Series: Signs & Glory
Title: “Can you see what Jesus is doing?"
Subtitle: "From Blindness to Belief”
Scripture: John 9
🎯 Bottom line: True sight doesn’t come from your eyes—it comes from humbling yourself & believing that Jesus is who he says he is and that he's doing all he promised to do.
Or put another way: Jesus gives sight to the blind—but those who think they see without Him remain blind.
This chapter isn’t ultimately about physical healing—it’s about spiritual vision. The man born blind receives both physical sight and spiritual insight as he responds to Jesus in faith. In contrast, the Pharisees, though physically able to see, are exposed as spiritually blind because of their pride and refusal to believe.
INTRODUCTION
CONTEXT
SERMON OUTLINE
CONCLUSION
NOTES
OUTLINES
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
MAIN REFERENCES USED
Opening prayer: Lord God, help us grow to be and do like Jesus, while abiding in him and leading others to do the same.
INTRODUCTION
Mammoth Cave
We're all born in a spiritual Mammoth Cave. Pitch dark...
How to Avoid Spiritual Infections
Joseph Lister, the nineteenth-century medic, is known as ‘the father of antiseptic surgery’. Lister was disturbed by the high proportion of patients who died from post-operative infections. He became convinced that infinitesimal microbes, invisible to the naked eye, were causing the infections. He began to develop a number of antiseptic solutions with which to treat the wounds. Sure enough, the proportion of patients dying from infections decreased.
In a similar way, there are evil spiritual forces at work in our world today. They cannot be seen, but they wreak havoc in people’s lives, causing them to fall into temptation, moving evil people into positions of national power, manipulating people’s emotions, tearing them apart and destroying them.
But just as Lister’s contemporaries dismissed his theory of destructive microbes, many people today are ignorant or dismissive of spiritual realities. Yet you have the powerful spiritual ‘antiseptic’ to use against these destructive forces. It is vital that you learn to do so.
Bible in One Year 2023 with Nicky Gumbel: Day 335 • Devotional
🎯 Bottom line: True sight doesn’t come from your eyes—it comes from humbling yourself & believing that Jesus is who he says he is and that he's doing all he promised to do.
Man with the world's highest IQ: 'Jesus Christ is God'
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, June 19, 2025
The man with the world’s highest IQ has proclaimed that “Jesus Christ is God,” building on his previous contention that belief in the afterlife is consistent with science.
YoungHoon Kim, who identifies himself on his X profile as “the World’s Highest IQ Record Holder” and lists his intelligence quotient as 276, proclaimed his Christian faith in a statement posted to X on Tuesday. “As the world’s highest IQ record holder, I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the way and the truth and the life,” he wrote.
In replies to posts reacting favorably to his embrace of Christianity, Kim vowed to “use this opportunity to lead many souls to God and declared, “Christ is my logic.” In a March 18 post, Kim wrote, “One of the best things I have ever done in my life is earning a BA degree in Christian Theology (nondenominational) from Yonsei University, # 1 private university in Asia.”
He referred to theology as “the ultimate discipline of all fields of study.”
🧱 Outline
1. A Setup, Not a Screw-Up (John 9:1–7)
Truth: Suffering isn’t always punishment—it can be a platform for God’s glory.
Takeaway: God uses our pain as a stage for His purpose. The man’s blindness was not a result of sin, but a setup for a miracle.
Illustration: "Amy Carmichael, the quiet, but greatly used missionary to India, was impelled into service by a disturbing dream. In the dream she saw hundreds of unreached people plunging over a cliff to their deaths, while Christians sat and made daisy chains!" -Mark Johnston, p. 133
2. Opposition from the Religious (John 9:8–34)
Truth: Religious people often resist what they can’t control or explain.
Takeaway: True sight threatens false religion. The Pharisees were more concerned with rules than rejoicing in restoration.
3. Revelation and Response (John 9:35–41)
Truth: Spiritual sight begins with recognizing Jesus and responding in faith.
Takeaway: The once-blind man worships Jesus; meanwhile, the seeing remain blind. Belief opens our eyes, but pride keeps us in the dark.
✅ Primary Applications (Direct, Universal, and Central to the Text)
` purpose in your suffering.
Application: Don’t assume hardship means punishment. Sometimes suffering is a stage for God’s glory (v. 3).
Let Jesus heal your deepest need—even if it’s uncomfortable or unconventional.
Application: Respond in obedience even when the method (mud and spit!) doesn’t make sense (v. 6–7).
Bear witness to what Jesus has done, even when you’re pressured to back down.
Application: Like the healed man, speak simply and boldly: “I was blind, but now I see” (v. 25).
Reject fear of people and stand firm in your testimony.
Application: The man’s parents feared the Pharisees, but he did not (v. 18–23 vs. v. 24–34). Be like the son, not the parents.
Move from physical sight to spiritual sight—through belief in Jesus.
Application: Jesus invites personal faith (v. 35–38). Salvation is not just about healing but about believing and worshiping.
Recognize that spiritual pride leads to blindness.
Application: The Pharisees’ refusal to admit their need kept them blind (v. 39–41). Humility opens the eyes of the heart.
🔁 Secondary Applications (Contextual, Indirect, and Supportive)
Be cautious of religious systems that prioritize rules over restoration.
Application: Systems that suppress God’s work in people often mask spiritual blindness (v. 16, 28–29).
Don’t expect everyone to celebrate your healing or growth.
Application: Spiritual transformation invites both opposition and misunderstanding (v. 8–12, 26).
God works in people before they can fully articulate faith.
Application: The blind man obeyed before he knew who Jesus really was (v. 11, 35–38). Obedience can precede understanding.
Your personal story is powerful. Use it.
Application: You may not have theological credentials, but your testimony is undeniable (v. 25).
Faith grows as we respond to increasing light.
Application: The man moved from calling Jesus “the man” → “a prophet” → “from God” → “Lord” and worshiped (v. 11, 17, 33, 38).
Isolation for Jesus’ sake is a refining fire.
Application: When he was cast out (v. 34), Jesus found him again (v. 35). Rejection for Christ often leads to deeper revelation.
CONCLUSION
Illustration:
“For a moment, imagine your inner life as having a window.
Windows accomplish two things.
First, a window allows light from the outside to enter a room. This would have been especially important in the ancient world before the age of electricity. Without any windows, a person would live in relative darkness.
But secondly, a window also allows someone in the room to look through it to see outside of the house.
Thus, a window allows us to see both inside and outside.
But if the window is never cleaned, and grime is allowed to accumulate to the point that it eventually becomes caked over with filth, it will no longer serve any useful function. One will live in darkness and will be unable to see through to the outside. What we learn from Jesus' interaction with these religious experts is that the grime that accumulates on the window of the soul is not just any particular sin. It is the joint sins of hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and religious pride that keep us in spiritual blindness.
One of these confrontations occurs after an amazing miracle of Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth.
In that culture, it was commonly assumed that one who is blind must be bearing God's judgment for some grievous sin. When some of the Pharisees learn of this man's healing, they attempt to discredit Jesus and even call him as a sinner. In response, Jesus declares, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind."
This entire incident illustrates Jesus' point. The man who was born blind now has new sight, both physically and spiritually.
Yet, the Pharisees who claim to have pristine spiritual perception, cannot identify the very Son of God who stands right in front of them.
Once the virus of religious hypocrisy takes root in one's heart, it has the potential to thoroughly destroy that person's ability to perceive and cooperate with the work of God on earth. What makes this virus particularly insidious is that as it grows within one's inner life, everything may look exactly right on the outside. Yet all along, the incongruence between the interior and exterior life only continues to worsen.”
Jesus People, pp. 149-151
🎯 Bottom line: True sight doesn’t come from your eyes—it comes from humbling yourself & believing that Jesus is who he says he is and that he's doing all he promised to do.`
INVITATION
What about you?
Peter puts it all in perspective in his first sermon:
““Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”” Acts 2:36-39 NIV
How do we respond? Answer 2 questions:
Take out a card or piece of paper right now. Write down the answer to these questions:
What is God saying to me right now?
What am I going to do about it? Write this down on a sheet of paper.
What I hear you saying, Lord, is ___________________.
[my name] is going to believe/do __________________________________________________ as a result.
Finally, share this with your Home or Mission group this week when you gather as a testimony about what God is doing in your life. You don’t have to get too specific to give him praise.
Lord's Supper, 1 Cor 11:23-26 is good passage.
Also, say something like, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." (past, present, and future)
Pray
NOTES
I saw a tweet last week that showed me both sides of this pride/humility dynamic.
The first picture is of a line of 900 people hiking along a ridge to summit Mt. Everest. Most paying $50k to have a Sherpa (a Himalayan with exceptional mountaineering expertise and skill often hired to help others summit Mt Everest) personally help them succeed. Many doing this for personal glory (competition/pride). The comment by the tweeter was that the huge numbers put more people at risk to death than ever before.
The second picture is of Gelje Sherpa leading his client towards the top when he comes across someone laying on the ground dying. He’s only 500 yards from the summit. This Sherpa, on a job helping his client survive the same climb, runs over, wraps the man in a sleeping mattress, gives him oxygen (of which his client might need), put him on his back, and then hiked him down the mountain, a trip that took 6 hours.
The first picture is one of pride. The second, one of humility. We don’t know how many people walked past the guy on the ground. And I’m guessing few of those people could have carried anyone down with the incredible challenge that it is just to summit and descend Mt Everest without dying yourself. But to add the weight of a full grown man to your load…
I think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who didn’t walk past the dying man on the road but instead, at great personal cost and risk of life, helped this man recover. He saw this man and humbly saw his neighbor in need and helped him.
OUTLINE
See above
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
What do I want them to know?
Why do I want them to know it?
What do I want them to do?
Why do I want them to do it?
How do they do this?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Discovery Bible Study process: https://www.dbsguide.org/
Read the passage together.
Retell the story in your own words.
Discovery the story
What does this story tell me about God?
What does this story tell me about people?
If this is really true, what should I do?
What is God saying to you right now? (Write this down)
What are you going to do about it? (Write this down)
Who am I going to tell about this?
Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcast
Alternate Discussion Questions (by Jeff Vanderstelt): Based on this passage:
Who is God?
What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?
Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)
What do I do? (In light of who I am)
How do I do it?
Final Questions (Write this down)
What is God saying to you right now?
What are you going to do about it?
MAIN REFERENCES USED
“John,” by R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word Commentary, Edited by Kent Hughes
Exalting Jesus in John, by Matt Carter & Josh Wredberg
The Gospels & Epistles of John, FF Bruce
John, RC Sproul
John, Köstenberger
The Gospel According to John, DA Carson
Let's Study John, Mark Johnston
The Light Has Come, Leslie Newbigin (TLHC)
The Visual Word, Patrick Schreiner (TVW)
“Look at the Book” by John Piper (LATB)
“The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by Walvoord, Zuck (BKC)
“The Bible Exposition Commentary” by Warren Wiersbe (BEC)
Thru The Bible with J. Vernon McGee (TTB)
Outline Bible, D Willmington (OB)
NIV Study Bible (NIVSB) https://www.biblica.com/resources/scholar-notes/niv-study-bible/
Chronological Life Application Study Bible (NLT)
ESV Study Bible (ESVSB) https://www.esv.org
The Bible Project https://bibleproject.com
Nicky Gumbel bible reading plan app or via YouVersion
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