The Struggle Is Readl

It's great to be all with all of you.

If you have a Bible, let's open up to Mark 8.

And I'm going to pray one more time.

Briefly.

Father, please speak this morning through your word.

And Lord, would you give all of us ears to hear and soft hearts to listen and receive?

We pray all of this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Think about this with me as you turn there.

The Bible tells us that in the beginning, when God had made everything, that everything was very good.

But people, Adam and Eve, chose to sin.

They chose to rebel.

And since then, everything in life has been touched by the consequence of that.

The consequence of that first sin, the fall.

And so all of us living on planet Earth today, in various ways, are experiencing the consequence of the fall.

I want you to just think for a second as we go to this passage.

Where do you right now in your life most feel the consequence of the fall?

Is it a sin struggle that you feel like you're doing your best to get rid of, but you don't seem to be making much, if any, progress?

Is it maybe sadness, sickness, suffering, separation from loved ones?

And maybe you say, you know, honestly, I know I'm not perfect, but right now life seems pretty great.

Don't want to mess it up.

But I got a loved one, and it seems like their life is falling apart, and I love them so much that I feel their pain.

Where is it in life that you are experiencing the consequences of the fall the most?

And how are we supposed to respond to such a situation?

Now we're going to look at a very brief passage today, and here's the context.

Jesus is just coming off of a conversation with some very hard-hearted, stubborn Pharisees, religious elite who basically intentionally refuse to listen to him.

They are stiff arming him, they're closing their eyes.

He's coming off of that conversation, but he's also coming off of a conversation with his twelve most devoted followers, who in one sense stick with them through thick and thin, and yet they are so sluggish and slow to believe and to understand that at times they don't seem that much different than the Pharisees.

And we'll pick up in Mark chapter 8, verse 22.

Mark 8:22

And they came to Bethsaeda, and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him.

And he took the blind man by the hand, and he led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, Do you see anything?

And he looked up and said, I see men, but they look like trees walking.

Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes, and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly, and he sent him to his home, saying, Do not even enter the village.

Now, as I briefly kind of explain this very short text, I want you to try as best as you can to put yourself in the shoes of this blind man.

Two thousand years ago, living in this small little village that was actually hometown to three of Jesus' disciples.

They've been there before.

Jesus comes to town, and this blind man obviously has some friends.

He has some people that care about him.

You're blind, you can't see anything.

So you have to be led places by people that you trust.

And they take him to Jesus.

There's no indication he's ever met Jesus before, but enough of his friends have heard about Jesus and his healing power.

They take this man to Jesus and they're pleading with Jesus.

They're begging him.

Jesus, we just touch our friend, please.

We know what you can do.

And Jesus takes the man by the hand.

Remember, you're the blind man, I'm the blind man in this passage, and he leads him away from his friends, away from the crowd.

I wonder if there was some fear and trepidation.

Remember, if you're blind, you can't see anything, you know who this guy is, and you're leaving your friends, and you're going outside of the village.

The village will at least been, I kind of understand, I know how to feel my way around.

He's leading me away from everything that's known, everything that's comfortable.

Could be a little bit terrifying.

And then Jesus spits into his eyes, and you're like, that's weird.

I wonder what it says in the Greek.

It says he spat in his eyes.

And you're like, well, maybe that was like normal back then.

I don't think so.

I mean, most of the time when you read about spitting in the Bible, it's the way we like when Jesus got spat on when they were mocking him and torturing him before they killed him.

It's weird.

It's another one of those stories, like, if you're making up a religion, you don't put this one in here.

It's just weird.

Why would you put it in there?

Except Peter was like, I was there and he spat in the guy's eyes.

And then he touches him.

And then he asks him, Can you see anything?

The guy opens his eyes, he looks up and he says, Well, yeah, kinda.

It's like he has a severe case of nearsightedness.

I can see the people over there in the village, but they don't look like people, they look like trees, but they're moving.

I know enough to know.

That's weird.

I mean, think about all the miracles, guys, that Jesus has done up to this point.

The woman just a few weeks ago, she's like, My daughter's at home, she's got a demon.

He's like, Go home, demon's gone.

He didn't touch, he didn't spit, he just said the word, demon's gone.

He raised a girl from the dead.

Get up, little girl, time to wake up.

She just wakes up.

This time, it takes him twice.

It doesn't work the first time, at least not all the way.

What in the world?

He touches him again, then he opens his eyes, he sees everything clearly.

And again, Jesus is trying to hide so he can train the 12th.

And part of what's going on here, guys, he doesn't want people worshiping him under false pretext.

They still don't really understand who he is.

So he says, Listen, just go straight home.

Don't go through the village, don't let people see, don't let anybody know about this.

Now, I've got three big points with some subpoints this week for us.

All right.

The first is this we all have spiritual blind spots.

We all are spiritually blind to a degree, no matter how long we've been a Christian, no matter how mature we are, no matter how much gray hair and experience we have, if you're on planet Earth, we still don't see everything clearly.

Paul says that in Corinthians.

Now, this is a passage about a literal physical blindness, but it's also a metaphor for our spiritual blindness.

If you live to be 120 years on planet Earth and you're the godliest person alive right before you die, you will still have spiritual blind spots.

You will not see everything clearly.

Are we humble enough to admit that?

Are we humble enough to admit I don't know everything?

Now, sin's consequences are often a lot worse than we expect.

And here's what I mean.

I think a lot of times, and I know this is true of myself, we think sin is like a little cut.

We know it's bad, we know it'll hurt, but we think, you know, it's gonna be like this little tiny cut.

I can kind of get away with it, it won't be that bad, it'll probably heal up the next day, not a big deal.

Whereas the way that the Bible presents sin and its consequences is more like a hand grenade going off next to you and the shrapnel rips through you, and it leaves scars that may never be fully healed in this life.

And it doesn't just hurt you, it hurts those around you.

And again, some of you say, Olin, I thought you were trying to preach this text.

This passage doesn't even talk about sin.

Yeah, but how'd the man get blind?

We don't know directly.

Was it his sin?

Was it somebody else's?

Was it just for the glory of God?

But what we do know is this the Bible makes clear every bit of sin, sickness, sadness, suffering, separation on planet Earth today is ultimately the result of Adam's one sin of the garden.

Guys, sin splatters, and its effects are often worse and more long-term than we really know.

It's never worth playing with.

Avoid it like the plague, literally.

Now, part of this that we're all have blind spots, we're all affected by our own sin, but also other people's sins around us.

We also need other people in our life who will bring us to Christ.

We need other people who will speak the truth in love to us.

I mean, why do we have local church membership?

Because you need brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in Christ who will keep pointing you back to Christ.

You can't do it on your own.

There's no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian.

We need community, we need other people.

I have a very good friend, and he's single and he's dating.

And to try to date in a godly way in today's culture is not easy.

I mean, it wasn't easy 25 years ago whenever I did it, but I'm glad I'm not back in that game right now.

But this guy's really trying to be obedient, so and he's called me and he's asking me for some advice on some things that you would call gray issues because the Bible doesn't speak to them directly.

But he's like, What is your opinion about this?

And I've given it to him, and he's like, Okay.

And then about two weeks later, he calls me back, like, are you sure?

Because to do what you said is really hard.

And he called me just a few nights ago to ask me that question again.

And he's and he said, you know, and while I was waiting on you to call me back, I got another pastor that's like a mentor, and I called him too and asked him.

I said, Great.

I said, What'd he tell you?

He said, Told me the exact same thing you told me.

I said, you know what?

That's almost the voice of God.

And I mean that, guys.

Listen, the main way that God speaks to his people is in the Bible.

But the second main way that God speaks to his people is not by some inner voice of the Holy Spirit, although I believe God can do that, it's through the body of Christ.

And if you have strong, mature believers that know you personally and they know the word of God and they know the situation, and they're telling you the same thing, that's almost like God booming out an audible voice to you.

And you better take it real serious.

We need one another.

We need the body of Christ.

This blind man needed people to bring him to Christ.

Let me tell you another story.

I have two good friends, they're brothers.

Older brother came to Christ in college.

I mean, he grew up in the church, they both thought they were Christians.

You know this type testimony, right?

And then they really hear the gospel, they really surrender to Christ as Lord.

Everything changes, and he realizes my brother's lost as a goat.

He's doing all the same sins I was doing.

So he goes home to tell his brother, you gotta repent, you gotta trust in Jesus and surrender just like I did.

And his brother's like, no, no, I'm already a Christian.

But he's like, I know you're not a Christian because you've been dating this girl forever, and she's not a Christian, and I know all the stuff you're doing because you've been bragging about it, and you're not it, you gotta repent.

And basically his younger brother said, Hey man, I'm in love with this girl, I'm gonna marry this girl.

Quit talking to me about this, or I'm gonna cut you off as my brother.

Now, the older brother was a new Christian, so he wasn't maybe the most nuanced guy in the world, but he's like, How can I set up about Jesus and salvation?

And that and his younger brother said, Fine, we're done.

They'd been best friends.

He's like, I'm done with you, not talking to you anymore.

Ruined the relationship for a while.

Then the younger brother got saved.

And he came back to his older brother and he was so thankful.

Thankful.

Thank you for persevering and telling me the hard truth that I didn't want to hear.

And he and the younger brother asked me, he's like, Man, how were you willing to keep saying the hard truth to me, even when I cut you off?

And I love this quote.

The older brother said, I loved you enough to lose you.

I loved you enough to lose you in the short run to gain you in the long run eternally.

So I got two questions for us.

Are you that kind of friend to other people?

I'm not saying there's not a time to be nuanced and cautious and careful, but when push comes a shove, will you speak the hard truth in love, even if it may hurt your relationship in the short run?

And maybe the more important question for a lot of us this morning is this Do you surround yourself with people like that?

Do you have friends that love you enough not just to be yes men, to say hard truth to you from God when you need to hear it, even if it's gonna ruffle your feathers?

I don't know about you, I want people like that in my life.

I had a friend who was an elder at Briarwood, this is a couple years ago, and you know, we'd get lunch every once in a while, and after a lunch one time he said, Hey man, I need to say something to you.

And he was stepping all over himself to be kind about it, right?

But he basically was rebuking me.

And he said, Man, I'm sorry, I know this is weird, I know it's awkward, maybe and he got done.

I said, You know what?

I was like, Pardon me, he just wants to give you a big bear hug and kiss you.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna do it.

I said, But one of the dangers of being in full-time ministry and being the pastor and being the leader is people starting to think you're doing great and they're not willing to say hard stuff to you.

Or they have hard stuff to say, but they're intimidated.

I'm like, thank you.

And I said, I don't even agree with everything you're saying, but there's enough truth in it, thank you, that you love me enough.

You understand what I'm saying?

Guys, cultivate friends like that in your life.

You need people like that.

We need the body of Christ.

All right, that was all point one, really.

Here's the second point.

Christ is able and willing to restore physical and spiritual sight.

Again, this thing keeps coming up from Mark.

Jesus is merciful and he's mighty, he has pity, he has power, he's willing and he's able.

Again, we're in this season in the gospel of art where he's trying to hide.

But Jesus is like this bleeding heart when he's like trying to hide, and somebody's like, I got a sick person's like, he can't help it.

He said, and this ought to encourage our socks off, guys.

Go to Jesus in prayer and beg him for yourself and for others.

He likes to help his people.

You know, there's this true story.

George Whitfield, great evangelist, you know, you're the founding of our country.

And when Whitfield would preach, he primarily talked about two things the gospel of Jesus Christ, but he also had an orphanage that he ran in Georgia that always had financial debts.

So he would also ask for money to help take care of this orphanage.

And he was such a powerful, convincing speaker.

Benjamin Franklin and him were good friends.

Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian, he loved to listen to him preach.

But every time Benjamin Franklin went, he ended up giving all his money to the orphanage.

And you know, you've heard of Benjamin Franklin, he liked to manage his money well.

Sometimes he would get ready to go hear George Whitfield preach, and he would take all his money out of his pockets.

Because, like, I know if I listen to him, I'm gonna give him the money and I don't want to.

But then what would happen sometimes is Benjamin Franklin would be there, and he went determined, I'm giving no money to Whitfield's orphanage today.

And Whitfield would start talking about the orphanage, and Benjamin Frank would start borrowing money from friends in the crowd.

He couldn't help it.

And guess that's a little bit of what we see of Jesus here.

It's like Jesus is like, 12 guys, we gotta go hide, we gotta have discipleship group.

There's you guys are so slow, and you know, he, I'm sure he said it in a loving way, not that smart.

You know, I'm trying to do like speed, remedial spirituality for you guys.

We got to hide away, and then somebody comes up and says, I need a miracle, Jesus, and it's like he can't say no.

It ought to encourage our hearts so much.

If you're hurting, if there's pain, if there's go to Jesus and pray.

Now, having said that, his methods are often strange and unexpected, are they not?

Imagine if you were suffering from a very physical, tangible problem this morning.

And maybe you had a best friend that was struggling with the same thing.

Or maybe it's depression or anxiety, I don't know, whatever it is.

But you heard about a doctor or a therapist, and you're like, this guy works wonders.

Go see.

So you take your best friend, you're like, hey, we're struggling with the same thing, we're gonna go see this doctor.

You actually get in with him, and the first thing the doctor says is, Well, first I'm gonna spit in your face.

I wonder how many of us would be like, never mind, not interested.

This man was desperate.

How desperate are you?

How hungry are you?

How willing are you to submit to whatever the Christ calls you to submit to?

And guys, here might be the most important point for all of us this morning that comes out.

His methods are often longer and more involved than we expect.

Why the two-part miracle?

Why not just heal?

He's God, he can do anything, right?

Yes.

This is part of the mystery, this is part of the paradox of the Bible.

Does the Bible present God as on a throne, all-powerful, able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants?

Ha! It absolutely does.

Nothing is too difficult for him.

But the Bible also presents the reality that we are in a real spiritual battle.

That there is real sin, real sickness, real sadness, real, and a real Satan behind much of it.

And it is a spiritual battle.

And Jesus has entered the battle with us.

I really started passionately walking with Christ when I was 15 years old.

That's 34 years ago.

And there were some sins that it was like on that day, gone.

I know I've quoted this before.

Pastor Eater Briarwood used to say, there are some sins that God will microwave out of your life, but there's only probably one or two, and the rest of them, it's the crock pot.

And I like the microwave version a lot longer, a lot better than the crock pot.

But there are other sins in my life that by God's grace have I made progress, yes, but I'm I'm still dealing with the same thing 34 years later.

And I'm a paid professional Christian.

And I hate that.

And I know in my life, and my guess is for lots of you, because I know I've had lots of friends, there have been people, there have been things that you have done.

You read some book, you went on some special retreat, you went to J.

H ranch, you did a fast, you stayed up all night and prayed, you got into a new account, whatever it was, and you're like, this is it.

I'm not saying those things don't help, but then you realize, you know what I'm still struggling with the same thing.

I had a buddy on Sappho Campus Outreach, he's in his 20s, and uh started dating a girl, and again, he was making some stupid decisions.

And as me and a friend went to talk to him about some of these stupid decisions, we said, Man, it really seems like you're idolizing this girl, idolizing marriage because of the stupid, you seem to have blind spots in the way you're acting to this girl.

And he's like, No, no, no, no.

I I repented of idolizing marriage and women in college.

I've already dealt with that.

And I was already married at this time.

I was like, hey man, I'm married and I I I hadn't fully repented of it.

I'm not crying, right?

But but do you see the immaturity of that answer?

I already dealt with that last decade.

I'm fine now.

I had another friend in his 30s, full-time ministry, and he was a workaholic for Jesus.

You know the type, right?

He didn't have a mistress, he had ministry.

But his wife felt just as neglected.

He's trying to talk to him about it.

Like, man, I think, listen, I'm all about working hard for the Lord, but I think you are misprioritizing ministry over you.

He's like, No, no, no.

I dealt with that in my 20s, I've already dealt with that.

If you're still on planet Earth, you're not out of the fight, guys.

We're all still dealing with something.

And part of spiritual maturity, part of wisdom is knowing it so you can be honest with other people and they can help you.

So let me give you an example, probably of not what not to do, but it's still, okay.

My wife and I were on date night, I don't know, this is when our kids were younger, so let's call it a decade ago.

And I said, Hey, Lena, uh, I want you to tell me what blind spots you see in my life.

Don't do that on date night.

Think of better time.

As a way to ruin date night, okay?

But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I asked.

And uh my wife is very godly, very wise, very discerning, and she thought for a minute, and she knew that I was stupid enough to actually want an answer.

And she said, You know, Olin, I don't think you have any like just blind spots in the sense that you totally don't see it.

She said, You know your issues.

And she said, You know your biggest issue right now in life is you get too impatient and angry with our children.

She said, But here's your blind spot.

You think your impatience and anger on a scale of one to ten is only a two.

That it's not really hurting your kids.

But it's really about an eight.

You don't take it seriously enough.

We all have.

Blind spots.

Even if you think you already know your blind spots, you don't fully know it.

Do you have the people in your life you're willing to ask and they love you enough to tell you the truth in love?

Third point.

We must trust Christ and His methods, though we don't like His methods.

What is it God is trying to say to you?

What is it God is trying to do in you, through you, with you, and how are you responding?

Do you really trust Him?

Listen, if you really trust Christ, you follow Him wherever He leads.

If you trust the doctor, you obey the doctor.

The proof is in the pudding.

It's at some level, it doesn't matter what you say about what you believe about Christ, it matters about how you respond.

Guys, and here's the thing, often in our blindness, we want to know the whole path, right?

Jesus, if I'm gonna be living on planet Earth for 40 more years, if you just go ahead and tell me the next 40 years, that'd be great.

Then I can trust you and I'll be happy to obey.

And usually he's like, hey, how about this?

I'll give you the next five minutes.

Trust me.

Take step one.

If we really trust Christ, we submit to whatever he does.

It's like you go to the doctor and you lay on the surgery table and you say, Have thine own way with me.

I trust you.

My friend I was talking about earlier, idolizing ministry.

I think he's 50 now.

Don't worry, he's in a different state.

Nobody in this room knows him.

Talked to him recently, and it's like I'm doing the exact same thing.

Neglecting my family.

And I said, he's a pastor now.

I said, have you told any of your elders?

No, I don't, I mean, that'd be embarrassing.

That'd be weird.

What if they make me take like a four-month sabbatical?

I don't want to do that.

I don't want to.

I get it.

I was like, are you being honest with anybody?

In the town you live in.

No.

Usually Jesus is like, hey, here's the way to repent of this.

Here's the way to move on.

Here's the way to grow.

And we're like, anybody else up there I can talk to?

Because I don't like that path.

We want to micromanage the solution.

Had another friend was helping.

He and his marriage doing bad.

Hey, you need to go see this counselor.

This is the counselor your wife wants to go see.

Go see the counselor.

He's like, I don't like that counselor.

Can I choose another counselor?

How desperate are you?

How hungry?

Don't try to push back.

Don't try to micromanage.

Don't try to manipulate.

Trust the Lord and his people and follow.

Now, here's the question in this passage.

This short little few verses that bugs me.

I don't know about you.

Why does Jesus make us wait?

Now this guy only had to wait a few seconds.

But what I'm wanting us to see and feel, and I hope you can sense this with me, is where most of us are living, is we're in between the first miracle and the second miracle.

Do you feel that in your own life?

That there are areas where you're like, man, God has definitely done a work of grace in me.

God has definitely opened my eyes to see things that I didn't used to see.

I'm definitely understanding stuff.

I'm definitely making forward progress.

But then in some other sense, it's like, things are still really blurry.

I still feel really weak.

I still feel really near.

Why have you left me in this halfway situation, Jesus?

I don't really know.

I don't know all the reasons.

Just think about a normal everyday life, guys.

I hate waiting.

I hate waiting.

I especially hate waiting when I don't know why I'm waiting and I don't know how long I'm waiting.

Right?

You go to a restaurant and they're like 15 minutes.

It's like, I don't like that, but it's like, okay, I can do it.

But I set a timer on my phone and by golly at 15 minutes, I'm back up at the Matri T's desk.

If I go to a restaurant and they're like, yeah, it's gonna be a wait, and we don't know how long, and we don't even know for sure you're gonna get in tonight.

Bah, I ain't doing that.

I don't care what's the greatest restaurant in the world.

But that's the way the Lord Jesus Christ treats us sometimes.

You gotta wait.

How long?

Trust me.

Why am I having what trust me?

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

Because the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

He's trying to build perseverance in us, he's trying to build character in us, he's trying to build godliness in us.

And it takes greater faith, it takes greater hope, it takes greater confidence when we don't know the end game.

We just know trust and obey.

Take the next step.

And everything in our flesh, guys, wants to scream out, that's not fair, I can't do this.

Why are you doing this to me?

If you can fix it right now.

Here's the great comfort that we have is that Jesus does not sit on a throne abstract and just say, suffer and deal with it.

He entered into the struggle with us.

He came and he lived a human life with us and for us.

And guys, think about part of the cross when he's on the cross hanging there, my God, my God, why?

Why are you doing this to me?

Even though rationally, logically, he knew all the answers, what he felt was what we often feel.

You can fix this right now, Father.

Why aren't you?

Why are you letting me hang here and suffer?

No indication he had an idea of how long it would last.

But he lived by faith, even as he was accomplishing the price for our sins.

And guys, he conquered.

He conquered death, he conquered hell, he conquered the grave, he conquered our sin, he's conquered all the consequences, and so if we are in Christ, we are more than conquerors too.

Which means that even our bad things, even our hard things, will work out for the good in the long run.

That's how great his victory is at the cross.

We're more than conquerors.

His spit can physically heal people, and his blood can eternally save people.

What a savior.

When I was a little kid, elementary school, I don't remember how long, but children's church, Sunday school, somewhere, I learned a little song, and it's still with me.

And I thought about singing it for you, but that y'all may never come back if I sang.

So but it's just stuck in my head, and as I was preparing this sermon, it just kept coming back around.

He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.

Took him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth, and Jupiter and Mars.

How loving and patient he must be.

Because he's still working on me.

Guys, I'm a mess.

You're a mess.

We all got stuff.

We might as well be honest about it.

But he who began a good work in you and in me will carry it on to completion to the day of Christ.

And he signed that in the blood of his son.

Guaranteed.

1 Peter 5.10.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To him be the dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, Son, Spirit, Triune God.

You are so perfect in pity and in power, in mercy and in might.

You are so wise.

We don't understand your ways.

We often don't like your ways.

We often struggle to trust your ways, but you're so good.

You're so wise.

Thank you for your promises.

Encourage our faith.

Lord, our faith is weak, it's limping, it's struggling.

Strengthen our faith.

Minister grace to us this morning through word and sacrament and through one another.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.