The Man Born Blind — John 9:1-41 (06.28.2026)

Go ahead and be opening in your Bibles to John chapter nine.

If you're not there yet, love for you to follow along as we work our way through this passage.

If you don't have a Bible, that's okay. It is in your bulletin.

You should have gotten a printout with the scripture on it. And I'm gonna pray

for us just one more time before we jump in.

Lord, I do thank you so much for the privilege that it is to open your word

and to learn from your word.

God, I do pray that right now, even in these next 35, 40 minutes that you would open eyes.

Open our eyes, Lord, to see you more clearly that we may be free. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so we have been in a theme in the Gospel of John on light,

and you may have heard it in verse 5.

Jesus again makes this statement that he made earlier in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

That he says, I am the light of the world.

And so that's the theme that we're in right now. We are looking at a sign miracle that Jesus does.

And so there are several sign miracles throughout the Gospel of John.

And these sign miracles are more than just a display of power.

They actually point to something deeper, a deeper truth, something more than just the miracle.

And for example, we looked at the sign miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000,

and we saw that was pointing us to something more than just the fact that Jesus

had the ability to create food,

but that he also is showing us that he is satisfaction.

He's the only one who can satisfy our hungers, our deepest longings.

Well, now we're looking at this sign miracle of Jesus healing a man who's born blind.

And he's now demonstrating that he can cure us of our spiritual blindness.

So yes, Jesus is amazing because he can heal a physically blind person.

But the thing that he's showing through this, the thing that he's displaying

in that he is the light of the world and that he can open blind eyes is that

he can open spiritual eyes.

And the Bible says that every way of a man is right in his own eyes, Proverbs 21, 2.

And what that means is that we are not prone to be aware of our blindness.

We don't tend to be able to say, well, I know I have this blind spot and that

blind spot. We're not aware.

We think that every way is right in our own eyes, right?

And so a spiritually blind person is someone who cannot interpret reality correctly.

They can see the physical world. You know, a spiritually blind person can tell

you an apple is an apple, but they cannot see the deeper realities of sin and grace.

They can't discern between what is truly good and what is evil.

They can't see the real worth of a human being made in the image of God,

and they certainly can't see and appreciate the majesty and glory of God.

This is spiritual blindness. That's what we're talking about today.

And in John 9, we see this man who gains both physical sight and spiritual sight simultaneously.

And then we're also going to look at and see a lot of spiritual blindness in this passage.

We didn't read all 41 verses. it's a long passage. So let me give you a summary

of what happens throughout the whole passage, and you can follow in your Bible.

So I'm going to break it down into six scenes really quickly.

So scene one would be like verses one through seven.

And this is the scene where Jesus and the disciples come across this man born

blind and Jesus heals him. He makes mud.

This is what really irked the Pharisees. He's making mud. He's needing mud.

That was against their rules. And then he's putting it in the blind man's eyes,

telling him to go and wash.

He heals the man in verses one through seven. Scene two are the people versus,

this is verses like eight through 12.

These are the people who knew this man, who were close to him,

neighbors, friends, the people who knew about him.

They're all wrestling with what happened, right? They know that this guy's been

blind since birth and they can't figure out exactly what happened.

And they essentially turn, instead of Instead of going and looking for Jesus

until they find him, they turn on Jesus by taking this man to the Pharisees.

By this point, it is very well known that the Pharisees are very against Jesus

and want him, you know, done away with.

And so this is kind of a turning on Jesus.

Scene three is the first of two interrogations of this man that's been healed by the Pharisees.

And they just are gathering facts. They're confused, trying to figure out what's

happened, and they are not happy.

Scene four is the Pharisees then bring the parents. That's verses 18 through 23.

The Pharisees bring the parents of this man born blind just to make sure,

is this really what happened?

And they say, this really is our son, but we're not going to say anything good

or bad about Jesus because they know what the consequences are.

And John is, in telling us about this, is wanting us to also have that in mind,

like, oh, it's a really big deal to confess Jesus in front of the Pharisees. They wouldn't do it.

Scene five is where we picked back up in our reading, and it's verses 24 through

34, and that's the second interrogation of this man born blind.

And it's where, I mean, he gets really bold in his testimony.

And then scene six, they do cast him out. They excommunicate him from the synagogue.

And in scene six, Jesus goes and finds him and confirms, yep, I am him.

I am the Messiah and he worships.

So that's kind of the breakdown of this story. And at the end,

when he worships, I mean, that is true sight.

That's what Christ had been leading him toward all along.

And it also happens to be what he is leading each one of us toward as well,

that we would really see him.

Because when we really see him, that's how we respond. We respond with spontaneous, genuine worship.

So when I was a young man, I was a reckless, reckless driver.

When I was 16, I drove a 1990 Toyota Celica.

And I mean, this thing was sweet. It had the lights that flipped up.

And I mean, I loved doing that. I love turning on the lights and seeing those

things, you know, come up.

But the problem was that I would try and get it. There was a road,

paint road, straight away, back road. and I would see how fast I could get it,

between the beginning of Pate Road and the end of Pate Road.

The problem was if I tried to do it at night with my lights up,

the car would start to shake.

So I would turn the lights off in the pitch black dark, turn the lights off

because I had to get more aerodynamic.

And that is just one example of the brilliant things that I did as a young driver.

And I knew, I knew that, I knew that you could die in a car wreck.

I knew that it was incredibly, you know, dangerous thing.

I had the information, in other words, right? Now, if you fast forward to my

later 20s, I always wore my seatbelt. I did not drive like a maniac.

And so what happened, other than the fact that my brain finished developing?

In that span of time, I had experiences. I knew a guy who died in a car wreck.

I became a firefighter and an EMT.

I cut people out of mangled cars, bandaged bloody heads from people that didn't wear their seatbelts.

So I had these experiences that when I sat in a car, it was like,

this thing is dangerous.

Now, same information. I didn't take a new class. You know, I didn't go to driver's

ed between that time and this time.

Same information, but that information became compelling to me.

So in that sense, even though I had the information when I was 16,

17, 18, I was still blind.

You know, I couldn't really see it.

I couldn't see it in such a way that I would act upon it.

And that's sort of how this works, the spiritual blindness.

It's not just that you gain new information that you've never had.

It's that the information becomes so compelling, you cannot help but act upon it.

You cannot help but transform the way that you relate to that truth.

And that's what Jesus does here. That's what he does for this man.

That's what he has done for any one of us who have come to believe in him and

trust him and follow him.

Before we dive into exactly what all happens in this man who was born blind

in his life, we're going to look at a couple of the other characters.

So point number one, we want to look at the disciples.

And I want us to see that even as believers who the Lord has done that for us,

He has opened our eyes. He has become compelling to us such that we have turned

from our sin and put our trust in Jesus Christ, that we are still seeing more and more of reality.

So at this point, by John chapter 9, the disciples, except for Judas,

John 9 · chapter mention

they have been given spiritual sight.

In chapter 6, Peter has made this confession. Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know

that you are the holy one of God.

You don't get there unless God has given you spiritual sight.

These disciples have believed, so they have been granted spiritual sight.

And yet here at the beginning of this story, we get a glimpse of how messed

up and confused their worldview is in verse two.

The disciples asked Jesus, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind?

That question is very revealing. It's very revealing.

It shows that the paradigm that they're working from is that if a person is

worse off than me, they must have done things that are worse than I have done.

And of course, what's implied in that is I've done better.

I am more righteous than this person who's suffering more than I am suffering.

And I mean, no doubt, many people have that same worldview today.

And maybe you have some of that worldview.

Like I have succeeded because of how well I have done because I made good choices.

I have what I have because I worked hard. And no doubt the Bible teaches,

I mean, all of Proverbs teach, there are consequences to sin.

There are blessings in obedience and wisdom does produce a better outcome in our lives.

But the point that Jesus is making here is that.

Every bit of suffering in a person's life isn't necessarily connected back to

some sin that they committed.

We are all going to go through suffering of various kinds that are not tied

to our direct choices and decisions, not necessarily.

That's what Jesus says here.

He says it was not that this man sinned or his parents.

Of course, he isn't saying, they're both sinless. He's just saying,

no, that's not the reason he's born blind. He says, this has been done that

the works of God might be displayed in him.

And so Jesus, as the light of the world, is continuing to shine light into his

disciples' understanding of the world, even though they've had their eyes open to who he is.

They are no longer completely blind to spiritual realities, to sin and to grace,

but they still have blind spots, right?

There's another story about a man that Jesus heals who was blind.

And you may be familiar with it. At first, Jesus asked him, what do you see?

He says, I see people, but they look like trees walking around.

And Jesus has to, he touches him again and he heals him completely.

And then he can see clearly.

And it's a picture of what happens in our lives. Like at the beginning of our

walk with Christ, we can see there are things that we see, but we need our vision

cleared. This happened for me yesterday.

I was having my quiet time in 1 John And I read where John writes,

like, do not love the world or the things of the world.

The one who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

It's not that I've never read that verse before, but I went on this,

it just jumped off the page at me.

And I went on this little journey of digging into the concept of worldliness,

looking at in 2 Timothy, Demas, who deserts Paul because he fell in love with the world.

And I was thinking, man. And, you know, over the course of an hour or so, my eyes were opened.

I saw worldliness in my life.

You know, I came under conviction. I had a conversation afterwards with Tiffany about it. Right?

What happened? It's not that I have no sight. I believe that Jesus is the son of God.

I trust him, but I have blind spots.

And so he shines light as I'm reading his word. He shines light on a spot that I was blind to.

And I see, and now I can make adjustments because I'm seeing something,

another area of my life more clearly.

This is what the Lord's doing for the disciples here. It's what he's doing for all of us.

He prays in the garden in John 17, Father, sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth.

And just last week, we're reading that the truth sets us free, right?

And Jesus says, he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

He sets us free by shining the

light by shining truth into our areas of blindness. And we all have them.

We all have them, but we need to recognize that we have them.

Paul's praying for this regularly. When you look at Paul's letters,

he's praying for this in the churches.

He says in Colossians 1, 9 and 10, he's praying that they would be filled with

the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, right?

That they would bear fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge

of God. That's as we increase in knowledge and understanding as the light is

being shown in our lives, we bear more fruit.

It's the process of sanctification.

And so we see this happening with the disciples. And we're also gonna see this

happening even in just this, it seems it's all happening in one day with this blind man.

Like he first is gonna call Jesus the man, A man called Jesus.

And then a little bit later, he's going to call him a prophet.

He's a prophet. And by the end, he's falling down saying, Lord.

It's a progression of seeing more and more clearly.

You need the Lord to do this for you as well, right?

We all need the Lord to do this, to illuminate areas of our thinking that are still in darkness.

We need to grow in seeing and appreciating and loving the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

We still need him to open our eyes to show us selfishness in our marriage.

We need him to open our eyes to show us the wrong ways we're thinking about and trusting in money.

We need to open our eyes to show us the way that our bad attitude is poisoning our witness at work.

Or we need to have better vision about what it looks like to be a godly husband

or a godly wife, a godly son or a godly daughter.

We need better vision for how to work in our vocation in a way that honors the Lord.

We need better vision to see our way out of an enslaving sin.

All of us, this is what Christ does for us and you need him to do for you to give you greater sight.

Now, let's look and see what we can learn from some of the other characters

in this story. Point number two, let's look at the neighbors,

the parents, and the Pharisees and see that lostness is complete blindness.

First, let's look at the neighbors and the parents, and we'll see that they're both operating blind.

And we see this specifically in the fact that they are still controlled by a

fear of man, and therefore, they cannot trust and follow Jesus.

In John 5, verse 44, Jesus said this to the religious rulers, how can you believe,

John 5:44

when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

In other words, trying to find your approval from people is incompatible with faith in Jesus.

Those two things, they can't coexist.

And the neighbors, they're asking questions of this man, but they are not really

interested in getting to what happened.

What they're really interested in is getting this man turned into the Pharisees

so that they don't get in trouble for having any association with Jesus.

Because as I said, it's well known at this point that Jesus is being sought,

by the religious rulers.

Then we see the healed man's parents. They're summoned to testify before the

Pharisees, and they're willing to admit that, yeah, this is our son,

and yes, he was born blind, but they're not willing to confess Jesus.

They're not willing to say anything about Jesus. And John gives us this little,

you know, parenthetical note in verse 22, they said these things because they feared the Jews.

The Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ,

he was to be put out of the synagogue.

Now, that was a big deal, right?

Today, if someone was excommunicated from a church, they'd probably just go

down the road to another church.

But for these people, for first century Jews, I mean, to be excommunicated from

the synagogue, to be cast out was life-altering.

I mean, there was no place they could go.

They were going to be shunned from their community, from their friends,

likely from their family.

This wasn't just that, oh, we can't worship there anymore on the weekend, right?

So it is a big deal, but it doesn't excuse their cowardice in this moment.

They're still so afraid of what might happen to them that they cannot trust

in and follow Jesus at this point, at this point at least. Hopefully it happens for them later.

And so they feared man more than God and they couldn't trust and follow Jesus.

Now let's look at the blindness that we see in the Pharisees.

The Pharisees in verse 24 say, look at what they say.

It says, so for the second time, they called the man who'd been born blind and

said to him, give glory to God.

We know that this man talking about Jesus is a sinner.

Wow. These words, the Bible has a word for a sentence like that. It's blasphemy.

It's attributing to God that he is a sinner, that he is evil.

It's blasphemy. And they're very instructive, these words, in helping us to

understand what happens in

spiritual blindness. It's actually like a complete inversion of reality.

Here's the way Isaiah 5.20 puts it. Woe to those who call evil good and good

evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.

Here is the light of the world standing before them and they're calling him darkness.

I mean, just a little bit before this, in chapter eight, they accuse him of having a demon.

Here is the perfectly righteous, divine son of God standing before them.

And all they can see is a demon-possessed sinner.

I mean, how much more could you possibly call what is good evil?

And that's what happens in spiritual blindness.

We call what is good evil. We call what is evil good. We can see this in our

culture. We see the celebration of things that the Bible calls wickedness.

But do we see it in our own lives?

That's the question. And that's where we have to apply this.

We have to go, are there things in my life?

Am I using the scriptures? Am I using the word of God to be my filter,

to tell me what is evil and what is good?

Or am I letting the culture determine for me what's evil and what's good?

Am I letting this context tell me what's evil and what's good?

Or am I aligning myself with God, even if it's unpopular?

So that's the place that we have to go to. We have to say, okay,

Lord, I have blind spots and I don't know where they are.

What are things that are in my life that I am calling evil that are good?

What are things in my life that I am calling good that are evil?

Help me to see those things. Help me to use the scriptures to shine light, to see what I cannot see.

First thing that we see from these Pharisees is that they call what is good evil.

But then also we see that their blindness is because of their pride.

In verse 34, they say to this man, you were born in utter sin.

And would you teach us? and they're probably thinking the exact same way,

the disciples were thinking at the beginning of this passage,

right? You were born in sin. That's why, you know, not just the way that we

would say it, that every person is born in sin.

They're saying like, you were born in a way that was disadvantaged because of

some sin that, you know, who knows, because of your parents,

because of some sin that you were going to commit.

And we were not. That's what they're implying.

There's pride. There's such pride. They're oozing In pride, verse 40,

they hear Jesus saying something.

They respond, are we blind? Are we also blind? And Jesus said,

well, essentially, if you would admit that you're blind, you could see.

But because you cannot see that you're blind, you're going to remain blind.

And so that's the next thing that we see here about spiritual blindness is it's

pride that keeps us from humbling ourselves, from admitting that, no, no, no, no.

No, there are things I still, I don't see.

It's not good people who are saved. It's those who admit that they're not good,

that are candidates of grace.

That's what God requires of us is that we admit we can't see.

That means that the rich, the intelligent, the successful are at a disadvantage

in the economy of heaven. Jesus said how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Why? Because the more you have, the more intelligence you have,

the more success you have, the more you think I've got it together because of me, right?

And so we have to humble ourselves, recognize, no, no, no. No, I have blindness. No.

In my life, and I need the Lord to shine His light. So, let's learn from these

characters. Let me ask you a few diagnostic questions just for you to process.

One, are you looking for approval from man or from God?

Are you afraid to speak up about your faith if it meant that someone might reject you?

If we live for the approval of men, it's going to keep us from trusting in the Lord.

Question two, are there things that the Bible calls evil that you call good,

that you give approval to?

Have you taken inventory of your whole life with that question in mind?

Romans 12.2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Question three, are you willing to admit blindness?

If we're not willing to admit that, then Christ cannot set us free.

Now, let's look at what happens to the man born blind as he meets Jesus and

the Lord heals him. That's point number three.

Salvation is seeing. Salvation is a type of seeing.

Notice that first, what happens to this man in verse seven, Jesus says,

go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

No argument, you know, no questions why, right?

It made me think of Naaman, if you're familiar in, I think it's 2 Kings,

Elisha tells this proud man, Naaman, to go and wash in the Jordan,

to be healed of his leprosy. And he thinks, what?

Why would you ask me to do that? Why couldn't you just wave your hand over me

and heal me, Elisha? And he argues with it, not this man, no.

He just goes. He just responds in obedience. And the first thing we see in a

person whose eyes have been opened is a heart of surrender.

Okay, Lord, I may not understand why yet, but I see clearly that this is what

you're commanding me to do.

I will do it. It's a heart of surrender.

And it's the first thing that we see in a person whose eyes have been opened,

a desire to obey what Christ commands.

And John points out in verse 7 that the name of this pool means sent.

Why does he give us that little information?

Well, it's because the next thing that we see from this man is that he is just

testifying to the truth about what Jesus has done in his life everywhere, right?

He is saved, but he's also sent. He sees, but he's also sent to help other people

see. And that's the next thing that we see among those who have been given sight.

Right away, he is stirring up conversations with people going,

what happened? How did this happen? Right?

I remember when I first came to know the Lord in college.

And I remember like my group of friends were so confused by what was going on in my life.

They couldn't figure out why I couldn't just keep my new beliefs to myself,

right? And so there's all these conversations happening that frequently happens

when the Lord saves someone, especially in, you know, a little later in life.

The Lord saves us. He gives us a heart of surrender. He gives us a desire to

talk about it, to testify, to share with others.

And we see that with this man.

I mean, how could he not, right? How could he not? He can see.

He can see. And if you've had that happen spiritually for you, you know the feeling.

How could I not talk about this? I couldn't see and now I can't.

And look at how simple his testimony is.

Verse 25, whether he's a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see.

His testimony is so simple and yet so effective. And I just want to share this

with you. Many times we are afraid of speaking up about our faith because we're

afraid that we're not going to have all the words that we need in the moment.

Right? We think, what if I'm asked a question that I don't know the answer to? This man was.

He just says, listen, here's what I can tell you. I couldn't see. I can see now.

And the only thing that happened between me not seeing and me seeing is that I met Jesus.

And that testimony is so powerful. They don't know what to do with it.

Here are the most learned men in his society. These are the gatekeepers,

the most powerful people in his world.

And he's standing before them with this very simple yet very effective testimony.

He opened my eyes.

The simple words, I once was blind, but now I see, can silence the most aggressive

opponents of the gospel like these Pharisees.

This man's witness doesn't stop there, though. They press him,

right? Tell us again how he did this. and,

He replies back in verse 27, I've told you already, and you would not listen.

Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?

I mean, what's John doing by giving us all these details? He's showing us the courage in this man.

He's just shown us that his parents couldn't get the words out.

They couldn't say it. They were too afraid of what might happen to him.

And now here we see this blind man. And just so that we understand.

In this day and time, to be born blind meant that you received no education.

It meant that you were a beggar your whole life. That was your only option.

And so here he is. He is at the bottom of society, a lowly beggar his whole life.

He is standing before the most powerful in his world and he is courageously testifying to Jesus.

That's what happens when someone goes from not seeing to seeing.

He says in verse 29, they say, we know that God has spoken to Moses,

but as for this man, we don't know where he comes from.

Look at his response. Verse 30, why this is an amazing thing.

You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of

God and does his will, God listens to him.

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.

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

So here he is, tearing down the false beliefs that these Pharisees have.

There's nothing that they can say. All they can do is cast him out. And they do.

Those whose eyes have been opened are in turn sent to help open the eyes of

others by proclaiming the gospel.

When Paul's eyes were first opened, you know the story? He's on the road to Damascus.

Jesus appears to him in a brilliant light, blinds him at first,

and just as his eyes go blind physically, his spiritual eyes are opened.

And what does the Lord tell him? He recounts it in Acts 26, verses 17 and 18.

Acts 26:17

Jesus tells him, I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from

darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.

Paul goes from spiritual blindness to seeing in a moment.

And the very next second, the very next minute, the Lord who opened his eyes is sending him.

I'm sending you to open up more people's eyes.

It's what he does for us. The Lord didn't save you just for you.

He saved you for the people that he is sending you to.

He saved this man for the people that he was sending him to.

He saved Paul for the people that he was sending him to. And he saved you for

the people he's sending you to.

So after being cast out, what happens? Jesus finds him. Jesus finds him. Jesus is pursuing him.

And when he tells him that he is the Messiah, he responds with worship,

Lord, I believe, verse 38, and he worshiped him.

Worship is the only right response for those who see. In fact,

worship cannot be helped for those who truly see.

You can't hold it back when you really see.

Salvation is seeing the worth of Christ.

Remember the parable that Jesus told of the man who found a treasure hidden in a field?

And for the joy, he goes and he sells everything he has.

Everything he has is worthless compared to the treasure.

What happened? He saw something he'd never seen that had always been there.

He saw its worth and it transformed his life.

Salvation is seeing. It's seeing the worth, the glory, the majesty of Christ.

And once you see, you can never unsee it.

Have your eyes been opened? Here we see what happens when our eyes are opened.

We surrender, we testify, and we worship.

And to the degree that you see that Christ is compelling, to the degree that

you see that your sin is wickedness,

and that Christ is the solution to that sin, to that guilt before a holy God,

to the degree that you see the beauty of the cross, that Jesus went to the cross

to suffer what you deserved,

what I deserved, to the degree that you see that he did that because he loved

you and he wanted to rescue you from your slavery to sin and darkness and set you free,

to be a witness for others to the degree that you see that.

To that degree, are you seeing clearly with spiritual sight?

And those who see most clearly, surrender most fully, worship most passionately,

and witness most boldly.

If you've seen it, then worship him and then go and tell others what he's done for you. Let's pray.

Lord, we do not deserve grace.

And that is what makes it so amazing. That's what makes it so glorious.

Lord, we cannot deserve it. We cannot earn it.

And you have richly provided for us, lavished grace upon us.

Help us to see it, that we might fall down in worship and that we might go out,

and testify to others what you've done for us. In Jesus' name, amen.