When God Breaks Through Your Blindness - John 9

Good morning. My name is Danielle.

I'm going to lead pastors here at Resurrection Church.

Welcome. If it's your first time joining

us, welcome. We're excited you chose today to

come and join us. We're in John 9 today.

Have you, have you ever had kind of an epiphany, like like just a

moment where all of a sudden you, you saw something with

maybe some incredible clarity, like like maybe things that you

thought about before, but just for some reason in that moment,

you, you kind of came to this shocking realization, almost

like like you came to this point of like, man, how come I've

never seen this this way before? Like, I don't know if you know

what I'm talking about. Like I, I've had a lot of those

moments in my life where all of a sudden I kind of saw something

went. How come I've never seen it this

this way before? About like a year ago.

And I, and I, I've forgotten to share this already a couple

times, but about a year ago, I came to this, this moment in my

life, like a moment of cold clarity where I realized that I

was an alcoholic. And, and I came to that

realization because I just, I, I realized that the definition of

alcoholism is one of the, the signs is that you don't have the

control over it that you think you have.

And I came to the realization of like, I don't think I control

this as much as it controls me at the end.

That moment. I, it's almost like I could see

the cost of holding on to that. I could see what it would cost

in ministry. I could see what it would cost

in my family. I could see what it would cost

in my personal health. Like I could actually, like, I

begin to realize that the freedom that I had in Christ to

enjoy drinks was actually hurting me.

Like all things are permissible, but not all things are

beneficial. Amen.

And so I could I begin to actually look at this and went,

you know, if I become casual about this struggle and I

dismiss it, there are going to be implications for this.

And so here's what I've learned in moments like that in my life.

And, and I think every one of us that is in Christ has moments

like this. And I don't want you to miss

this in moments like that. It's not me becoming smart.

It's not me suddenly having wisdom in moments like that.

That is the Holy Spirit breaking through distractions in my life

to grab hold of my attention. And my only job in that moment

is to respond in obedience. That's my job.

And so here's what I would tell you, Christians in the room.

If you're a Christian, we say that we want to hear from God,

but why would he talk to us when we make a consistent habit of

ignoring the things he says? Come on, I'm just, I'm just

asking like, I really want to hear from God.

He's speaking to you all the time and you made a practice of

ignoring it. I mean, the hard things, not the

easy things. Those I do all the time.

The hard things, the, the, the ones that require me to change

or die to my preference or die to myself.

And, and, and because he speaks through his scripture and I'm

really good at ignoring that when it requires me to change,

why would he speak to me in some other way?

We say we want to hear from God, but then we hear from him and we

start playing this game. Maybe you don't, but I start

playing this game where I decide like, well, maybe, maybe I

should, I should reason with myself whether or not like, I

should obey God, you know, like, well, I don't know if that's a

good idea. I don't know if God has thought

that all the way through. I know you don't.

Maybe you could relate to me. Maybe you know somebody like

this. Not you, but somebody else.

Look where I decide. You know, I'm probably smart

enough and wise enough to weigh whether or not the God of the

universe is right. Seems reasonable and I've got a

lot of excuses personally about why I don't think that that's

such a good idea, Lord. And so here's our big idea in

this sermon. If you leave with nothing else

today to leave with one idea, I want you to remember this one

idea and it's this My role is to respond when God rings.

My job. My role is to respond when God

rings. You're going to see that all

throughout our our scripture today.

We're going to be in John 9. And in fact, we're going to see

multiple examples in John 9 of both sides of this reaction.

So, so the positive side when, when God is supernaturally

communicating, prompting someone and they respond.

And then we're going to see the opposite where God is trying to

get someone's attention and they reject him.

And they're both in our story in John 9 today.

So we're continuing to steam. We we were in John 8 before

this. There's a whole theme about

light and dark in John 8. And we had this example in the

temple of these torches. And so actually we have some of

the same concepts and illustrations, except instead of

a torch, which was a couple weeks ago, we're actually going

to have a blind man as our this is a live illustration in John

nine of a blind man. Join with me to read God's word.

John Chapter 9 verse one says this talking about Jesus.

John 9 · chapter mention

As he Jesus passed by he saw a blind a man blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him Rabbi which means teacher who

sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind.

And 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.

So continuing from John 8, Jesus is walking somewhere in

Jerusalem and he stops. And more than likely he's kind

of considering staring at this blind man who's just standing

there. And his disciples see this.

And so the conversation starts with their commentary where they

say, who's sinned? Now, the reason they ask this is

that the Jews in the 1st century and, and from before that time,

they believed that disabilities were a result of sin, either the

sin of the person or generational sin.

And so they treated all disabled as such.

Very compassionate society. This man wasn't just blind in

that culture. He was an outcast.

He was invisible. He was kind of written off and

forgotten. And, and, and I mean, we're

being really honest, but we, we do a lot of this today, this

sort of like assignment of blame.

We see someone struggling with an addiction, with mental

health, with a difficult marriage, with financial

trouble. And our first thought is not,

how can I help? It's more of like, I wonder what

they did, but I do want you to see this because I do think it's

easy to miss this part. And that's this.

The man is not calling out to Jesus.

The the blind man is not searching for help.

He didn't, he didn't prompt the conversation at all.

He doesn't ask to be healed, doesn't do anything at all.

He's literally standing there. He's probably in need of money

or food. And then Jesus says this to his

disciples. He says, but it's not that the

man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be

displayed in him. And I read that.

I don't know if you read that the same way, but I read that I

went, wait, hold on. You're telling me that this man

was born blind, has lived decades in blindness as a social

outcast, as a pariah in this community, in loneliness, maybe

in poverty, certainly in shame, and all of that was allowed in

his life so that God in this one moment in John 9 could do a

miracle and everyone would see it?

Doesn't that make you a little uncomfortable?

Like, like, Dang, man, that's a little cruel, isn't it?

Like a little cold? Like, wait, the implication of

that is, are you telling me that, that, that medical

diagnosis that I got that, that, that cancer, that someone just

found out about the death of a loved one, the, the failed

relationship that, that pain that you went through, the

suffering that was allowed to happen in your life was for, for

what? On a whim?

Like I, I've had some, some really difficult moments in my

life, some loss. I've had two like really

significant surgeries, one on my torn Achilles, one on a torn

pectoral. Whereas like long gruelling

recoveries, like just stuck in a cast for 6-8 months and you get

into some really dark places where you start asking some

questions about like, why in the world did this happen to me?

And like there's a moment in this suffering, if you look at

it, where you you begin to go, maybe God is cruel.

But what if, what if it's not cruel?

If, OK, if you're here, you're visiting, maybe maybe

Christianity is something new to you or foreign to you and you're

just kind of checking it out. The story of the Bible is that

life wasn't always this way. Humanity was not always in the

midst of suffering. That actually the way God

designed it originally in the garden, humans weren't

suffering. There was no death and pain for

humanity. But we rebelled against God and

now we live in a world that is cursed by sin and death.

We were not designed for this so so so God did not bring this

evil or this suffering in. We did What?

What if though, as I try to understand suffering and and

pain in my own life, what if? What if God allowed those

moments in my life not to punish me, Not because I sinned, just

like in this story? What what if I was allowed to go

through those things so that I would be prepared to connect

with others when they're hurting?

What if God allowed me to go through those things so that God

could prove his goodness in the midst of my suffering?

Here's one of the maybe the hardest things that that we

learn about about who God is and who we are here.

Here's the thing. The moment, the moment I stopped

making my life about me, I start to see God everywhere.

Let me make it simpler. It's not about me.

Say it with me. It's not about me.

Now, Church, that's either the most terrifying truth you're

going to hear today or the most liberating, because if it's not

about me, then I don't have to carry around the way to the

world. And I can stop assuming that

every difficult circumstance, every pain, every suffering is

pointless unless you know, I agree with it or I can

understand it. In the moment that that starts

to sink in, you are on the path to learning humility.

Now God is about to, in this story, take this, this blindness

that this man has been born into and lived through, and he's

going to turn it into something more powerful and more beautiful

than you would actually imagine. Look at verse 6.

It says this. Having said these things, Jesus

spit on the ground, yes, that's weird and made mud with the

saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes

with the mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam,

which means scent. So he went and washed and came

back seeing. OK, just catch a couple things

here. Again, the blind man is standing

there and has not asked for help.

And I just want you to put your yourself in the in the, in the

shoes of this guy, right? He's standing there, Jesus spits

on the ground, makes some mud and sticks it in the guy's eyes.

We can all admit that's weird, right?

Please don't do that to me. Guy didn't ask for help.

Guy didn't ask for healing. Guy is not seeking Jesus.

And then second thing, Jesus doesn't say, OK, you're healed.

Then he's like, oh, you got mud in your eye, better go wash it

off. And tells him to go all the way

across town. It's about 1/2 mile.

He's blind and they don't have Uber.

Better go wash it off across town.

That's what he's telling him in the Bible.

If you, if you study like all the miracles that Jesus does,

all the times he heals someone, there's a bunch of times where

he literally looks at someone and goes you're healed and

they're healed or he touches someone and they're healed.

But he doesn't do that here. I mean, he doesn't need to make

mud with his spit. He doesn't even need to touch

the man. He doesn't need to send the man

to a pool. Like none of those things are

necessary. He heals people all the time

with all those things. Why did he do all of that weird

stuff? OK, I want you to see a couple

things, OK? One, I do want you to realize

like, and I think it's really important implication to

understand that, that that the man is not not only not

searching for Jesus, he doesn't realize that Jesus is the

answer. And listen, there's a lot of

stories in the Bible where where the person comes to Jesus to be

healed. We see that over and over again.

But what I want you to see here is Jesus seeks this man out to

heal him. There are some of you sitting in

the room today or, or watching this online and Jesus is seeking

you out right now to save you. And you don't know that he's the

answer and you're not seeking him and you don't care about

him. And, and maybe you actually like

think that all this faith stuff is ignorant or stupid.

And I'm telling you that even in your blindness, Jesus is seeking

to save you. And the second thing I want you

to understand is that Jesus always takes the initiative to

save us. Some of us think that in this

moment where we realize that the God is speaking to us, there was

something that we did. But I need you to understand

that God was always at power and at work before you ever realized

anything. My role is to respond when God

rings. Now, the whole mud thing is it's

a little gross. I mean, you just imagine you're

standing there blind, destitute, probably hungry, and this guy

walks up and they're kind of the disciples are kind of like, oh,

look at this Sinner guy who sinned, right?

And Jesus is like, cool, I'll take care of it.

And then smashes his spit mud in your eyes.

Really, bro? And then he's like, now go

across town and wash it out. But but here, here's what I do

want you to see. And you're going to see in the

text here both those things, the making of mud pies and the

washing were considered work by Judaic law, and it was the

Sabbath. So Jesus not only breaks Judaic

law, he makes the man break Judaic law so that he can set up

the next interaction. That's how we know how

intentional this was and you'll see it in just a minute.

The third thing, I want you to see this.

Jesus could have healed him. Even at the point he put mud on

his eyes, He could have healed him.

He could have taken the mud off. He could have seen.

He didn't. He required the man to respond

in faith until that man walked all the way across town, 600

meters through Jerusalem, blind and washed off that mud.

He was still blind. And I want you to catch that

because often times, often times man, God is doing something

powerful in your life, but he requires you to respond in

obedience before you're going to really see it fully.

In fact, often times you're not even going to you recognize that

God is at work in your life in power until you do that.

You're not going to receive the, the blessing or even understand

the move of God in your life until you respond in obedience.

Often there's an act of obedience that is necessary to

fully realize God's Providence. You couldn't start it.

You didn't want it. You didn't know what was going

on. Jesus was doing it.

God was at work. But you are required to take a

step forward in obedience in order to realize the power of

God working in your life with a blessing of God in your life.

And it's listen, as long as you stand there with mud on your

eyes doing nothing, debating over whether or not obedience to

God is worth it, you won't receive it.

You won't experience it. And I want to encourage you.

Some of us, some of us in here, are going through a really,

really tough season in our life right now.

Amen. And yet God is at work trying to

convict you or encourage you or move you or prompt you or

motivate you. And man, some of us are standing

right now with our hands in our pocket and mud on our eyes,

wondering whether or not God's going to move.

In my life right now, God is at work and has been at work for

some time, convicting me and moving me towards some some

tough decisions in ministry, some some discernment stuff

about where He's leading our church and where He's leading

me, and some stuff that I frankly been trying to ignore

for a while. But I see His hand even in the

really hard stuff, and I'm trying to be obedient so that I

can see where He's leading me. And what you and I have to do in

these moments is we have to take the hard step of obedience.

It was not easy for that blind man to stumble his way all the

way through Jerusalem to get to that pool, but he did it anyway.

And for some of you, there are some hard steps ahead in

obedience to Christ. But if you want to receive what

God has for you, if you, if you want to see what he's doing in

her life, if you want to put your arms around a move of God

in your life, you're going to need to respond.

The result of this story in John 9 is supernatural science has no

recorded cases of someone being born blind and receiving their

sight 20-30 years later. And, and the result of this, if

you read the story, is noticed by the whole community.

And so people start to celebrate this until a couple days later,

the Pharisees who are like the religious rulers of the day,

they hear about this and they get all up in arms in verse 14,

because now it was a Sabbath day that Jesus made the mud and open

the eyes. Uh oh, you done messed up.

A a Ron, you did a miracle on the Sabbath.

How dare you? I can just see the head bobbing

right now, right? A miracle of supernatural

healing, and the Pharisees hear about it, and they're ticked off

that a rule got broken on the Sabbath.

Think about this, God does this miracle to get the attention of

the people, not only to to see that he's at work, but to see

that Jesus is offering salvation and they're stuck on religious

rules, missing God at work. God wants them to see Jesus and

all they can see is it couldn't be God because like these men

broke a rule, therefore they couldn't have earned this

miracle. That's what they're thinking,

but they couldn't have earned this miracle.

Listen like it's easy to look at them and look down our nose and

go so dumb. But but but you and I do that.

We look at a Co worker, a relative, a neighbor, another

church that gets blessed where God's doing something miraculous

and instead of giving glory to God and letting it build up our

faith, we start to question we're like that person.

No, but they do they do they really deserve that?

Can it, can it be real for if it's them, if it's so and so

like the, the act, the very miracle that was intended to

help them see Jesus has led to them just judging others in self

righteousness. And, and So what happens in our

text is that the, the, the, the Pharisees, they interview him

and they don't like the answers. So they call his parents and

they don't like their answers. So they call him back for like a

second interrogation and they're just, they're pressing on him.

And here's the crazy thing in the story.

He was blind when he left to go to the pool.

So he's never even seen Jesus. He's never seen Jesus, but

they're asking him all these questions about Jesus and he

keeps going. He's like, you knew I was blind,

right? Like they're pressing him.

And so he's just kind of making up answers.

Like sometimes we do that too. People ask us hard theological

questions. We're like.

And so he's like, what? I think he's a prophet.

And then in verse 25, he's kind of confused and they're still

asking him all these tough questions and he answers this.

This is one of the best answers in all of scripture.

In verse 25, they're they're on him and he goes, whether he's a

Sinner, I do not know. One thing I know though, I was

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

and now I see you realize I was the inspiration for probably the

most well known hymn in the history of the world, right from

John 9. Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like me.

I once was lost but now I'm found.

Was blind. But now I see that's my story,

that's what happened to me. You don't have to know anything

more to have a testimony worth sharing.

Listen, studying and preparing to share your faith is

wonderful. You should do that.

But you should never miss an opportunity to tell people how

Jesus changed you. This guy isn't qualified.

He was an outcast of society, but when God moved, he responded

in faith. And now not only does he have

his sight restored, God is beginning to save his soul.

In verses 30 through 33, he defends Jesus passionately, and

he's still never seen Jesus with his own eyes.

And he finishes his defense with this line.

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

Oh, boy's preaching so, so, so, so God has now filled this man.

He's, he's given him the words in the moment.

He's standing in front of the most powerful religious rulers

of their time who hold in balance, casting him out of the

the temple, meaning they decide whether he gets excluded from

all of this community or not. And he's standing there in that

moment in front of all of them, emboldened because the Holy

Spirit has given him these words and he is pressing back against

persecution of Christ. Christian, listen to me.

You have the spirit of the living God inside of you.

You are a minister of the gospel.

You are a royal priesthood, A chosen nation.

You are an evangelist. You are a walking testimony of

the goodness and power of God. And he only left you here on

earth and didn't immediately take you to heaven when you were

saved so that you could spread the good news to a dark and

fallen world. Somebody say Amen, you are

called and, and, and think about who he picked in this story.

He picks up a man who's been born in the blindness and lived

as a social outcast his whole life, and then prepares him

through that suffering not only to receive the gospel, but to

become the story of the power of God.

Because God equips those he calls.

If you know God, it's because he saved you, not that you and I

did anything. And the fact of the Bible is

that he often chooses those who have nothing to brag about.

Amen. In first Corinthians one, the

Bible says it this way. God chose what is weak in the

world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and

despised in the world. Dirtbag like me, if for one

second you feel unworthy of the love that Jesus has given you,

of the calling that He has put on your life, just remember

this. He chose you before the

foundations of the world, and He loves choosing the worst of us

to display His power and His glory to the world through us.

So don't you hang your head, don't you shy away from the

call, or run from the mission, or miss the position that He has

put you in. You step into obedience to tell

them about your Jesus. And you don't have to know

anything more than that. We sing this song all the time.

Sing this with me. He makes a way where there ain't

no way. Rises up from an empty grave.

Ain't no Sinner that he can't save.

Let me tell you about my Jesus. His love is strong and His grace

is free. And the good news is, I know

that He can do for you what he's done for me.

Let me tell you about my Jesus and let my Jesus change your

life. That's all you got to know.

That's all you have to know. If you will pay attention to the

Holy Spirit in your life, you're going to find opportunity after

opportunity to share Christ with others.

Don't miss these opportunities. God is at work and He will

prompt you when when you recognize God is at work, that

is an invitation to join him in his work.

My role is to respond when God rings.

Verse 35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out.

Now that doesn't mean that they were just they cast him out

meaning like, oh, we're done with you.

That means he got cast out of community for standing up for

Christ and having found him. He said, do you believe in the

Son of man? That is the the title Jesus used

for himself a bunch in the in the New Testament.

And the blind man answered, and who is he, Sir, that I'm able he

still hasn't seen Jesus that I might believe in him.

And Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who is

speaking to you. And he said, Lord, I believe,

and he worshipped him. Don't, don't miss the, the, the

progression of faith. It's the first time the man has

even seen Jesus with his own eyes.

He, he was not seeking Jesus when this story started.

And then he's like, well, maybe he's a prophet.

And then part way through the story, he goes, I don't know if

he's a Sinner or if he isn't a Sinner.

And then he gets the conviction continues to build and he's

like, listen, he must be from God.

And we end the story with I believe and he is worshipping

Jesus. And that all happened not

because he did anything to start it, but because he responded to

Christ and he could have missed it.

Like I'll just think about what he could have missed in that

moment with mud on his face, all the excuses he could have come

up with. Like, I don't know who this dude

is. In fact, if this guy is from

God, that's the God that allowed me to be born in the blindness.

So he could have sat there in bitterness.

He could have thought about, man, do you know how hard it's

going to get to go all the way across down to that pool?

Why would I do that? There will always be excuses and

reasons not to respond to the call of Christ in your life.

And oftentimes, oftentimes the greatest of those is our own

self-sufficiency, like our own desire to trust in our own

wisdom, our own intellect, and it causes us to miss Jesus.

In fact, we actually have a need to be low.

Oftentimes, especially as you read these stories in the Bible.

It is only those that are low that are even able to see Jesus

at work in their lives. Charles Spurgeon said it this

way. It is not our littleness that

hinders Christ, but our bigness. It is not our weakness that

hinders Christ, it is our strength.

It is not our darkness that hinders Christ, it is our

supposed light that holds back His hand.

We think too much of ourselves and we miss Christ in the

process. His story finishes up last three

verses, 39 through 41. And essentially here's what

Jesus is going to say. He's going to tell people that

he came into this world so that those who did not see would be

able to see. And the Pharisees are going to

hear this and they're going to go, wait a minute, are you

saying we're blind? And then Jesus in verse 41 is

going to respond to them. And I'm going to paraphrase it,

but he says this. He says essentially how you

respond when Jesus shows up will become your judgement.

That's what verse 41 really means.

And the Bible will reinforce this concept over and over again

that that that it is going to be some point in your life where

you're going to be confronted with the truth of Christ.

And in that moment, your response will become your

judgement. Let me take it even further than

just that. I would tell you this.

If you're a Christian, that actually is going to happen over

and over and over again. If you've given your life to

Christ, you're going to be confronted with Jesus calling

you into acts of obedience. And in those moments where you

have to decide whether or not to obey or to argue, whether or not

to obey or to have an excuse, whether or not to obey or to

delay, there's going to be a moment when we stand before

Christ. And we're going to answer for

all of those interactions too. Because it's a daily thing,

Christian. Sometimes it's an hourly thing.

It's not one time in your life you responded to Jesus.

Do you want to hear from God? Do you want to, do you want to

see him move miraculously in your life?

You want to experience love and satisfaction and contentment in

your life? Do you want to be healed of an

addiction or an overwhelming temptation?

Do you want to experience real joy in your life?

Then I would ask you this, what is God calling you to do right

now? And go do it with no delay.

We get caught up in the middle of it all the time.

God's prompting us, calling us, convicting us, encouraging us,

and we're like, let me pray about it.

That is the Christian version of I don't want to think about that

right now. Let me give 5, just 5 little

practical things in that moment. I just want you to consider

these things. These are like life application.

OK? Here's #1 when we have known sin

in our life that we won't deal with, we stop growing.

See, some of us right now in the room or online know exactly what

we're supposed to be doing. And we've been wrestling with it

for I don't even know how long. And let me just tell you this,

Repent, confess it to somebody and get accountability in your

life. You've been hiding for way too

long and you've been wondering why God's silent.

He's not. You're just good at ignoring

him. Get accountability.

Get into a group, find a person, tell your spouse.

Come up front during prayer time.

Make it happen #2 the longer we refuse to repent, the harder it

gets to hear the Holy Spirit. God's not silent.

We have dull ears. Listen, it's super hard to hear

from God when you're doing this. When God is calling you to

something and you can make a habit out of refusing.

I'm not sure how you think you're going to hear or be

sensitive to the Holy Spirit. You're practicing being

insensitive to the Holy Spirit. I've gotten really good at being

insensitive to the Holy Spirit and then being mad at God for

not talking #3 If you know what to do and refuse to do it, the

Bible calls that sin. Let me say that again.

If you know what to do and refuse to do it, the Bible calls

that sin. Man, some of y'all in here, you

know you have a call in your life like God has been working

in your life and moving in your life and he's been calling you

into something, into a ministry to serve, to give, to change

something to take hold of something to.

I mean, you know that and you've been wrestling over it.

And I'm just telling you stop running.

Find someone else to tell about it.

Make a plan on how to actually do it.

Listen, the whole point of gathering together to encourage

one another is to stir one another up.

So stop internalizing that and talk to somebody about it and

go, I need help to do the thing that's calling me to do.

We love doing that. You'll find that the people in

the church love helping you do the thing that God's calling you

to do #4 when God calls you to do something, stop making

excuses. It's for your benefit.

The greatest enemy to American Christianity is comfort.

Y'all we way too comfortable. You can have courage or you can

have comfort, but you can't have both.

You got to choose. And I'm just going to tell you

this, y'all jump in the water is fine #5 If you have no idea if

God is calling you, create time and space for him to speak and

then ask him. We live in the noisiest time in

human history. We have the shortest attention

spans in human history. Turn off your TV, turn off your

phone, open your Bible and ask him.

It's a revolutionary concept. This song that came out a couple

weeks ago from Josiah Queen. I, I love the chorus.

It goes like this. We got dust on our bibles, brand

new iPhones. No wonder why we feel this way.

We walk with our eyes closed blind leading blind folks and

I'm done with those idols and dusty bibles.

There are two groups of people sitting in this room or or or

watching today. The 1st is a group.

First group of of you is those who do not know Christ as your

Lord and personal Savior. You don't actually know him.

You know of him, you know about him, your grandma knows him, but

you don't know him. You've never made a decision to

respond to the call of God in your life.

And I just want you to consider what the Bible is saying here in

John nine, that that your judgement is actually based on

how you respond. The Bible says at some point in

your life you're going to hear the call from the God, you're

going to, you're going to be confronted with the gospel.

Guess what? Today is that day.

How will you respond? The Bible says that we are all

born in sin apart from relationship with God, and that

nothing we can do on our own will repair that relationship.

So God sent his only Son to live a perfect life that we could

never live, to die the death that we deserved, to die, and to

rise again three days later in victory.

And it through him we could have a restored relationship to the

Father. But you ought to lay down your

life to call him Lord of it. And for some of you, you've

known Jesus, but man, you have been wrestling with an act of

obedience in your life and you've not wanted to give that

over to the Lord. It is the same surrender now

that started this whole salvation process.

You have to lay your life down. Yes, even that thing you're

holding on to. So I want to give both of the

groups in this room an opportunity to respond to this

today. If you don't know Jesus, this is

your opportunity. The Bible says that you must

place your faith in him. In Romans 10/9 to 10.

It says this because if you confess with your mouth that

Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised

him from the dead, you will be saved.

Because with the heart 1 believes and is justified, and

with the mouth 1 confesses and is saved.

So I want to give you the opportunity to respond.

Would you please all bow your heads and close your eyes for

just a moment? We're wrapping up, but if you're

willing to ask Him for forgiveness and salvation with

every eye closed, with every head bowed, just quietly or or

silently repeat this prayer after me.

Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I can't save myself.

I want you to save me, so I surrender everything to you and

I receive your promise of forgiveness, of adoption, and of

eternal life. Be my Lord, Please Jesus, if you

prayed that prayer for the very first time right now, would you

be brave and raise your hand for me to see?

Thank you. You put your hands down in Jesus

name, Amen real quick. Whether you raised your hand or

not, if you just responded to the call of God in your life for

the very first time, welcome to the family.

In just a moment as we respond to this message, there are

tables in the back and say I raised my hand.

You just gave your life to Jesus.

We want to, we want to meet you. I want you to go back there in a

minute. We have a gift for you.

We want to talk to you and pray with you.

For those of you that already know the Lord and you've been

wrestling with that thing that God is calling you into, I want

to encourage you that you will never regret responding to

Christ. Imagine that blind man missing

out not only on sight, but on being saved because he failed to

respond. For many of us, there's healing,

there's contentment, there's satisfaction, there's

transformation. Waiting for us today to respond

to Christ's conviction and prompting in our lives.

So don't put it off. Our job is to respond when God

rings. A per team is going to be up

here. We would love to pray with you

about anything. We love praying for you.

It's not weird to get prayed for.

It's weird to go to church and not get prayed for.

Just saying, will you stand? We're going to sing you move as

the Lord leads you. We love you.