This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. It doesn't get any easier to
swallow. It's still one of those things
that as we are confronted even in our own understanding of the
Gospel, we are able to continually see that we are also learning. We don't have all the answers.
We may even can articulate the gospel very clearly, but in understanding
the application of this doctrine, we know that it means that we
grow in the grace of God every single day. had conversations
this week with several people sharing the faith and encouraging
those in the faith and I found it interesting that many times
when you talk with people they often come to the idea that they
want to talk to me or they want to talk to you sometimes and
they want you to give them the instant answer from the Bible.
Where's the instant answer for my assurance? Where's the instant
answer for understanding God's will? Where's the instant answer
for this or for that or for the other? And quite honestly, there
is not the instant answer, but the text of the scripture as
a whole is the instant answer. The fullness of the revelation
of God, the Old Testament, the prophets, and the apostles, and
everyone in between. We are always seeing the answer
simply in Jesus Christ through the holistic synergy of the Bible. It doesn't make a lot of sense
to an unregenerate person. It doesn't make any sense, really,
to an unregenerate person when we say that the Scripture is
the whole of God's revelation. But that the Scripture then also
points to the perfection of God's explicit revelation, who is Jesus
Christ. We oftentimes want to come to
the Bible and say, well, how can I live better? Or how can
I find the joy that I'm looking for? Can you show me passages
that teach me how to control my anger? I mean, we can talk
about those things topically. We can manipulate our behavior
to such a way using pretexts and other areas of Scripture,
even twisting them, not theologically twisting them, but applicably
twisting them. We can take and massage them
in such a way that we can begin to mold ourselves into what we
believe we ought to be. But ultimately, the Scripture
is supposed to show us the fullness of the glory of God. It's supposed
to show us who God is, what God has done, and for whom He's done
it. And we see that fully in the lens of Scripture, explicitly,
as I've already stated, in the person of Jesus Christ. The Bible,
when it talks about the light of God, is specifically talking
about this reality. That we who have been given the
light of the knowledge of Christ, it has been shown in our hearts
that we might see Christ and thus see the fullness of God.
We might see Christ and thus see the fullness of God's glory,
the fullness of God's work, the fullness of everything that He
intended to do throughout all the ages of the earth. And so
in that, now we do not have to wonder, what is it that I'm supposed
to take from Scripture? What pieces of the Bible are
more important than the other? It is all equally important as
it points equally to Christ. Now these things are not hidden
for us. Yes, had we never been born again, had we never heard
the New Testament writings and we were given the Old Testament,
we were given the prophets, we would come just as these Jews
did in Romans, I mean in John chapter 9, we would come to many
of our own conclusions about how these things should be understood,
how they should be applied, how they should be lived out. And
friends, what we've seen thus far in the last 81 sermons of
John is that there is a continual natural state in which man in
his unregenerate state lives and he cannot in any way see
the perfection of Christ as his only hope. There's always in
the unregenerate heart a level of, I must do something more
than what Christ has done. Or Christ has done enough, but
I must do a little bit more in order to secure myself. Or Christ
has secured me, but I must do a little bit more in order to
prove myself. Or Christ has proven me, I must
do a little bit more in order for others to see that I am in
Christ. And you see the sequence, it
goes on and on and on. where the whole of Scripture
is not God doing something different over here for thousands of years
and now God doing something new. No, God doing something glorious,
completing it in Christ. It's not in steps. It's not in
different dispensations. It's not in different covenants.
It is the covenant of grace that God the Father made with God
the Son in eternity. For something to be eternal,
it means it has no beginning. For something to be eternal,
it means that it has no end. It always has been. God and His
decrees, they are eternal. God and His will never change
it. It is eternal. He is immutable. He is impassable. God is not
moved by the economy of creation. He is not moved by that which
we do and that we think. And when I say moved, in other
words, God is not moving to the left or the right of His own
plan and will and decree to compensate for the freedom or the volition
of humanity. Just like we, well some of us
may, just like we do not change our lives based on the crop predictions,
Or if we see leaves falling off the trees, we do not come to
a conclusion that because the leaves are outside, we cannot
leave the house because we don't want to step upon the leaves.
They've chosen to fall there, so we must change our path. The
same is true for God. He does not change His ways for
the sake of our decisions. And God does not save us based
on our decisions. God saves His people, beloved,
based on His decree of the finished work of Jesus Christ that was
revealed from the beginning when Moses wrote, Let there be light. And there was light, and the
light was good. The Scripture is the rule of
life, the rule of religion, the rule of theology, the rule of
teaching, doctrine. It is the only thing that is
the authority of truth. Now there are a lot of things
that God has created. There are a lot of ways in which
mathematics and science and all these things, and I've had a
lot of these conversations even in my own household the last few months.
These things that we can see and peek into the ineffable mysteries
of such a deepness of what this world is. And it's to show us
the reality of the depth of its Creator. And that is where we
are to take it. We're not to be bogged down in
the fodder of making Christianity just based on what we can prove
through the Bible, and science, and medicine, and math, and how
dare I say prove with philosophy. But we are to take the Scripture
as it was intended to be taken. That by faith, we see God face
to face. By faith, we seek God's redemption
for His people through Christ. By faith, we are the elect of
God. Many people have come to many
gods, to many Christs, to many Yahwehs, to many aspects of religion
throughout the world, throughout the history of humanity. There's
not been a culture in existence that has not created some type
of deity for themselves. Because as Paul would tell us
in Romans 1, that all men are without excuse, for the existence
of God is known to them because of what He has done with creation. So even when people say there
is no God, they have made their God their own wisdom. They have
created a God because all human beings have a God, even if it
is themselves. their wisdom, their intellect,
their family, their pets, whatever it might be. And I might have
said some things, you might, well, those are my God. No, those
might be your idols, but they're not your God. Jesus is your God.
And we all have idols. Lord, help us. We have idols.
Let us enjoy the gifts of life, but hold them loosely, as Christ
is King and Ruler over them all. It's not wrong to enjoy what
God has given us in this life. But these Jews, as we see closing
out chapter 9, Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a mixture
of light and darkness. It doesn't mix. Have you ever
thought about that? Like oil and water does not mix, and I'm
sure that some chemist in the room might be able to say, well,
there is a way to make it work, but what you're doing is you're
changing the chemical construction of that before it to work. But
that adage that oil and water do not mix, is somewhat true
in the basic level of understanding. But this is true in the basic
level of understanding also, more spiritually than physically,
is that light and darkness do not mix. What is the mixture
of light and darkness? Light. If light exists, there is no
darkness. If light is shining, I keep a
flashlight in my pocket 24-7. and I've recently downsized my
flashlight, so it is what we call our everyday carry flashlight.
This is a flashlight, and I can turn it on, it's my first object
lesson ever, and that's my reading light. But if I really need to
get out there, I can turn it on bright. How y'all like that?
See, there was no darkness then where that light was shining.
I didn't realize it would be that bright in here. Sorry about
that. But now y'all can't see me. That was the point. I should
have had that in my pocket the day, but it was in my bag the
day the lights went out and I couldn't find my bag because it was in
the back. But we are surely to understand that simple principle
that when light is on and shining, darkness is overcome. So when the light of God's grace,
when the light of God's glory is revealed to the human nature
and to the human mind, guess what? Darkness is overcome. That person is no longer in the
darkness. That person is no longer unregenerate. That person is no longer lost
without hope in the world, for the light has found them and
shined upon them. Now the imagery that Jesus gives there in the
ninth chapter, He talks about as long as it is day, let us
do the work. He's talking figuratively about
Himself before the cross. That at the day of His crucifixion,
at the hour of His death, of course we see darkness physically
over the earth and we also see metaphorically the spiritual
darkness that without Christ there is nothing but death. There
is nothing but darkness. But O Christ does not stay dead,
He is raised to life on the third day. And therefore the light
of God shines as it has always shone in the hearts of His people,
so that they may see and believe. So that they would have hope
that rests outside of them. The beacon, just like lighthouses. I've always loved lighthouses.
I just like the architecture of lighthouses. There's just
something about them. But sometime in my high school days, I sort
of started to emphasize a lighthouse as a symbol of the gospel. Because
I hate the sea. I fear the sea. I would not go
on a cruise if I could help it. I'm trying to work myself up
to get over that, but as long as I have been alive, I have
always been fearful of being out to sea. I can't imagine what
it would be like hundreds of years ago to be on an archaic
boat for months, being taken wherever the water and the wind
chose to take you, and not being able to see anything in a sky
except the stars. And then when the storms came,
seeing nothing but blackness, I've been where I could not see
the hand in front of my face, where you could do this and you
could feel the presence of the air and the molecules moving,
but you cannot see a thing, though your eyes are wide open. Friends, that is the state of
the spiritually dead. And even when Christ is shining
before them, without the Holy Spirit regenerating them, they
see nothing. Though they feel the motions
of the breeze of Christ moving before them, they cannot see
Him. That is the condition of the spiritually dead. And that
is the condition throughout the totality of the New Testament
of those who are indeed self-reliant, self-assured, self-religious,
and self-righteous. Verse 24, chapter 9. So for the
second time they called the man who had been born blind and said
to him, Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.
And he answered, Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing
I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. They said to
Him, What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes? He
answered, 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? And so, verse 28, they reviled
Him, saying, You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we
do not know where he comes from. And the man answered, ìWhy, this
is an amazing thing. You donít know where he comes
from, and yet he opened my eyes.î We know that God does not listen
to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper 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. But they
answered him, ìYou were born in utter sin, and you would teach
us?î And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast
him out, and having found him, he said, Do you believe in the
Son of Man? He answered, Who is he, sir,
that I might believe in him? And Jesus said, You have seen
him, and it is he who is speaking to you. And he said, Lord, I
believe. And he worshipped him. And Jesus
said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do
not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of
the Pharisees near Him heard these things and said to Him,
Are we also blind? And Jesus said to them, If you
were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say,
We see, your guilt remains. I'm going to jot back a little
bit into last week. and reemphasize some things and
go into the end of this. And we'll end, we probably won't
get into verse 39 today, but we will end in verse 38 for those
of you who sort of keep track. So here this man is called again
to give account again. If you remember last week, we
emphasized the fact that they just wanted to hear the method.
What were they after? They were after the trick that
Jesus used. They were after the principle
of how Jesus did what He did. They wanted the details so they
could pick out what? They could pick out just how
many times Jesus violated the Sabbath. That's what they wanted. So what did you do here? And
what did he do here? And what did he do there? And what did he
do there? And he'd already told them the details of how this
man, he didn't know, he'd never seen. This man had never seen
Jesus. He was blind when he left Jesus. When he came back from
washing his face, he could see. They wanted to see. Did he spit
in the dirt? Did He tell you to walk? Did He go here? Did
He do that? Did He do something different?
He violated the law of God. Therefore, this man is a sinner,
so he could not be from God, so this must be the work of the
devil." Friends, that's not true. The work of Christ is not the
work of the devil. As a matter of fact, we see Jesus speaking in
the Synoptics when He talks to the Pharisees, and they call
His work what? The power of Beelzebub. Look
what the devil, look what the enemy, look what the evil one
is doing. And Jesus makes it clear that
this is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And that is to have clear,
authoritative evidence that the work of God is before you. And
all of that, I'm echoing back there, and all of that, knowing
clearly, is divine work. Calling it the work of the enemy.
Friends, I'm going to say this and I want you to hear it very
clearly. Those who call the sovereign grace of God in election the
work of the enemy are blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I'll say it again. Those who
call the sovereignty of God in election the work of the enemy
are blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Because what is clearly taught
in Scripture from beginning to end is the work of God in redemption. Now what I'm not saying, like
I always like to say, don't hear what I'm not saying, I'm not
saying that when we question it and work it out and dig and
seek to understand that we're rejecting it. But when we say,
like I hear often, that's the doctrine, the teaching of demons. When we hear, I don't want to
hear this unbiblical stuff. When we hear people say, I don't
care what your interpretation is, this is not biblical, this
is untrue, this is evil. These people are blaspheming
the Holy Spirit. What's the remedy of that? God's sovereign grace. That's
the irony of it. The only way we can overcome
spiritual blindness is that we can't overcome it. That the light,
who is Christ, must overcome it. Christ must overcome unbelief. Not apologetics. Not teaching. Not intellect. I made the comment
last week and it's very fitting. Christians aren't smart because
they believe the Bible. As a matter of fact, according
to Paul, it's not smart to believe the Gospel. According to the
world standard. 1 Corinthians, none of you are
wise. Where's the soothsayer? Where
are the wise of the age? For God takes the wise and does
away with them with the... What? With the foolish. God takes
the wisdom of this age and destroys it with the foolishness of the
cross. God takes the strength of this age and destroys it with
weakness. Paul would confess that in his weakness, Christ
is all strength. So therefore, I boast all the
more about my weakness. I boast all the more about my
stupidity. I boast all the more about my ignorance. I boast all
the more about the lack of my wisdom. For Christ, 1 Corinthians,
is my wisdom. Christ is my righteousness. Christ
is my sanctification, Paul says. It's not about us convincing
someone. Those who are convinced of the
sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus, who died for the sins
of His people alone, these are the ones who the Holy Spirit
has opened their eyes and caused them to see. Because when we get to chapter
10, beloved, we're going to see just what Jesus says about these
blind guys who say they can see. And I want you to not place,
when you start thinking about applying, I firmly believe that
doctrine rightly held is not thoroughly grasped and understood
until it's rightly applied. So learning the gospel, great.
You're born again and God has revealed the gospel to you, awesome.
Now what? So what? What difference does
it make when you get a report like we prayed for this morning
of a child who drown. What difference does it make
when you get a report that you're ill, or your marriage is gone,
or your finances are through, or your family, whatever might
happen. What is it, what difference does it make that the gospel,
it makes all difference. We believe in the gospel of grace.
We believe in the power of Christ. We believe in this reality that
seems surreal. that God has done this work and
has set us apart for Himself that we might be His righteousness
because we are His children so He has effectually saved us through
Jesus Christ who died in our place and paid for our debt to
God. He took the wrath of God for
us and He was raised to life with the promise that we also
would be made new in our bodies and be raised to life as He is
raised. And the difference it makes is
that it puts everything in perspective. It makes the very mundane realities
of our world almost silly. But for the religious, for the
self-righteous, for the self-assured, for those self-holy people like
the Pharisees who are blind spiritually, the only thing they have is what
they build in this life, you see. The only thing they have
in order for them to feel in some way close to God is what
they can look at and go, look at how godly I have created my
life. But then they will what? Thank
God for it. They will view themselves in a place of righteousness and
then give God the credit for their self-righteousness. How
wicked! I thank you God that I'm not like the other guy. I
thank you, God, that I am not a drunk. I thank you, God, that
I'm not a crackhead. I thank you, God, that I'm not
an adulterer. I thank you, God, oh, oh, oh, oh, I thank you,
God. But the one who has eyes to see
says this, God, propitiate for me a sinner. Oh, God, have mercy
on me a sinner. Oh, God, without your grace I
am doomed. Oh, God, please, please, Forgive
me, you see. Jesus uses that illustration
with the publican and the Pharisee. He says the Pharisee went home
condemned, though he gave credit to God for his own good works. But the publican could see that
he was a sinner, and he cried out for mercy because he had
been born of God. See how close this is to us? If I were to do an instruction
or give you an instruction to take out a piece of paper and
write down the names of three people that you think fit in
each category, you'd have some names. And some of us may not know where
to put ourselves. Some days we feel like the Pharisee,
we've got it all together and we're sort of pompous. And other
days we feel like the publican and other days we feel like the
publican on fire with stones being thrown at us by the Pharisees.
That's what this man felt like. That's what this blind man who
had been given sight felt like. That's what the ridicule of Christ is
all about. The passion of Christ is about what he endured in his
physical flesh for the sake of the elect. Because the task set before Him
for the glory of the Father, He looked past it so that He
would see the future of His own glorification, His return to
the glory that He had before as He prays in John 17. For the
sake of saving His people from their sins. Friends, when you think about
who we are, we must recognize we are sinners saved by grace.
We must keep that in the forefront of our mind, not to despair. I had a conversation with a brother
on the phone last night. Many people in our current evangelical
culture want to create this constant tug, this constant pressure. Not a lot of pressure, just enough
pressure to keep you in a spot. Keep your heads turned in the
right direction. Just enough pressure. And people think that that's
good biblical teaching. It's not shepherding whatsoever.
As a matter of fact, shepherding, gospel shepherding is to give
you freedom. Because a burden on you creates
fear and condemnation. And that's exactly what the Pharisees
do. Anyone who holds you bondage to transforming your life to
a place where they think you need to be in order to honor
God that's not explicitly in Scripture, they are holding you bondage
because they are in bondage. And bless God, they want you
to be joyful like them in chains. You ever met a joyful legalist? No, because, I mean, if truth
be known, the monastics were legalists. The people that go home throughout
the centuries and tie barbed wire around their legs and bleed
themselves. Martin Luther did that for a
while. He whipped his own back. He knew he wasn't good enough.
I must be good enough. I must be good enough. I must
do something. You're never good enough. None
of us are ever good enough. And God is not transforming us
into a measure of righteousness in this life because the greatest
righteousness of any human being other than the Christ is unrighteousness. That's why Christ's righteousness
must be our righteousness. We are God's workmanship in Christ. But we take this, I mean, legalists
don't have joy, fearful people don't have joy. The other side
of that, it's either fear and condemnation, the other side
of that is liberty and thanksgiving. What does Paul say to the church
of Ephesus? I'm going to close my sermon with this text today.
No, I'm not closing it now, but when I do close it, it's going
to be with this text. To the praise of His glorious grace.
God has established His body, or Christ has established His
body because of His work of redemption to the praise of the glorious
grace of God. So we praise God for His glorious mercy. Because
of His love with which He loved us, He caused us to be born again,
Peter says, to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ
from the dead. Paul tells the Thessalonians,
We are not destined for wrath, but to obtain life through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And whether we
live or die, that's my translation, whether we're awake or whether
we're asleep, we live in Christ. We're alive in Christ. So there's
no condemnation ever. You know what guilt is? Guilt
is not conviction. Guilt is not the discipline of
the Holy Spirit. Guilt. Guilt is condemnation. So guilt comes from the devil.
That's the way I define it. I am guilty before the Lord in
the reality of who I am, in the sinfulness of my depraved nature,
and the practices and the deeds thereof. But in Christ, I am
no longer guilty before God. Neither are you, beloved. For
God cannot call you beloved if He calls you guilty. Because
if you are guilty, you are condemned. You are no longer guilty, though
you have been guilty. And friends, this is the heartbeat
of the gospel. And I can hear them now. I can
hear the words of well-meaning people who may have some physical
or emotional attachment and call it love, but it's not gospel
love. They will say, what you're saying
is that you all as Christians can do anything you want to do
and you can just sin and you can live this life in the flesh.
Where is that found anywhere? That is the most illogical, ridiculous,
and childish defense that could ever be given to the gospel of
grace. And quite honestly, as I said
last week, we don't have to give an answer to it. This man says, why are you asking
me this question again? I've already told you why you
didn't listen then. Why do we need to listen? I mean,
why do I need to say it again? Do you want to be his disciple? And when you say stuff like that
to people, are you wanting to know the gospel? Do you want
to know the freedom that comes in Christ? Do you want to be
free in Christ? Is that why you're asking these
questions? Or are you truly, are you inquiring to grow and
know? Or are you truly trying to catch me in something? See,
that's the difference. The spiritual leaders who are
self-righteous catch you in something. They inquire until they get what
they need. And they got what they needed with this guy. They
got what they needed when He said Jesus was not a sinner but
from God. What? You're out of here. You
want to be our disciples? And then they continued to inquire
and He says, I can't believe, look at verse 30, this is an
amazing thing. You don't know where He comes from? Yet He opened
my eyes. You don't know where He comes
from? Look what He says in verse 31. This is the argument we want
to unpack this morning. We know that God does not listen to sinners.
Premise. We know that if anyone is a worshipper
of God and does His will, God does listen to him. Now, don't
read in too much there. Keep a Judaistic or, you know,
keep the mindset of where he is and who he's talking to. Those
who obey God and do His will and worship Him. You know what
that boils down to? Those who know God. Those who
know God. God listens to Him. Now that's
an indictment because they're saying God doesn't listen to
Jesus because Jesus is a sinner because He broke their interpretation
of the Jewish law. So now this man who has been
an outcast from birth is now in their midst and is saying
to them, God only listens to those people who are His, those
who worship Him, those who love Him, those who do His will. And then he clarifies, never
since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened
the eyes of a man born blind. I'll tell you what, if any of
you are law students in the building, this is a really good argument. Why is it good? Because it's
ironclad. It's ironclad. He makes his assertions
based on what is true in the Pharisees' own understanding
of the law. of Scripture. And he uses the same syllogism,
if I can. That's exactly what it is. He
uses the same thing that they argued that Jesus, those who
do the will of God and obey the law of God are from God, but
those who don't are not. So Jesus did not. So therefore,
he must not be of God. He's a sinner. So this man, I
believe by the power of the Spirit, argues back equally to these
Jews, and there is nothing that they can say. The Pharisees have
already admitted ignorance. Haven't they? We don't know where
he's from. This man is appalled. This man is bewildered. What?
How can you say you don't know where this man's from? It's obvious
where he's from. It's obvious he's from God. Now,
the crazy thing about that is this blindness. Watch this blindness.
This blindness. Have you ever had peripheral
blindness? I have a pretty wide peripheral. I can see the keyboard
when I'm looking straight. It's not as good as it used to
be. I used to be able to see about right here. That's about the
cutoff for me now. But peripheral, now, you ever
have peripheral blindness? It's really strange. When I get migraine,
sometimes I'll get peripheral blindness to start with, then
I get complete blindness with all these pinwheels, ferris wheels,
coolers, whatever you want to call them, that's spinning around
and making rainbows. And it's, you miss a lot. But in the beginning
of Jesus' ministry, what is it that the Jews, they had blindness,
but they could see a little bit. What did they do? They sent Nicodemus
to confess their own ideas of who Jesus was in John 3. Don't
forget this. Nicodemus said, We know that
you are from God, for no one can, what? Do the things that
you do except God be with him. So the Pharisees sent Nicodemus
to confess to Jesus, we know that you are from God, for it
is obvious that the things you do, only those who are from God
can do. Are you the Christ? Are you the
prophet? You see that? And now they say, we don't know
where he's from. That's what spiritual blindness is. Spiritual
blindness gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. It gets darker and darker and
darker to the point of absurdity, to the point of indignation,
to the point of murder. That's what they did to Jesus.
That's what gossip is according to the Scripture. That's what
talking even the truth about someone else to someone else
without them present is. It's murder if it's not positively
encouraging about that person's character. Such has been many Baptist prayer
meetings throughout the centuries. This is an amazing thing. They've
already admitted ignorance. He opened my eyes. God doesn't
listen to sinners, but if anyone knows and loves God, God listens
to him. And never since the world began
that it's heard anyone's eyes has been opened. Of a man born blind,
if this man were not from God, verse 33, he could do nothing.
Now these Pharisees were in a stupor. They were without words. There
was nothing else for them to do. Now keep in mind too, this
is public. See, we often put first century
Palestine in our own cultural distinctives. And we shouldn't
do that. We should picture, like I talked
about last week, what it must be like for these people. Even
if we have to go to archaeological studies and historians, we can
see what it's like in some sense. And it's a real good exercise
for us to get our feet in the biblical narrative. It doesn't
mean we have to do that in order to see the clear, direct arguments
of Scripture about doctrine and theology. Those are easy without
that. But when we see these dialogues,
it really does help us. It helps us to see that this
is not a private meeting with three men and a blind man. And
they said, OK, now call your parents in here. No, this is
standing in the public square of the temple area with everybody
listening. And you also need to understand
the Pharisees love to be heard. They love to get an audience.
They love, as a church that I was a part of years ago, they love
to get on the phone and get people on their side. They love to go
out and send the emails and the texts and the Facebook messages.
They love to get an audience. and love to stand and be admired,
not by those who are in Christ, but by those who love their glory. Like the very men and women who
saw this blind man seeing and wanted to gain some brownie points
with the Pharisees by taking him in to them. Submitting and yielding to their
judgment on this matter. Not the man's testimony of God's
work in his life through Jesus Christ, but their testimony. their judgment on this man's
testimony. When he says, I don't know what
you're talking about. I can't answer any of these questions,
but I was blind and now I see. These people were in a stupor.
They were loudly rebuked publicly and they didn't know what else
to do. So what they do is they say, You were born in
utter sin. This is where we left off last
week. And you would teach us. Now, see, before he was made
alive, listen to this for a second. That's where this man stood in
his own heart. He could never be good enough.
He could never be accepted in the religious circles of his
day. He would never be a member of society. He would never be
prosperous. He would never have a family.
He would never ever be anything. He was a nobody. He was a nobody. And that is exactly what comes
out of these people's mouths. You were a nothing to us. We
can't fellowship with you, you blind man, because you were born
in utter sin, and now you're going to come in here because
you've got your eyes and you think you're going to teach us? We know who you
really are in life. We know what you're really up
to. The Pharisees acted as if they had some divine insight.
They could know the heart of man. They could know the true
intentions of every action. Friends, we can't know the true
intentions of every action. We can speculate, we can assume,
we can postulate, we can do all sorts of things to consider what
someone might be really doing on the inside, but never can
we make a judgment except where God has made the judgment. And
even then, all we can do is say that God said this, if the shoe
fits, wear it. But we can never see the heart
of men, even through their actions. What it must have been like for
some of those people incarcerated with John the Baptist during
the latter days of his life before his head was taken from his body
because of the arrogance of Herod and his just pompousness. And he inquired with some of
his, or he dialogued with some of his disciples who had already
said to him, you know, look at there, Jesus, there's a lot of
people leaving us, John. And John said, the bridegroom
gets the bride. I must decrease that he might
increase." And the decrease for John the Baptist was to die.
And there he is in jail thinking he would continually be a preacher
of the gospel, pointing to Christ, and now all of a sudden he has
a little bit of a doubt in him, doesn't he? He sends for his
disciples, he says, please go and inquire once more if this
is truly the Christ. What's that imply? That implies
he wasn't sure at that moment. But by the utterance of God,
the Holy Spirit, he was confident that Jesus was the Lamb of God
that took away the sins of his people who are of the world. He was confident that Jesus was
the one who came from God. He was confident that he was
before him, though he was born after him. But at this moment,
he was weak. Imagine what it was like for
those people in that earshot to think, see, I knew he was
a fake. He doesn't believe in Christ.
He doesn't believe. He's just a charlatan. Now that he's locked
up, all faith is gone. Look at that. He's not even standing
on his own principles. What a girly man. What a weak preacher. But God was faithful to sustain
John. God took him into His presence
the moment his head left his body. And when Christ died, he
saw Christ in a way you and I have never seen Him. Listen, we don't
judge a man's heart. We cannot do it. And especially
those who are self-assured cannot judge us. But when they do judge,
let them judge us for what we proclaim. Let them judge us and
hate us for what we teach. that Christ is God in the flesh,
that Christ who created the world, created Mary, the womb inside
of her, and the body for Himself, and was born as a person, as
a human being without original sin, and He lived a life of physical
obedience and spiritual obedience to God the Father, perfectly
fulfilling all the law of God. the righteousness of God revealed
in the human person of Jesus Christ completely. And then He
taught and revealed the gospel of grace and the work of God
the Father through His life and through His death that took on
the sins of His people and satisfied the judgment of God forevermore,
forevermore, for the sake of His body, the bride, the church,
the elect. And then God raised Him from
the dead. And the same power that raised Christ from the dead
has raised you to life and opened your eyes that you may see and
behold the fullness of the glory of God and the majesty of His
glory so that you would know without any hesitation that you
are indeed in Christ. And that there is no hope outside
of all the cosmos except in Jesus and His blood who is our righteousness. This is what we preach. And this is what we hold to.
And this is why we do not stand condemned today, beloved. This
is how we have intimacy that's beyond the world's comprehension. This is why even when things
get frustrating, we stay put so that we might love each other
because there is a very great famine in the world with the
gospel of grace. And it's hard to have a family
when you're not in the same bloodline. We are in the bloodline of Christ,
spiritually speaking. This man argued, no longer that he was born in
utter sin, it didn't give him despair anymore. He just says,
I don't know. But I will tell you this, God
does not listen to sinners, nor answer their prayers, nor work
for them. And only God can open the eyes
of the blind. This man opened my eyes, so God
listened to him." God's not listening to you. Let me tell you something,
beloved. Many people offer to pray. I mean, I don't know anybody. Literally, I can't name one.
Well, I can. I can name four people. But I can't name any
specific individual outside of those four people that I personally
know, who if you say, hey, pray for me, I will. Or if you tell
them something's going on, they'll say, I'll pray for you. They
never do. Or they might. We don't know. I always find
it very convenient to write it down and pray for them right
then, even if they're still talking, and then pray that God will also
remind me of it, and I will pray as God brings it to mind. But there are many people who
say they're praying to God, but they are not in Christ. So they're
not praying to God. God does not hear the prayers
of the unregenerate. He doesn't. They're not praying
to God. They're praying to no one. It's
like years ago when I went and saw a movie in the Thanksgiving
season. I think it was 2012, 2013. And I've said this before, but
the previews, you know how you have like six hours of previews
and all these commercials and you get to watch your movie?
It's like getting to the airport. You get there so early for no
reason. But we're watching this previews and the screen goes
black and there's a famous person standing here and says, I'm grateful.
Somebody else, I'm thankful. Be thankful. And I just wanted
to yell out, to who? Gratitude has an object. Yes,
we could argue, oh, it's a feeling. Yeah, it's a feeling, but gratefulness
has to have some type of recipient. Thanksgiving offers praise, and
it has to have some type of object. So the praise is either to our
own joy in our own flesh, in our own purpose, or to somebody
else, or to God. And when an unbeliever worships
and prays, who rejects the gospel of grace, even in the name of
some Jesus, which is a very common name, They're not praying to
God. The Pharisees had never prayed
to God. Think about that. God does not listen to the prayers
of those who don't know Him. Because it is only by the knowledge
of God, who is who? Jesus Christ, that we can even
know that we have the authority to pray to the ears of our Father.
Because He is our Father. Because we are in Christ. That's
the adoption. In verse 34, the Hakkas have
already said, you were born in utter sin and yet you would teach
us. Isn't that the nature? Those types of people aren't
praying to God, they're not born of God, they're not in the body
of God, they do not believe in the gospel of grace, they hold
to a standard of righteousness that even the scripture doesn't
call for, and everything else that goes along with them, they
claim to be with God, and yet they're not. And then when a
sinner who's been saved by grace shares with them the Word of
God, they reject it. When Jesus, who is God, who is
not a sinner, shares with them the truth of God, they reject
it. So they accuse Him of sin and they cast Him out. This is a statement of outrage.
I think it went something like this. How dare you teach us who
were born in utter sin and they grabbed hold of him and the temple
guards with them and they threw him out like a drunk from a bar. I think they dragged him all
the way across the courts and threw him right out the front
gate. And everybody's going, stay away
from that guy. Stay away from that guy. He's
just been banished from life. It's not like getting thrown
out of the Woolworth or the Revco or the Walmart. You just go to
another one. Y'all know that reference. It's like, I don't
know why that popped in there, sorry. It's like being thrown
out of life. Growing up in a law enforcement
family, there's always been the jokes hanging around judges and
hearing them talk sometimes. And some of them said, I wish
I had the power of banishment. I banish you from the state of
Georgia. I'll build us a wall around it and keep him out. Bad joke. But this man was banished. This
man was banished. He was through. They accused
him of sin and then they cast him out. The glory of God is
revealed in Jesus Christ's work in this man's life. And they
refused and were unable to see it. That which they used to say
he was from God, now he's of the devil. The work that they
used to marvel at seeing, now they say is evil. And those who
are witnesses to it and confess it as the work of God were cast
out. To be cast outside the camp of
Israel historically was to be put in utter darkness. It was
to live in the place where garbage was burned. It was to live in
the place where sewage ran. It was to live amongst the Gentile
people who were considered unclean. It was to live in a way that
sealed one's condemnation to be outside the camp. Jesus was
cast away outside the camp. The body of Christ then also
will be cast outside the camp of mainstream religion. Mainstream,
quote, Christianity. Mainstream, quote, evangelicalism. There is no love in the hearts
of people who cannot stand and lovingly say to their fellow
friends, so-called brothers and sisters, what you are saying
is not of the Scripture. What you are learning and teaching
and expositing is not of God. But because we want to go play
golf and rub elbows and enjoy coffee and have good fellowship
around the simplicities of life, we say nothing. Someone told me this week they
were talking with a client on the phone and that person said
to them, how can I pray for you? Sort of rare to hear someone
ask that in a business. And they said, well, there's
some things that you can pray for if you want to pray. And
after that, the person says, well, let me share with you the
plan of salvation. And this person, who's a member
of our church, said, well, what do you mean? And something like
this, it's not verbatim. Well, there's five steps for
you to be saved. And this person goes, no, I'm
sorry. It's the finished work of Jesus
Christ alone by grace to be received by faith. I have no interest
in hearing that false gospel said that. And crazy enough, the person
didn't not do business with them. But see how easy it is just to
go, oh, that's nice. Love, listen to me, true love
corrects. But true love corrects patiently
and kindly. It wasn't like, are you an idiot?
That's not the gospel clinic. I mean, you know, that's not
what it's like. That's what we want to say because it's easier.
Hang up the phone. Is your refrigerator running?
Well, yes. Well, you better go catch it because that's about the only thing you
know how to do. I mean, back when we used to have phones,
we used to prank call. That was one of those. Prince Albert was not in the
can after I was about eight. The work of Christ is revealed,
but they can't see it. They can't see past their own self-glory.
The righteousness of God is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ,
but the self-righteous refuse and are unable to see past their
own self-righteousness. Jesus, like this blind man, no
matter the power, are sinners in the eyes of the self-righteous. No matter what we do, no matter
what we profess, no matter what we claim, we're going to be just
like our Savior in the eyes of people who reject the gospel. Are you seeing the pattern now?
Those who reject the gospel are not the atheists and the cults
and the world religions. They're also, in great majority,
those who claim to be in Christ. The Jews claim to be in God,
but they were not. In any way, they weren't near
Him, they weren't close to Him, they did not know Him. These people thought themselves
as the disciples of Moses. They didn't even recognize who
Moses was speaking of. Seeking the righteousness that
is enabled by God to them, as I said before. Oh, look what
God's done in me. They sought to follow the way
of Moses' instruction and thus prove themselves right before
God. Well, it was ineffectual. Moses, because, on the other
hand, Moses and all the other prophets pointed to Christ. All
the laws pointed to the perfection of Christ. Everything pointed
to the work of Christ. That's the point of this teaching. There's no old way in which the
Jews followed and then a new way in which the New Testament
church follows. There's one way and His name is Jesus. One truth,
one life. He is the way and the truth and
the life. And no one, Jew or Gentile, has
ever nor ever will come to God except through Him and His work. Jesus is not the addition. I
said to one of the youth this week, most people treat the gospel
like an accept Jesus button at the end of the subway line, subway
to the restaurant. Yeah, I'd like to get that, put
all that on there, yeah, do that, cut it in half, yeah, nuke it. Alright,
hey, what's this? Would you like eternal life in
Jesus? Yeah, sure, meh. That's all it is in our culture. Just
an addendum. Just this addendum, no teaching
of Scripture, no teaching of the Gospel, just obedience, obedience,
obedience, do this, do this, do that, do that. Oh yeah, well
it's all about grace. And it's all about grace. Now you better get this, this,
this, this, and this. You better do all this. You better get all that.
You better be all that. How about we work out sin when it comes
up together? Because we love each other. How about we be a lot more patient
with each other long before we get frustrated? Because the Gospel
of Grace says that I deserve the death eternally that Jesus
took. But God in His mercy, because
of His love for me, gave me life in Christ. He gave it to me.
It's a finished job. The job is done. Moses pointed to Christ. Jesus
and His finished work of redemption is the point of, as I've said
already earlier, human history, is the point of the light of
creation, that God would be revealed to His people in the redemption
of His Son who bled on the cross and died. Some people consider
the Scripture a place where the nuggets of life are hidden, as
I've referred to early on. I want to go here and find that.
I want to go here and find that. It's like a needle in a haystack.
I want to find salvation in the haystack. when the haystack is
just all salvation. And to use that same metaphor,
it's all needles. That doesn't sound too appealing
anyway. And the reality is that the Word
of God in all of its fullness shows us salvation because it
reveals to us Christ. We see it because we've been
made alive by the Spirit. We see it because we have been
chosen by God. We see it because God in His
love for us has caused us to see, just like He caused that
man to see in a physical way. He caused us to see in a spiritual
way. Christ, of course, in the Old
Testament was dimly revealed, but now brightly shining even
in this day through the apostles' writings. Many think that finding
eternal life, like the Pharisees, is about knowing the law and
about obeying the law. following the rules, making oneself
upright, being transformed by God. But that's not the point
of the Old Testament. The point of the Old Testament is to point
to the finished work of Christ. It's a gracious act of God. As Jesus is the way and the truth
and the life on the way to God through Jesus Christ, any deviance
on the way to Christ is death. One foot on the road straight
to Jesus while pointing our toe like a dog on the other side
of the road is death. Grabbing a different type of
attire on the way there is death. Thinking we've got to lace up
our shoes so we can walk a little bit faster is death. Christ alone
is the way to righteousness, for He is our righteousness. Even if one does try to work
themselves into a pattern of life that seemingly to them looks
like Christ, in the end, if they are measured by Christ, they
fall short of the glory of God. Salvation is of the Lord. Redemption
is a finished work. The gospel is good news, beloved,
whereby we are not condemned and we are not guilty and we
are set free from the bondage of sin, which is death. And then the instructions to
the elect, to those who are born again, to those who are the church,
we get to see it and we get to relish in it. We don't have a
burden anymore. That's what John talks about.
The commands of Christ are not a burden to the believer. Why?
Because it's not about our fulfilling them that matters. Christ fulfilled them. And even
when we strive to love the Lord because of our love for Him and
His love for us, and we strive to love each other imperfectly,
as it ebbs and flows, we do so together as we mature in the
gospel of grace, never changing our hope in the position that
we stand before God justified forever. Grace saves. The effectual power of
God for the elect person to be redeemed, born again, and the
gift of faith to see and trust all of it is God's mercy. Grace
is the adjective, if I can, of the gospel, the gospel of grace,
the gracious gospel, the glorious grace of God. And Jesus heard, verse 35, that
many had cast Him out. And He found them. And Jesus
asked the question, do you believe in the Son of Man? If your Bible
says Son of God, scratch out God and put man. The context here would not use
God. And the majority of the manuscripts don't use God. It's
man. It's important that Jesus is seen. And throughout the Gospel
of John, that's the only title he takes. So John wouldn't change
that there. Jesus wouldn't do that. That's
the point. It's the Son of Man. And the answer, the resolution
to this man's rejection is here. He's kicked out. He thinks he's
been put in darkness, but in actuality, he's been dragged
out of darkness into light. And where he is, Christ is. And
he doesn't know who Christ is. He doesn't know what he looks
like. He just knows, this man healed me. but he'd been given
spiritual eyes beyond his own comprehension. Listen to this.
Jesus finds him and says very clearly, do you trust in the
Son of Man? The answer to this man's rejection
is Jesus Christ. The light and the darkness never coexist. The
light always cancels out the darkness. Those who are of the
light shine brightly against the darkness, not because they're
bold or that they troll or they stand and stomp their feet, because
they shine the simple knowledge of God's grace in Jesus, period.
This man shone the simple knowledge of God's grace in Jesus simply
because Christ had found him. People are ostracized because
of brazenness, but brazenness is not a reason to be cut off.
Ambassadors should be quiet and teach with all humility. The
Spirit divides the light dwellers from the dark dwellers by the
nature of the blind, clenching their eyes tighter and tighter.
They clench their eyes tighter and tighter so tightly that they
cannot see what is obvious before them. This is what Jesus talks
about in verse 38 and 39. Just like Sinai. When Moses came
down, his face was glowing, and his face was glowing, and the
people said, please cover your face. We hate the shining. We don't want to hear another
word that comes from the mouth of God. When we stand as gospel-powered
sheep, proclaiming the light of Christ, The reprobate, the
unregenerate, the lost hate us. The self-righteous hate us. It
is one of the hardest things for me to deal with in life.
It's when someone who says they're my brother hates me because of
the gospel. This image of even Moses at Sinai
is the actual truth those people who are self-righteous. Work
addendums for assurance and evidence in the life of the believer is
hogwash. It's a ridiculous assertion of an unconverted mind that continues
to walk in darkness by stumbling over sin and calling it good.
Self-declared spiritual people like these Pharisees, they will
spiritualize their efforts to be right. And they will make
right the sense of their own view of things by appealing to
the tradition, or the history, or to the authority, or slander,
like they did with Jesus and this man, or pressure, or emotion. This man had been abandoned and
refused by those who were in darkness, who claimed to see,
but he would soon find, and he did find here, that he lost all
things in life in order to gain all things in Christ. Jesus' face was never seen by
this man. But Jesus found him and Jesus asked him, knowing
what had happened, do you believe in the Son of Man? Notice that
Jesus doesn't say anything about what He was going to do in the
redemptive work of the future of the cross. He didn't explain
theologically a dissertation of all the high theology of Christology. He'd done that already in public
in John 6 and some other places. John 3 with Nicodemus. I'm sure
that everyone had heard about what Messiah would do. But what
God did in the life of this man, not only did He give him physical
sight, He gave him spiritual life. And immediately, without
any other expectation of knowledge, this man believed in the Son
of Man. So this man asked, and in the
context there, We might say, well, why is it the Son of Man?
Because Jesus is the God-Man. He is the One born of woman that
fully reveals God perfectly and uniquely, shining as the light
of God that will overcome the darkness. The fullness of the
glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ the Son. And from all
of His fullness we receive grace upon grace. From Moses we receive the law,
but from Jesus we receive grace and truth. The Son of Man is the title that
Jesus most passionately held to because it is one thing to
say, I am God, and I am God's Son, but it's another thing to
say, I am a human also. And Jesus' work on the cross
is that He and His humanity would suffer the penalty of the judgment
of God for the sake of God's people. And the work of redemption
would be finished. So Jesus is saying, do you trust
in the Son of Man? It's like saying, do you believe in this
man that has come from God to show you God and His work? You see, Jesus is not to be seen
as the Pharisees saw Him through the law. Jesus is supposed to
reveal what the law actually means. God is displayed in all
the glory through Christ fully and true. The law was a dim-lit
picture of Jesus, and only Jesus' teaching and only Jesus' work
and only Jesus' accomplishments show the truth of the intention
and purpose of the law of God. The Pharisees wanted to interpret
Jesus through the law, but Scripture shows that Jesus is the Word
that interprets the law. You see how backwards we've gotten
in our culture? Praise the Lord for His glorious grace that you
were not stuck and remained in unbelief. That you did not get
stuck into a works-based religion. That you were not held captive
by a cultural Christianity that you feel comfortable with every
day as you lay down at night going, yeah, I did my duty. Nothing
wrong with duty, but beloved, don't put any stock in it. Jesus is the Son of Man. In John
5, we see that Jesus says that God has given the Son of Man
authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man.
And this baffled the Pharisees. So Jesus in His humanity is the
perfect ruler and the judge of all things. As God, He interprets
Himself as He rightly displays Himself and reveals the Father
to all of His people. This is inclusive of the purpose
and the nature and the efficacy of His work of redemption. I
want you to hear that. Knowing that Jesus is a man and
He is from God, that's awesome. And that's part of understanding
the fullness of who God is. But unless we know that what
Jesus reveals as the gospel is true, we have not been made alive. So this man says, who is He that
I might believe? See, that sounds funny, doesn't
it? Well, tell me more about it. That's not what he's saying in the context
there. If we look at it in the way that it's intended, he's
sort of like, Which one is He? Point Him to me. Who is He? I
believe in Him. Show Him to me. I want to see. And Jesus says, what does He
say? Jesus says, you have seen Him, and it is He who is speaking
to you. And He calls Him Lord, and He
worshiped Him. See, that's the outcome. I told
you I was going to end with Ephesians. To the praise of His glorious
grace. That's what we do as the church.
No matter how much we get bogged down in learning, how much we
get bogged down in working, how much we get bogged down in dealing
with all the things that we have to deal with in life and with
the church and without the church and all these things. When I
say without, I mean outside of and within. The ultimate end
of all of our life is the praise of His glorious grace. It's what
we can do this very day as we're reminded verse by verse, chapter
by chapter, letter by letter of the finished work of God in
Christ Jesus. Do you understand that the Word of God is so starved
in the world today that people are wanting to move to this place
to be with you? They don't want to be with me. They see my face. They hear the
teaching of the Word of God. They don't want to be with me.
They want to be with you. They want to be with us. They want intimacy
around the Gospel. But don't take that lightly.
It baffles me. And it burdens me. May God plant
more congregations. May God equip elders across this
world to take care of His sheep. And I know that He will. pray
not just for the elect of this congregation, but for the elect
of all sorts of places and in all sorts of cults and in all
sorts of other areas of the world that God would call His elect
out. He will. And that God will secure His
elect through the hearing of the Gospel. And that those who
are striving and struggling to be intimate with the body would
break away from the traditions of their grounding and would
fall into a place where they can be intimate around the truth.
The Word of God is not boring to the church. You might think, well, how many
more weeks are we going to be in John's Gospel? I would say
a lot. A hundred maybe? A hundred and
twenty? More weeks. So we've got some years left
in this. We're pushing two years already. It's hard to believe
if you look at just the counting. And some people have said to
me, well, why don't we just get to something else? Get to some
meaty stuff. This is the meaty stuff of the
Gospel. It's what God intended for the
sheep. And that's what chapter 10 is all about. To want to hear.
They want to hear the voice of their Savior. They want to see
the work of their Savior. How odd is it that as a parent,
I love to look at videos of my children from 21 years ago. Everybody's posting their 10-year
different snapshots. I can't find a 10-year snapshot
of all of us together. You've seen that on social media.
And we just, oh, look at us. Look how we've grown. Look how
we've matured. That's a nice way of saying,
look how we got old. We've matured so. Our children
are tall now and adults. It's crazy. And we want to look
at old pictures of our relatives. We want to watch old movies that
are nostalgic. We want to see them over and
over again. I mean, I've even got friends who love to watch
old Super Bowls from the 70s. I'm like, I remember this game
and I remember everybody got really mad and I was scared. I don't want to go through this
again. I thought we were all getting divorces or something
as a kid. I mean, what in the world? I don't want to see this
again. But we'll labor over nostalgia. But many people who claim to
be in Christ don't want to labor over the victory that's found
in Him. And that's not a judgment. That's
not a call to, oh, I'm so guilty, I've been convicted. No, that's
just an observation. But the sheep of Christ enjoy
the teaching of the Scripture. And Jesus says in verse 39, I
came to the world for judgment. And this is what it looks like,
that those who do not see may see. That's what he did with
this blind man. He could not see physically.
I showed you that I could take his eyes and give it back to
him. But more importantly, he could not see spiritually. He
was blind. He knew he was blind because
I made him alive and he could see now. See, blind people can't
see they're blind. But those who were blind, it
can see they were blind, and now they can see is because they
can see. See that? No pun intended. And then they always are able
to look back to the day they were blind. And then they praise
God for the glory of His grace through the finished work of
Jesus Christ. There's never a time to boast in the flesh. Never
a time to boast in maturity. Never a time to boast in tradition.
And beloved, I pray that you'd be set free in this knowledge.
I pray that you would be set free in this grace. So Jesus
came that those who do not see may see. And that's part of the
judgment. The other side of that is this.
What? Those who see may become blind. Those who think they see,
they become blind. And we'll leave it at that for
now. But the Pharisees are the example of that. And next week
we'll close out this text by looking at what this judgment
looks like and what God does judicially for the sake of those
who say they're righteous. He blinds them even more. Let's
pray. Thank you for sight. Thank you
for your love for us. for Your mercy, for Your grace,
God, thank You for giving us the patience and the endurance
to labor through this text. Lord, I wanted to finish this
thought and put us all in this place to close this chapter.
I thank You, God, for helping us to endure. Help us to love
each other, God, and help us to navigate these rough days
and rough seasons. Help us to put in perspective
what is truly lasting. Not that we give up and sit on
our hands and go, woe is me, none of this is worth anything.
But Father, as we do the smallest of nothings, let us do it for
the sake of the name of Christ. For your glory with a joy that
we know that Christ is our eternal hope and one day all will be
made right. Until then, keep us together,
keep us intimate, keep us tight. Help us to pray for one another,
Lord. Help us to pray for those around us, God. Help us to call
the gospel clearly to those we love, to our neighbors, to our
enemies, to those self-righteous, to those who just don't care. Lord, help us never to be in
despair because it is all your work that you will call them
as you see fit. in your time, by your will. And Father, we pray these things
in the name of Christ. Amen.