God’s Will Done in You

God’s Will Done in You

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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning is of the man born blind who now sees. It was the Apostle Peter who wrote, “You are not your own. You were bought with a price. Glorify God in your body.” Amen.

It’s a very apt and poignant description for what’s about to happen in this man’s life. He didn’t ask to be born blind. And according to this morning’s text, he didn’t ask to be healed of blindness either. The whole point, the disciples asked the question, why? For what purpose was this man born blind? There’s got to be a purpose to God’s amazing will. How does it play out in this man’s life? The rabbis of the day said it’s because of the parent’s sin that the child has this malady or problem in their life. And yet the prophets of the Old Testament said very clearly over and again, each one must deal with one’s own sin. And there isn’t that direct line of connection.

And yet I know your mind is like mine, that when something happens in your life or mine, we typically look for a connection to something that we have done, said, or what have you, that is why this event, negative as it is in our life from our perception, is happening because of this direct connection to something we’ve done, said, or thought in the past. Jesus shatters that by saying, “…neither this man sinned nor his parents, that he was born blind. But he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

So even though he didn’t ask to be born blind, and even though he didn’t ask to be healed, God shatters his life and brings healing. One of the problems with the disciples and you and me is we look back to the past to try to figure out why we are where we are today. Nothing wrong with that because you’re right, we don’t want to repeat history. But are we capable of figuring it all out? Especially profound things like these. Christ is always pushing us to look forward to what he has said about you and me and his relationship with you and me.

I am father. You are my child. I do not turn my back on you. I do not forsake my children. This work of God in this man’s life, this divine purpose for his blindness and now being restored to sight is really a work of mercy and grace. But it’s more than just his sight. It’s the gift of faith that happens to this man. And God uses this man who had no formal training in speaking of his faith to other people.

And God uses this man who’s never been taught anything other than his one moment with Christ. God uses him in these Pharisees’ lives and in other people’s lives. Think about this. This is a radical invasion by God. His entire life was constructed around his lack of sight, his way of relating to the entire world. His total reality is all bound up in the sense of everything else except the sense of sight. And then Christ comes in and changes all that, and now it’s a radical disruption in his entire existence.

Where he once could beg for food or for money, now he can see. So now he has to work for a living. That shatters a man’s life when he’s done otherwise. That’s not nearly as shattering as what Christ is going to do through him with his faith. There are always consequences to God’s acts in this world. There are always consequences to your and my acts in this world.

The problem is, the consequences of your acts and my acts don’t always follow immediately after we’ve made a choice. So we can kind of blow it off that it really has any consequences. God’s act in your life is also with consequences. You were bought at a price. You are not your own.

The Pharisees begin their inquisition of this man. This man who has been bought at a price and is not his own. This man whose life has been radically changed by Christ’s breaking in and shattering his life with not only physical but more importantly spiritual healing. And in their inquisition of him, this man who is not trained in any evangelistic method or any speaking method, he just gives an account of what happened but more importantly, he builds.

When you take this text home, take a look at it. Each time the man responds, look at it. Underline it. You’ll see where it’s very simplistic and very brief. And then it becomes more bold and more concise and precise to the final one that we’ll look at in a moment. Look at it. God uses this man and uses him mightily without him ever volunteering to be used by God.

And isn’t that how it is in your life? The things that God has shoved you into, thrown you into, pushed you into, were not of your own choice. And yet God used you. And in fact, when he shoved you and pushed you and pulled you into it, you did not go with great confidence of your abilities. Right? You had to rely upon God and not yourself. We’re very risk-averse, you and me, because we don’t want to fail. We fear it. We fear things that we’re not confident of. We’re downright chicken of it.

This man had no choice. And there are many things in your life that you have no choice over either, and God uses it, doesn’t he? It is as radical of a thing in this man’s life to go from no sight to sight alone, as it is for many of our veterans who have gone from walking and complete capability to paraplegic or quadriplegic. Shatters their life. It changes it forever. They didn’t ask for it. God allowed it.

You didn’t ask for faith. God gave it to you. He broke into your world at your baptism and claimed you and called you. That’s a gift. But it’s a gift with consequences, isn’t it? Had this man thought, “You know, is this what it means to be called to faith? I’ve got to put up with a world that looks at me and my belief as being close-minded, antiquated, narrow.” Is that what it means to be a follower, a disciple? That I’ve got to put up with people who don’t see things the way I do?

And that’s precisely what happens to this man. He’s thrust before the Pharisees who question him and inquire of him how and why it happened. Right? He keeps pointing them to what happened, but he points them more to by whom these things happened. His parents were afraid. They put it back on him. We don’t want to lose our place in standing in the community by aligning ourselves with this Christ. They kind of turned their back on their own kid. And he in turn has to turn his back on his parents because he confesses Christ and confesses him clearly to the point that they kick him out.

We know this is the man who was born blind who now sees, the man who was not a believer and now is a believer. 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.

And they call him steeped in sin. And that’s true, isn’t it? The blind man knew he was steeped in sin. It was the Pharisees who were unwilling to embrace that reality about themselves that Christ declared. For they could always find someone worse than they, and they could always comment about the same. But not this blind man. He knew and trusted in God’s forgiveness.

You know, if you ever think about this, of all the stories that God could have told about someone who he uses to confess the faith, wouldn’t he have chosen those inspirational stories that you see in mission bulletins, where this person goes forward in this mission endeavor, and they confess Christ, and 40 people come to believe in him through their efforts? That’s what you read in all those little mission flyers because it encourages us to continue the same. Why doesn’t Jesus recall that kind of a story?

And of all the stories in the world that he chooses to use, he uses this. He uses a failure because this guy proclaims it and none of the Pharisees follow. I don’t know about you, but it’s not very encouraging or inspirational if we look at it that way. But if we see it through the eyes of Christ, we see the inspiration because that’s like you and me. We sometimes wonder, what do I got to do different? How do I got to connect with that person? I must not be doing something right.

He did everything God wanted him to do. He faithfully confessed Christ and the world rejected him. Isn’t that your and my life? Weren’t we bought at a price? Are we not our own? Does not God shove us into such situations? Do we not get to see those great glorious consequences of our witnessing to Christ? Most of the time we don’t, do we? Most of the time we don’t.

That’s why God chose such a beautiful story of confession of faith. We know that because you’re a living example of the result of confession of faith bringing someone to faith. You know it. You are the fruit of that. So we know that confessing Christ brings believers. But we don’t always get to be the one who gets to see such glorious things. This man never did. He could have sat there dejected thinking, I have failed my Lord. I didn’t confess him properly. Because no one believed.

And yet God loved these Pharisees so much. He had this man born blind confess the truth to them. He gave them grace and mercy, and they spit on it and walked away. And this man’s a living example of grace and mercy, and their eyes are blind to it. And his have been opened as yours have been opened.

And just as it shattered his life and changed it forevermore, and every moment he interacts with the rest of this world, it will be a reminder that he’s different. So it is with you when Christ shattered your world and made you his child. It’s different, isn’t it, being his child? You’re not like the rest of the world. And the temptation to be like the rest of the world… always leaves us fearful because we don’t want to be different.

Jesus comes and finds that man to ensure that this man knows, not only with his eyes now that he can see, but he hears the words that Jesus speaks, and again the voice that said to him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam.” So having found this man and he sees them and hears them, he asks, “Tell me, Lord, that I may believe.” And he believes.

The Pharisees are still right there. They’re like right on the edge. Could believe, may not believe. Obviously, we know because it’s after the fact, but it’s just like the people that you speak to. It seems as if they’re going to grasp this and believe. It seems as if they’ll take your invitation seriously. It seems as if they will embrace what you believe. Believe.

And they will have the comfort and the struggles as a believer. But they don’t. And so they say, “Must we too go to you to have sight restored?” That is to admit that we’re blind in the beginning. And the answer is yes. Yes, he is the only one who brings sight to the blind. But only those who know that they’re blind and need sight. For as he said, “Those who claim to see continue to be blind.”

You had no idea… And I know your parents had no idea of what they were doing when you were baptized and the shattering of your life that Christ did and the road upon which you have been set, not by your choice most of the time. God be praised it wasn’t because we’re so risk averse. He shoves you down the path because he knows you will be his child in that place at that time with his word.

As this man was, who never had the opportunity to think, “Well, you know, I don’t know if I’m really good for this to speak to you about this person who brought healing to my life spiritually.” And yet he was the one God used, as you are the one God uses as well. No matter what kind of a body you have, no matter what kind of a faith you think you have, you are not your own. You were bought at a price.

Be that which God has made and has redeemed, which is what this man is. A blind man who sees, not just physically. A blind man who sees spiritually, like you. In the name of him who brings sight to you and me, the blind, Jesus. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen. Amen.