what, as kids who grew up in church, we

knew our way around the Bible. So we went back

to the Glossary of words and all that, and we're

looking for those key words thou shalt not do this,

Thou shalt not do that. Couldn't find them. Matter of fact,

it says something about fornication. We're like, we don't even

know what that is and that's not English. And we

go through and we're like cool. So basically, we can

fool around as much as we want as long as

we don't have sex. Our hearts were learning how to

have selective obedience. It's like the men in our church

who say, you know, I'm going to be faithful, I'm

want to do this in this but I'm going to

still keep that porn on my phone. Are the families

who who say, you know what, I know, God has

called us to give and to trust the Lord, but really, really, really,

you know, we're gonna maybe give this in this, but

we're not gonna fully trust her or or maybe it's

the person who God has been calling them to make

some significant changes. But then you just make a few changes,

just enough to satisfy yourself, and that becomes selective obedience.

And over time, that selective obedience, well, it causes an affection.

And this infection, this spiritual infection that takes place, leads

to spiritual blindness. And all of us this is something

that could have we have to protect ourselves from it.

We know it would fill a little bit off if

I preached on someone who is blind, but then they

could see without mentioning the most famous lyric in Christian Right,

you guys know what I'm talking about. I was once

what blind? But now I see. I love the story

about John Newton because John Newton he grew up around faith,

He had a lot of Christian friends. He grew up

really in a Christian society. But then he got into

the slave trade and he was involved in going to

islands and picking up slaves and selling them. It did

this very evil thing. But if you had asked John

Newton when he was young, and if you'd have said,

you know, this is pretty evil what you're doing, he

had been like, what's evil? This is what the world does.

This is a legitimate career. The government supports it, the

government actually backs it up with its military. This is

a good thing. This helps our country, This employees people,

and it never go It gave you a ton of

excuses for why the slave trade was okay. But then

one day, when he was on the ocean, he almost

died in this horrible storm, and he gave his life

to Christ, and his life began to change, his small increments,

and finally years later he's a pastor, and he even

goes on to mentor the person Willing Wilberforce, who actually

helped push through the abolishment of slave trade. But as

he was an older man and John Newton was looking

back over his life, he starts to think over the

evils of slave trade, and he thought to himself, how

could I have been so blind to this evil? Why

was I so blind for so long? So when he

penned those words for I was once blind, but now

I see. It wasn't a poetic turn of words. It

was his testimony. He was saying, oh gosh, thank you

Lord for being grateful because I was truly blind. But

now I see the evil. You know, my friends, those

of us who've been in church for a while, we

can allow these spiritual infections to creep up in our life,

and we could become complacent, and then we can become

spiritually blind. So here's what I want to do. I

want to spend some time in prayer this morning, and

here's one of the ways to prevent ourselves from this

spiritual infection. Let's throw up the prayer and what we're

gonna do for the next few moments, We're just simply

going to say this prayer, Jesus show me where I

might be blind and give me sign, and then we're

just simply going to take some time to go through

some of these Is there a sin that you've been justifying.

Is there a conviction that you've been ignoring in your life?

Is there a calling that you have been reframing so

you won't have to make the changes in your life?

Is there a truth that you're unwilling to accept from

God's word. So here's what we're gonna do for the

next couple of minutes. Band's gonna come out, and we're

just gonna take some time to pray. So let us

pray and follow these prompts. Pray where you're at.