Encounter Change

It's wonderful to have you here if you have your Bible, if you

want your page over to the Book of John, if you're visiting or

maybe here for the very first time, or maybe you're watching

online in the future somewhere. It is April 2026 and you might

find us on YouTube somewhere in the future.

We are doing a series called Encounters with Jesus and we've

been going through the book of John.

We're in Chapter 9, so you can page on over there.

What I want to do this morning is just a very simple basic

Bible study on the book, on Chapter 9.

And I want to look at 3 encounters that happen in

Chapter 9. One where Jesus encounters his

disciples, the second one where he encounters Pharisees, and the

third where he encounters the man of the moment, the man born

blind. So we're going to start in John

9 verse one, which says as Jesus went along, he saw a man blind

from birth. His disciples asked him Rabbi

who sinned this man or his parents said he was born blind.

Neither this nor his parents, this man nor his parents and

said Jesus, but this happened. You can underline this.

This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in

him. As long as it is day.

We must do the works of him and sent me night is coming when no

one can work well, I'm in the world, I'm the light of the

world. But after saying this, he spat

on the ground, made some mud with the saliva and put it on

the man's eyes go. He told him wash in the pool of

Siloam. So the man went and washed and

came home seeing I was looking at verse 2.

It's funny that 2000 years later we're still asking the same

question. Whose fault is this?

You know, why am I going through all the stuff I'm going through?

Why did my business fail? Why is my marriage taking so

much strain? What is going on here?

And I, I don't quite know how or why, but God has put his finger

on this over the last while. Think of the last few sermons

and the last few preachers touching on where Christ meets

us. These encounters with Jesus

happen in dark places, difficult places, when we're facing big

situations and circumstances. When you got news from the

doctor. And somehow God has chosen this

season to highlight his nature, his character and his ways in

dark places. I've been reading up on this and

Tim Keller says the following says God doesn't waste pain,

persecution, suffering or delay. He often chooses those very

moments as the stage on which his glory is revealed.

Not Amen. A Nah, I'll take the

mountaintop, you know, taste me with 1,000,000 Rand.

But he chooses those very moments as the stage on which

his glory is revealed. That's why verse 3 says, but

this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in

him. I don't know if you know this,

but the New Testament was written written in coin, a

Greek, and the Greek word therefore works is Aragon and

means the visible expression of God's invisible nature, an

intentional display of his compassion, mercy, purpose and

power. That's why we encounter Him in

these dark places, because He wants to Aragon in our lives.

I don't know if you were here when Rory was preaching he he

quoted from the 1800's the guy by the name of Charles Spurgeon.

And Rory, I have probably read that quotes every day since you

preached it and I I can't get any further without reading it

to you again. This is what he said.

All believers. Now this is 1800 English.

I'm sorry for your Afrikaners, but this is I'll explain as we

go along. All believers have not the same

deep experience, or dark or difficult experience, but for

wise ends, that they may do business for him.

The Lord allows some of His Saints the sea of soul trouble.

Are you in the sea of soul trouble?

And there they see as others do not.

The wonders of divine grace are gone, sailing over the deeps of

inward depravity, the wastewaters of poverty, the

billows of persecution and the rough seas of temptation.

They need God above all others, and they find him, and they find

him. See, Tim says God doesn't waste

what you're going through. Problem is, we do because we are

all stocking in the corner. Why didn't I get the rage?

Why was I overlooked? You know why it seems like a

family is just circling the drain.

You know, the Bible says that God is close to those who are

grieving. He draws near in those times,

but is He finding a cold shoulder?

Because we don't recognize that this is part of His nature and

character in dealing with the Saints.

And it's not. It's not unique to three CR or

to you and I not even unique to John Chapter 9.

John 9 · chapter mention

Actually, this theme is woven into the entirety of Scripture.

It's, it's almost like pick a page, you know, So in Bible

college, we learned this rule. It's called the law of first

mention. And basically it's, it's a

Jewish approach to scripture. What they what they say is when

you're reading something that's a little complicated and tricky

or confronting like this, it's really helpful to go to the very

first time that it's mentioned in Scripture and use that almost

as the framework, the lens to look at marriage or look at

finances or look at these dark and difficult spaces.

And with that in mind, there's a law of first mention.

I don't know if you know what the first book of the Bible to

be written was not the first one in the Bible in Genesis in

either Benini, but do you know what the first book of the Bible

to be written was? The very first time pen was put

to paper to express the interaction between God and man

was the book of Job. How crazy is that?

It's like the first thing I want you to know is that I am so

desiring to meet you in your pain.

Got desires to meet us in real moments.

Not religious moments, in real moments.

Do you know what the very first book to be considered to be part

of the New Testament was? The book of James.

Don't know if you've read James recently?

Don't read it on a Monday. James one verse 1 he says has

it. James one verse 2 says count it

all joy when you face trials of many kinds.

Don't read it on a Monday. You've been warned.

But from Job to James and everything in between.

When you look, you will see argon from page of the page of

the page of the I mean, pick one.

Let's go to Genesis. There you got Joseph.

Hey, I don't know if if your brothers wanted to kill you.

I don't know if you've been sold into slavery and then falsely

accused of committing rape and thrown into prison and then

overlooked. Why Argon?

What you meant for evil, God meant for Argon for good.

So that Genesis 5020 so that many would be saved through me.

Amen. Beautiful.

It's Daniel and the lion's den, David and Goliath, Esther,

Abraham, Isaac. You've got Moses and the

bulrushes. You've got Jesus on the cross.

This happens so that the works of God might be displayed.

The visible expression of God's invisible nature, an intentional

display of his compassion, mercy, purpose, power, you name

it, it happens down there. One of my favorites, it was in

my Bible reading plan recently, was Shadrach, Meshach, and

Abednego. You might know the story if you

went in Sunday school. Essentially what happens is in

Daniel chapter 3, we find King Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

He decides, you know, he's actually a cut above the race.

So they build him this idol and they get a whole bunch of

musicians. And whenever the musicians play,

they've got to bow down and pray to this idol.

And everyone does that except these three Jew boys.

And they stand there. Sorry, I only bow to the one

true king. And he says if you don't bow,

we'll throw you in the furnace. And so they don't bow and they

get thrown in the furnace. And then Daniel chapter 3, it

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

says that King Nebuchadnezzar rose from his throne looking

into the furnace. He said, didn't we put three men

in the furnace? There's a fourth and he looks

like he's ablaze, like the Son of God, because often God

doesn't stop the fire. He steps into the fire.

Beautiful. I love the God who stops the

fire, but there is something about our Heavenly Father who

sometimes doesn't stop it. He steps into the fire.

There's a category of plants called pyrophytes.

That's the Latin name for this category of plants.

You might recognize pyro. It means fire.

Pyrophytes don't just survive fire, they need fire.

So pyrophyte, when it, when it produces seeds, the seeds can

sit there. The seeds can sit there for a

generation, do nothing, go nowhere.

This lying dormant for years for an entire generation.

And there's no way you can awaken the seed.

You can't put it in sunshine, you can't add fertilizer, you

can't water it to get it away. It needs fire to activate the

seed. That to me is a picture of

argon. There are seeds in you that

require facing fire to awaken. There's a calling on your life

that you might need to be awakened through fire.

There is an understanding and elements of your relationship

with God. There's there's something of God

that He wants you to understand and experience for yourself that

you cannot. But through fire.

And in that moment, what happens?

One of two things, either we're on this side, sulking and

moaning and navel gazing, or we're opening ourselves to what

Jesus said. This happened so that the works

of God might be displayed. They are seeds in you that can

only be awakened through fire. And I don't know what you're

going through. I don't know what it's like,

Piero, to face unanswered prayer and now facing the end of your

life. But what I do know is if God has

not chosen to stop the fire, it can be guaranteed he's chosen to

step into it. And this happened so that the

works of God might be displayed. And the disciples needed to see

that 2000 years ago and the disciples needed to see that

today. What about the Pharisees?

Oh, these are these are just delightful in verse 13.

So this man born blind is miraculously given sight.

And verse 13 says they brought to the Pharisees the man who had

been blind. I mean, come on, how often do

you see that in a sentence the man who had been blind.

Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and can circle that

phrase and open the man's eyes was a Sabbath.

Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received

his sights. He put mud on my eyes, the man

replied. And I watched, and now I see

some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does

not keep the Sabbath. But others asked, How can a

Sinner perform such silence? So they were divided.

Then they turned again to the blind man.

What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he apparently

opened, Man replied. He's a prophet.

They still didn't believe that he had been blind and had

received his sight until they sent for the man's parents.

Is this your son? They asked.

Is this the one you say was born blind?

How is it that now he can see? We know he's our son, the

parents answered, and we know he was born blind.

But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, I don't know.

Ask him. He's of age, He'll speak for

himself. His parents said this because

they were afraid of the Jewish leaders who already had decided

that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah, Why

would they be doing that? Because it was one of the signs

of the Messiah that he would give sight to the blind.

Anyone that acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be

put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said

he's of age asking a second time they summoned the man who had

been blind. Give glory to God by telling the

truth. A friend of mine always used to

say shame the devil and tell the truth.

Give glory to God by telling the truth.

They said. We know this man is a Sinner.

He replied whether he's a Sinner or not, I don't know.

One thing I do know I was blind but now I see.

So hello, I wrote in my Bible right next to that heading,

fasting like a Pharisee. Yeah, fair.

Freeing is like a legit word. I thought it was like something

my mom always used to blame me for doing.

You're fasting around, which is true, which means to be consumed

by unimportant, trivial and distracting superficial things

like mud. But verse 14 now, the day on

which Jesus had made mud. So here's a miracle.

And all they can see is the mud here instead of.

I think we found the Messiah mud.

Rick, can I? And on a Sunday, no hall faffing

like a Pharisee. I'm so glad none of us do that.

Yeah. None of us sits in our corner

office sulking because we were overlooked again.

Yeah. Yeah.

Typical because I didn't go ahead.

The piercing. What's the chances faffing like

a Pharisee? Well, you know, the time when

you were sick and no one contacted you for like 2 weeks

and then you got back to life group and you heard that Yanni's

got the flu and so everyone's going to, you know, make a meal

for Yanni because he's got the and you're like, you know, not

coming back. Launch.

Where do you guys meet them coming to your life group?

These are a bunch of faffing like a Pharisee or Rory didn't

greet you. No, actually it would be Stephen

didn't greet you. Introvert, introvert.

You know, it could at least remember my name.

Faffing like a Pharisee. God, why, why, why do I have

this diagnosis? Why is my business faffing like

a Pharisee? You see, because what happens is

when we start faffing, when all we see is mud and not the

miracle, it becomes envious and jealous and critical and

comparing. I was tempted to bring 1000

bucks this morning because the last time Rory brought 1000

bucks, he called someone up and they had John 316 on their bicep

and he got 1000 bucks because he had John tattooed on him.

I was going to bring 1000. Actually.

I even thought of maybe 10,000 because you might have John 316

here, but do you have James 316 here?

You know, you want to know what James 316 says?

It says for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist.

There you'll find disorder and every evil practice.

Anyone, anyone. We don't see people running for

that because we like to theft like a Pharisee, where jealousy

and selfish ambition exist. Criticism, comparison, envy.

There, there you'll find disorder and every evil

practice. We're fafing out Pharisees while

the city is at our door, while we are going through what I can

only call revival. You might not be able to see

from where you're sitting, but we have people sitting behind

the back rows and we've got guys sitting behind the back rows and

people sitting on the stairs. What else do you call that?

Another 5 baptisms. I did a quick calculation

recently. I think we've had about 3000

baptisms. We have APM Sunday night meeting

that is almost as full as the morning meeting.

And when the city comes to our door, will they find the blood

of Jesus or people that just see the mud of the people.

You know what the Bible says in verse 34 says to this the

Pharisees replied you were steeped infinite birth.

How dare you lecture us and they threw him out.

I was reading this morning the message translation says you're

not worth the mud he put on your eyes.

When we faff like Pharisees, we have the city coming to revival

and instead of being having the privilege of being introduced to

the blood of Jesus, we're pointing out the mud on their

eyes. Instead of encountering Jesus,

we encounter Pharisees who tend to throw them out.

Know the the scariest thing about faffing like a Pharisee?

When the disciples encountered Jesus, they changed and we're

going to see in a few seconds. When the man born blind

encountered Jesus, he changed. When the Pharisees encountered

Jesus, their hard hearts remained unchanged.

Such is the power of the hearts that does not ongoingly

encounter Jesus. We can remain in our

Phariseeism. You know Jesus tells the

prodigal, the parable of the prodigal son.

You know who he tells it to? He tells it to the Pharisees and

he leaves the clanger for the very end where the lighting that

got himself into trouble, sleeping with prostitutes,

squandering money, gambling, drinking, you name it.

He goes back into the house, but the squeaky clean pharisaical

older brother gets left outside. This is the danger. 3 CR.

If we're in the midst of who knows why, but a radical revival

in the east of Pretoria. If we remain as Pharisees, if we

don't allow God access to that heart, it's highly likely that

he will leave us outside and he'll move along.

He'll take his presence and he'll take his blood and he'll

take the work of the cross to another place so that they can

hear the gospel for themselves and not encounter people who

more than likely will throw you out because if you're mad and

because you don't dress like we dress and drive like we drive

and quote Scripture the way we do and raise our hands in the

most holy way, faffing like Pharisees.

Well, God is wanting to encounter hearts Life group's

going to be fun this week. I'm just glad I get to share

this because it saves me so much on therapy because I find in my

heart a faffing Pharisee. The only thing that sets me free

is an encounter, ongoing encounter with Jesus Christ.

So the disciples, the Pharisees, and in my favorite, the man born

blind. This is what the chapter is all

about. Verse 35 says Jesus heard that

they'd thrown him out, and when he found him, I loved it.

When he found the man born blind, he said, do you believe

in the Son of Man? Who is he, Sir?

I underlined that in my Bible, Sir told me so that I might

believe in him. Jesus said you have now seen

him, in fact he is the one speaking with you.

Then the man said, Lord, first of all, Sir, now it's Lord I

believe, and he worshipped him. The most incredible encounter,

just one encounter and he goes from calling him Sir to Lord.

It's that encounter that changes our hearts orientation from Sir

to Savior. But it takes this encounter.

I've mentioned many times that that God is up to something

globally, news out of the UK, they're now referring to it as a

silent revival because there are so many people coming to church

without advertising, without your typical, you know, big tent

revival moments and big preachers coming in.

It's just somehow God is drawing people in droves.

I was listening last week to a sermon in the UK, one of my

favorite churches there that a mate of mine goes to, and they

announced their fifth service. They had one and might have

needed a second at the beginning of last year.

Now, a year later, they have to have five services to handle the

influx of people as God is drawing people to himself.

And as crazy as that is, do you know what the fastest growing

church is? It's the church in Iran.

Hey, that's just got showing off.

Yeah, you do you. I'm going after my people.

And I read the Pew Research coming out recently talking

about the US That's the irony of the way God works.

The UK, Iran, the US and I said this.

This is according to Pew Research.

They say in the US for the first time in two generations, there's

a rise in people saying I believe in God.

Now the last time I came across an article from Pew Research

Group, it was headed the collapse of Christianity.

Now they're talking about the first time in two generations.

There's there's an increase of growth churches that I think

they had something like 3000 churches closing a year in the

US. Now it's changing.

Now these churches being planted, tendency is up.

People are flocking to church. But if you drill down on that,

it's a very interesting part of that study.

They found that only 27% we're encountering Jesus relationally

and that's concerning. That should be concerning for

us. It should be concerning for you

because you might be here as part of the silent revival.

You know, you come, you've heard things are happening and, and

this is a happening place and the coffee is not so bad and so,

and the preachers try to keep to 30 minutes.

But have you encountered Jesus? Only 27%.

So they are engaging in a relationship with God.

So there's there's openness, there's interest.

But unless they've encountered Jesus, it's not revival, it's

attendance. Revival is when your heart is

awoken by the presence of a loving God wading into your life

and you go from Sir to Savior had a crazy story.

A guy who's like so anti seatbelts.

I don't know if there's any anti seatbelts people here.

I'll I'll trade lightly. But it was so bad.

He grew up on a farm and you know, you just, you do what you

want to do. And then he comes to the big

city and he gets himself a new Bucky and the Bucky beeps every

time a seat belt is not plugged in.

See some wives looking at husbands, which is concerning.

So what what he did was he went and he bought a buckle and he

just clicked the buckle in and the seat belt stays where it is.

And the guy was saying that the kind of time when he got picked

up by his mate and all of a sudden there he is buckling

himself in. You know, he's like, what

happened? You know, sort of thinking,

well, you know, did someone come to the office and give like some

statistics or a seat belt seminar?

You know what, what information has has changed?

And he said, he said, I had such a minor silly bumper basher, but

the car had enough momentum that I put my torso through the

window, the front window, and they needed more than 120

stitches to put me back together.

See, the seat belt was Sir. Now the seat belt is savior

because of an encounter. You see, you can come to church,

and it's abstract, you know, you need a savior.

Yeah, but I mean, I mean, my life is not so bad.

But when you encounter the holy risen Christ and he's no longer

Sir, then he has your all, Lord and Savior.

I wonder if you've had that encounter.

That does not happen encountering church.

That only happens by encountering Christ.

I heard old. What's his name?

Oh, let me not get there. I don't want to jump ahead.

I want to show you a photo. It's actually a picture of a

picture. You know, Michelangelo, the

Sistine Chapel. Yeah, I know there's some black

folks here. You've got don't have a cultural

bone in your body. So.

So this is this is the tiny little piece in this entirety

where it's God. It's called the creation of

Adam. So you've got God on the right

and you've got Adam on the left. And I heard recently that

apparently after this, I mean, I haven't been there, but I was,

you know, me and my rabbit holes.

I've been digging deeply into the Sistine Chapel.

It is unbelievable what he created and what happened was

after it, as one does, you've got a whole bunch of applause

and a whole buttons of criticism.

And the one criticism that came up is like, seriously, if you're

going to be talking about the journey of mankind towards God,

surely those fingers should have been touching, You know, I mean,

take a look at at, at the chasm. We've got a second photo of, of

the fingers. You know, it's like so close.

Surely you could have painted them together.

And apparently this became, according to legend, it became

quite a thing in the villages and people were learning about

it and spent so much money and we waited so long.

And, you know, it feels like it's uncompleted.

And there was like this task force that was put together to

get to the bottom of this, Like, why did you do this?

And what they did was one of the guys went up, he climbed up on

the scaffold and he took some measurements and he found in

possibly intentionally, maybe not so, but he found that that

hand, that finger that he measured the dimensions and he

looked at the distance and said all that Adam has to do.

It's just that. I love that.

Did you see it? All he had to do?

It's just that. And he would touch the hand of

God. And I love that because I think

a lot of the time when you come to church and you think of

encountering Jesus, you think you've got to climb some

mountaintop, you've got to memorize the first five books of

the Bible, at least wear sackcloth and ash and fast for

40 days. And then maybe, just maybe, if

you can get your act together, maybe you've done enough to

cross the massive divide and God say no, no.

I mean, if you look at the picture, God's already, he's

like, he's reaching out like this.

All he's waiting for you is just respond.

Just respond. Brilliant.

Just respond. He's here and you know, when you

respond and those fingers touch, you know what could happen.

Let me tell you what has happened.

There's a guy by the name of John Wesley.

You might not know him. It's kind of a big deal to us

pastors and preachers because he was one of the greats back in

the 1700s. I found out that John Wesley, I

mean, he's like they've paint pictures and their statues and

their stories. But John Wesley, he was an

ordained priest. He went on numerous mission

trips. He was part of what they called

the Holy Club. I mean, you've arrived here.

But he only knew Jesus as Sir. He didn't actually know him as

Savior. He had this head knowledge like

the guy with the seatbelts, but he hadn't encountered Christ and

had that life change. But then came the moment when it

was this like that. And I want to read to you what

happened when Jesus went from being served to Savior.

John Wesley went on to preach over 40,000 sermons.

I think I've preached 4040 thousand sermons.

He would preach 2 to three times a day.

He travelled an estimated 400,000 kilometers on horseback

to share this God that he's encountered.

Yeah, You know, Artemis 2, you know, the distance furthest away

from the earth was 406,000 kilometers.

This guy did that on horseback. He continued preaching into his

late 80s when churches rejected him because, surprise, surprise,

back in the 1700s, he also had Pharisees that were faffing.

When churches rejected him, he went outside.

He preached in open fields, coal mines, town squares and even

graveyards and thousands gathered sometimes 10 to 20,000

people gathered to hear what this Christ is, that he and who

he is that he has encountered hundreds of thousands came to

faith across England, entire towns.

So crime rates drop, drunkenness decrease, prisons empty families

get restored because one man had one encounter just A and this

went on for decades. And this is my favorite

paragraph in the account. It says when you look at John

Wesley's encounter with Jesus, you're looking at a man who went

from Sir to savior, my language, a man who helped ignite one of

the most far reaching spiritual awakenings in history.

It's the difference between Jesus being Sir and Jesus being

Savior. It's the difference between

church being your encounter and Christ being your encounter.

Have you encountered him? Not have you performed enough to

earn No. Have you just while his arm is

outstretched? Have you just responded?

So I want to pray for us this morning.

I want to close and pray. And if maybe you're in that fire

and you need an encounter, you need him to step into your fire.

Maybe you're faffing like a Pharisee and you're going like

this heart of mine needs an encounter and my hands are for

that. Or maybe he's found you, but you

haven't responded. You've ticked all the religious

boxes, but you haven't responded.

I want, I just want to pray for you and where you are.

If you want to just do, would you open your hands?

Heavenly Father, I want to pray for each and every one of us.

You know the depths of the fires that we're facing.

You know the difficulties of this Pharisaical heart.

And you also know those that you've pursued and you've found

and are now wooing and drawing closer to you.

Lord, each one of us desperately need an encounter with you, and

we want to ask just that. We want to respond as best as we

know how. We want to just respond.

We ask that you step into that fire.

We ask Lord Jesus that we might encounter you and your word that

is spoken of as separating between spirit and soul.

And Lord, we want an encounter with you.

Pray for those who've never encountered you, they might have

encountered your word, they might have encountered your

people, they might have encountered your church.

But those who have never truly encountered you maybe come face

to face with a risen life changing Savior.

This morning. I pray, Lord God, that we would

walk out and we would never be the same again, even if we

walking up back into the fire, that we would know that you're

there with us. I pray for the sake of the city

that you'll circumcise our hearts.

Or that they would not come here and find Pharisees, but they

would come here finding beggars that have found fresh bread,

whose lives have been changed by the power of an encounter with

you. I pray, Lord Jesus, that you

would entrust this community to many who haven't yet encountered

you, that we might lead them to your throne, having been having

had that encounter ourselves. Ask this in Jesus name.

Thank you.