0:00 Thank you Lord for your love for us. Thank you that you're always patient long suffering for us towards us. Thank you that you can sympathize with us in our weaknesses because you're a high priest who was tempted like we are. Whatever the 0:21 temptation we face, no matter how big or small, you are tempted the same way and you know how difficult it is often Lord. You know exactly what we are going through right now. Every pressure we are feeling right now or have felt, you felt 0:43 it and you pushed through and you came out triumphant. In the midst of this dark tunnel we see you like a light ahead. Knowing that if we just continue to fix our eyes on you, one day we will be in the light where there is no darkness at all. 1:05 Completely. So we hold on to that light again this morning. Open our eyes more clearly to see it Lord. You don't intentionally hide yourself from us. You don't tease us. You don't taunt us. You don't allow us to go through things just 1:27 for the sake of it. But you have a purpose. Fulfill that purpose in our lives Lord. Make our lives walking miracles. Every single one of us. That whether people realize it on this earth or not, God, at the end of our lives, at that judgment seat, when we all stand before your 1:45 throne, you will reveal to the world the sons and daughters of your kingdom. The little miracles that were walking around who allowed you to transform our lives. So do it again, Father, today. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So yesterday, we looked at the 2:11 parable of, what was it? I forgot now. Yeah, the 5,000. Yes. Thank you. Right. And what I've been trying to, what I'm trying to do during my four messages here is to pick out the way that Jesus worked in his miracles and pick out 2:34 aspects of how Jesus manifest his preeminence in, in the miracles. And yesterday, we looked at what it meant to give. Be one who was rich towards God. Like that little boy who didn't hold back. He had five and he could have thought, well, I'll give four. That's good enough, isn't it? 2:54 I mean, what's the difference between four and five? He would have ate good. I think that boy ate better than five loaves and two fish that day. He probably had his fill. That food probably tasted so good that he didn't regret giving all five of the loaves and both fish. 3:10 So don't hold back. That was the point of the message yesterday. Be rich towards God. Give him everything. He will give you everything of himself. And it'll taste much better than what you're holding on to. Today, I want to look at another aspect of what it, how it is that we, that Jesus becomes 3:27 preeminent in our lives. And that is, I've titled the message, Being a Worshipper. Worship is something that's very, very much misunderstood. Sometime I encourage you young people to do this because I think the, especially young people are keen to know what worship is. 3:47 And a lot of young people are going to church services, going to concerts and going to this place and that place and saying, wow, what a great worship service. And it was not a worship service. It's what the world calls a worship service. And if you're interested 4:01 to know what the Bible calls worship, I encourage you to know that. I have met very few Christians who really know that. And I think you young people have the opportunity to know it from a young age, like I did. I was fortunate. One of the reasons that I have come to understand the true meaning 4:17 of worship was because I was taught about the true meaning of worship. Think about it like this. Let's say for the longest time, you were taught that a phone was something else. You know, the phone was this, that that's a phone. And all your life, you thought that was a phone. And you kept 4:36 saying, hey, do you have a phone? And you try to use it. And you say, you know, with a phone, you can call people and talk to them. And you look at that. Well, I've been told that's a phone. And I'm trying to figure out how to call people and talk to other people through that. And I'm carrying around this 4:48 thing and trying to fit it in my pocket and it's not working. And then you realize you had the definition of phone wrong. Phone is supposed to be something like this. And when you get the definition right, all of a sudden it opens up avenues to what you can do with the phone. 5:02 If you want to open up the avenue of worship of God, learn the true meaning of worship. Look at the Bible and see what the Bible actually says about worship. It's typified in the Old Testament. You'll see types of worship in the, in the temple and the 5:18 courtyard and the most holy place and different aspects of worship that the people of Israel did towards God. But that was just a type. And that is a picture of true worship that was inaugurated in the new covenant by Jesus Christ. And so sometime, you know, I think Phil yesterday was talking about 5:36 books that he's recommending some books. One book I want to especially recommend to you is a concordance. You know what that is? A concordance is like a Bible dictionary almost. It's not really, it might give you the meaning as well, but it's a Bible reference book that tells you 5:49 where the verses, where a word is found in the Bible, the different verses. And an exhaustive concordance will list all the verses that contain a particular word. Very useful, useful tool. I use it a lot. And nowadays you don't even need to get the actual book. You can have it on your phone. They're 6:07 available online concordances. So you have a lot, no excuse, essentially, young people to not know God's word and to not know the true meaning of it. So let's say again, to use that example, somebody kept telling you, well, that's a phone, man. You got to learn how to use it. And finally, 6:23 you got sick of it and says, well, let me just check the dictionary meaning of phone. And then you look it up. And then you maybe you go online, you search, oh, there's a picture of a phone. You know that in the Bible, we have not only the definition of worship, but also a picture of it. 6:36 The definition of worship is there in different places, if you look for it. And the picture of it is Jesus. You look at Jesus and you'll see a picture of true worship. And the Holy Spirit will reveal that to you. For example, let me show you one definition of worship 6:52 in Romans chapter 12. Turn there with me, if you will, please. As you're turning there, think about the times when you have used the word worship or what you thought of as worship. 7:13 Or maybe you, somebody said, let's go to, oh, this was a great time of worship we had. Maybe you thought last night or yesterday morning or the time of singing and great time of worship. Here, you see one definition of worship. Romans chapter 12, verse 1. 7:30 Well, we'll start at the end of the verse. I think I said this last conference too. I, one of the other habits I like to recommend is reading the Bible backwards. For those of you that were here last year, you might remember my mentioning it. Reading the Bible backwards. 7:43 If you've never done it, please do it. I don't mean you started the last verse and go backwards. But if you get to a verse and you're trying to understand what is this talking about, go to the previous verse or read earlier in a verse, read earlier in that verse, what is, 7:55 what is going on and then go back and go back and go back and you'll get all the way to Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, perhaps in the beginning God. That's where it all begins. So we're going to do that with this verse. I'll just show you what I mean by that. Let's start with the end of the verse 8:11 where you see this word worship. So let's say you go to the concordance and you pull up this word worship and it says, there it is in Romans chapter 12, verse 1. So it says, well, worship. It's the very last word of the verse in my translation. Worship. Okay. What is worship? This is a definition. I urge you, 8:26 therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. Well, why? Therefore. There's another thing I'll share with you. If you see the word therefore, you see what it is there for. You go to the previous verse, Romans 11, verse 36. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. 8:49 Here's another little Bible trivia fact I want to tell you. You know that the word amen occurs many times in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. But most often after the word amen, there is a therefore. See, we're used to saying amen. Open your eyes. The prayer is over, right? In Jesus' name, 9:06 amen. Okay, now we can eat or now go on about our business. The way the Bible uses the word amen, there is a therefore that comes after it. Romans 11, verse 36. For from him, through him and to him. And in the church here at River of Life, I just finished a series on prayer. I believe this verse, 9:23 Romans 11, 36, is one of the best definitions of prayer I have ever seen in the Bible. That prayer ought to be that which comes from God, flows through God's spirit dwelling in us and back to him. Anytime you sing a song, think about it like this. Don't just sing the song because it starts here on the screen 9:41 or starts in your mind because you know the melody and the words. Let the prayer start with God. Now, maybe somebody else wrote the words. And that's why it's good that the words you sing be spirit-filled. Watch out for the words that you're in the music that you listen to. That it's not just this emotional, 9:59 frothy stuff. That's music that hasn't begun with God. But there is music out there, good music, even contemporary music. I don't believe it's just the hymns. There are some really good contemporary songs. Few. There are not all of them. Majority of them, I just, I don't think are from him. But there 10:15 are a few that are from him. And when the prayer or the praise or the song that you're singing begins with God, from him, flows through the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, through him, in you, and back to him, then it's prayer. That cycle is complete. And this is that verse. For from him, through him, 10:31 and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. Therefore, what should you do? You should worship. Because everything is about God, from him, through him, and to him. I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to worship. How do we worship? To present your bodies a living 10:48 and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Did he say anything there about singing and dancing and clapping and raising your arms and closing your eyes and tears streaming down your eyes? It's not even mentioned in that verse. But yet, that's what most Christians 11:06 think worship is. The more you cry and the more your heart was just stirred, you think the more you worship God. That's not a phone. That's not worship. True worship is your giving your body a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. You don't need music for that. 11:28 You don't have to have musical ability. Now, maybe music helps me worship. I'll tell you that. But music for me is a channel. Music is the car that takes me to the destination of worship. And most people trying to get to worship, trying to get, imagine if I said, I decide I'm going to go to Loveland Sports 11:48 Park to play volleyball this afternoon. And the way to get there is to get in the car and drive there. What if I got in the car and then got stuck in the car? And I'm trying to play volleyball and wondering, how come nobody's here with me playing volleyball? Because I'm still stuck in the car. Now, is the car useful? 12:01 Absolutely. The car is what takes me to the destination, but I'm not taken up with the car. I want to get there and play volleyball with you guys. Most people are stuck in this vessel, in this vehicle of worship, which is praise. It's a vehicle that contributes to it and never getting to 12:19 the worship itself. I've fallen prey to that. Satisfied with the experience, the vehicle. So this time of praise that you have and the singing in the choir and all that is the vehicle that's trying to get to you so that you're drawn towards God so that you get his prayer and eventually you get to the place 12:36 where you actually worship. And I'll tell you this, most worship must, does happen in secret. Most true worship does happen in secret because it's in secret that I am called to give up my body as a living sacrifice. So you knew, dear young man, you get a time of praise and you think, God, you alone are God. 12:57 From the time, from before time began, you are on your throne. And all those words we sang last night, you know what happened after that? After that, the singing was over and now you interacted with each other. A new boy, perhaps, or as you were driving home, were tempted with your eye to look at another 13:15 woman in lust. I guarantee every single one of you is tempted because that's what men do. Us as men were tempted in that way at different times, sometimes when you're not expecting it. And at that moment is the test of whether the vehicle, which was praise, took you to the destination of worship where you say, 13:35 no, Lord, I cannot do that. I cannot entertain that thought because I am a worshiper. I have been taken in this vessel of praise and we had a wonderful time of singing, but if you didn't get to the destination and you just continued in your old sinful, lustful life, you didn't get there. What's the point of a car 13:55 if you don't get to the destination? And what's the point of times of praise and all that? And it's no wonder that people have up and down Christian lives. The ups are when we're singing and we're all together at a conference and the downs are the moment I walk out that door. Is that the testimony of your life? 14:10 It has been mine for many years. It was mine for many years. And he's lifting me up to a higher plane now where I'm seeing that worship is waiting for me outside that door. Now you can have it here too, but it's not the emotion. It's not the soul. It's the spirit inside of you where you offer your body 14:27 as a living sacrifice. Then you become a worshiper. I want to show you this next slide. This is a little a little ditty that I put together. I don't know if it is the right word, but it's a just a six line little phrase. It just came to me this morning as I was thinking about it and I thought 14:45 I'd show it to you. You got problems, you know, like you see those ads, got milk. Think about like it's got problems, question mark. Everybody has one. Lots of them actually. One thing you know, everybody has is problems. So got problems. What's the, what's the answer? Every problem I face today 15:02 is a miracle waiting to happen. Not a disappointment, but his appointment that Christ will have the preeminence through me. These slides will be available online. You can copy it if you want or you write it down. But this is really helping me even now as I, that, that thought just came to 15:20 me. I was like, that's right, Lord. I'm probably going to face a bunch of problems from today, but I want to change my perspective of it to not see those as problems. But hey, if it wasn't for the problem, I would never have got to the miracle. Imagine this. Imagine if, uh, let's take the 15:36 miracle that we studied yesterday, the 5,000, the feeding of the 5,000. Imagine if you went to John chapter 6 and the story read, um, the multitude sat down and, uh, and then Jesus was done teaching and they were all hungry. But guess what? Everybody had lunch. No problem. Everybody brought along their 15:56 lunch, packed a sandwich, and they had enough drink. Ah, that's boring. Everybody had lunch. Ah, that's a boring movie. No surprise. Then you get to another miracle. Uh, the, the wine at the wedding of Cana in John chapter 2. Guess what? They were having a great time, and the wine just flowed. They 16:12 never ran out. After the last guest left, the wine ran out. Great story, isn't it? No, it's actually kind of a boring story. Do you see how exciting and how different the Bible is? The different, uh, God's way of working is because he allows problems to happen. And I see God seeing the wine run out 16:33 and, and allowing the people to leave home without packing their lunch, except for one boy who had five loaves and two fish. Everybody else forgot. And I see God watching over that and saying, yep, yep, let them forget. Let them forget. Let them forget. Let all of them forget. But the one boy, let him take 16:49 his five loaves and two fish because I want to do something really mirror, miraculous in their eyes. And when everybody, everything seems to go haywire, nobody remembered to do the thing that should have been remembered to be done. And there's all kinds of problems. Guess what? If your perspective has changed, 17:05 where you're looking at the situation now from God's perspective, you're like, great, God, this is your chance to shine. This is your chance to show off your stuff. And the Bible is full of God showing off his majesty and his 17:18 power because there were problems. So quit seeing, looking at your situations in life as problems. Do you have a problem, dear young man, dear young woman? Is it a situation of relationship with your parents, perhaps? Is there a conflict between you and your parents? Is there a conflict between you and one 17:35 of your siblings or another person in the church or one of your relatives or somebody here? Maybe there's some conflict? It's not a problem. It is a problem if you don't know God. But if you know Jesus Christ, the miracle worker, if you know the man whose signs we are looking at, whom we are seeking to be 17:52 preeminent, if you're really serious about Jesus being preeminent in your life, guess what? That's no longer a problem. That's a miracle waiting to happen. Now go back to, think about going back to that situation that's waiting for you back home when you go back. That same boss who nags you. That same 18:08 neighbor or that same person that loves to bully you or treat you harshly or speak evil to you. Or that same situation that you don't know how to resolve with your parents or with somebody else or teachers in school or other friends in school, whatever it might be. All of a sudden, your eyes have been 18:23 opened to something completely different. You're walking around blind all this time. And hopefully, during this conference, if it hadn't happened before, God has opened your eyes to see that this is a miracle waiting to happen. And we're actually going to look at that miracle in John chapter 9 today. Let's turn 18:42 to John chapter 9 where Jesus heals a man born blind. One thing we see here, let's begin reading in John 9. As he passed by, by the way, another thing to note about reading the Bible, you'll see that 19:05 you'll see the Bible phrased in a certain way that it seems like it just so happened, like as he passed by. But it's presented in that way where to us, it seems like, oh, Jesus happened to just walk by that place. He happened to just walk by. Trust me, it wasn't just walking by. He was following the 19:24 prompting of the Holy Spirit that says, hey, cross the street right now. Okay, cross the street. Why? Because there's a blind man sitting on the other side of the street that you didn't see when you were walking on this side of the street. You ever feel that prompting? I'm not talking about hearing 19:37 voices in your head. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about being led by the Holy Spirit. And sometimes it's in very little ways. Sometimes it's in saying, hey, go sit over at that table with that person. Instead of sitting with the person that you're really comfortable talking to 19:50 at lunch. Go sit over there. Why? I don't know. And you'll see a miracle happen. As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, okay, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? You love their compassion, don't you? They 20:11 look at a man who's already blind and they think, well, what did he do wrong to deserve that? The guy's already got a miserable life. Why make it worse for him? That's the world. Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? And as you think about miracles and signs, 20:27 you'll see that there are people who will try to put blame on you for your problems. And I'll tell you this, Jesus cares about that which you were born with, that you have no control over, like your physical appearance. Don't ever allow yourself to, don't ever compare yourself with somebody else who the world 20:49 thinks is more beautiful or more handsome or more gifted or more talented. God made you the way you are with the appearance, physical appearance that you have, with the color of skin that you have, with the height or lack of it or the weight or the lack of it that you have. God allowed you to be born 21:06 that way. I'm talking about the things that you cannot change, that you cannot influence. You were born that way. That's like the man born blind. And people will try to tell you, oh, it's this or that, or you need to do this, you need to do that. If you were born with that temperament, it's okay. 21:20 God allowed you to be born that way for a reason. What about your family? God allowed you to be born with the parents you have, with the children you have. I don't know, I don't know if this is true about any of you here, but I've counseled young people sometimes who've been abused by parents or by 21:36 uncles or others in authority. And if that's been your testimony, may God give you comfort in that. But I want you to know that God allowed you to be born into the family that you were born with a purpose, the family that you have, the church where you are, the place you live where maybe there's a 21:54 lack of church. I was talking to some of you young people yesterday where it's so difficult to find church. God allowed you to be born in that home where there is the lack of it. And trust me, if you trust him, trust my word, don't trust me, trust my word that I'm saying, trust him, that he had a 22:08 purpose in allowing that. So God, Jesus cares about those aspects of your life that you were born with that you cannot change. Your physical appearance, your personality. I mean, you wish that you were more extroverted, that it would be more easy for you to do this and do that. Yeah, you can try to, you know, 22:24 build up some confidence and learn how to interact socially with other people. That's good. But if there are aspects of your temperament that you can't change, don't try to change it. Allow the Holy Spirit to make your temperament spirit-filled. And no matter what earthly temperament you have, 22:40 what human temperament you have, the bottom line is all of us must have this spirit-filled temperament. What good is an extrovert temperament that's not spirit-filled? It's useless to the kingdom of God. The world might make much of it, but if an extrovert is not spirit-filled, he is far worse off than an 22:57 introvert, shy person who never says anything and nobody thinks anything off, but he or she is truly spirit-filled. So irrespective of your temperament, seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then he will make your temperament useful for his kingdom, whatever that might be. So Jesus cares about that 23:13 because Jesus answered, listen, it was neither, verse 3, that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. That's that quote, that's actually what prompted me to to mention that quote earlier. Why is this man born blind? Why am I facing this problem right 23:31 now, Lord? Why did you allow me to lose my job just when I had that other payment coming up? Why did you allow that situation to come up? That the works of God might be displayed in him. See, I told you yesterday that miracles are the creator looking for a human agent to manifest his power. He's the 23:50 creator, his creative ability is just the same. He could speak, he could have made that man not be born blind, but the creator allowed that man to be born blind, created him with that blindness as it were, so that the works of God could be made manifest. It's a much more exciting story that the man in John 24:07 chapter 9 was born blind because Jesus, God, Jesus, that is Jesus too, it's the same Jesus who, as God, created this man in his mother's womb. So why couldn't, why didn't Jesus fix the problem of his blindness in the womb rather than when he was like 30 years old or whatever, how old, however old he was, because 24:29 the works of God had to be manifest in John chapter 9 like they wouldn't have been if he was just born like any other handsome boy that's born a newborn baby with two eyes that can see. And can you imagine what he and his parents went through with this born man, with this little baby born blind and then 24:47 continues with blindness and struggles and struggles and struggles representing issues that you and I have been born with and struggle with, carried with us for many, many years, and one day we come to Jesus. And when we meet Jesus, he says, "I want my works to be, my works to be displayed through you." 25:07 And then he goes on to say in verse 4, "We must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day. Night is coming when no man can work." First of all, notice who he says should work the works. Who is it? We, yeah. Jesus is about to do a miracle but he says, "We." We must work the works 25:32 of him who sent me as long as it is day because the night is coming when no man can work. And I believe that the meaning of this verse is that we have a limited amount of time on this earth in which to allow God to work miracles because there are no miracles in heaven. There's no need for miracles in heaven. 25:49 There are no, there's no need in heaven. There's no lack of this or lack of that. Everything is perfect in heaven. Why are things imperfect on this earth? This is a very difficult, very important question to answer. Why is there suffering on this earth? I get that question a lot. Why is there pain? Why is there need? 26:04 Why is there turmoil? Why is there conflict? This is the answer. That the works of God might be displayed, but he's looking for people who will allow him to display those works. And unfortunately, the rest of the world just goes on their merry way, either disbelieving in God, refusing to acknowledge him, 26:22 saying that he doesn't exist, or going to church and singing and talking about him, but living in an unbelieving way. Now God is looking for those who say, "Well, Lord, here I am. Here's this problem. Here's this earth that I'm on that's under a curse and it's got all these situations, but you placed me 26:38 on this earth and you gave me a limited amount of time in which to display your works and to do the works that your Father sent you to do." See, the Father sent Jesus to do the works, but we are the ones that do them along with him. So Jesus plus us, that's the miracle. Creator plus the human agent, we. That's the 26:56 we that Jesus uses there. We must work the works. So we have a short time in this life for God to work miracles. When we get to heaven and when we die and get to heaven or Jesus comes and takes us home, no more miracles. No more opportunity for God to say, "The problem was this bad. Look how big I am." 27:14 So now you see that our lives are so valuable. And honestly, I'm not in that much of a hurry to get to heaven. I really am in a hurry to get to heaven. I can't wait to see it. The Lord is in control of that. But part of the reason I understand that there is a purpose for me to be on this earth is because I 27:28 realize that this is yet another day for God to manifest his miraculous power, for God to manifest his glory, for God to display the his works in me. If I die, that's one less person on this earth through whom God can display his works. But if God says, "Your time is up. I finished displaying 27:48 my works in you. Come on home." Then I say, "Yes, Lord, come. Take me. I'm ready to go. I finished the course. I've run the race." Like Paul said, that's essentially what he was saying in 2 Timothy 4. God has finished displaying his works in me on this earth. Now it's time for me to go home. 28:05 But if God hasn't finished displaying his works in you, do you want to go? Do you want to leave this earth and miss out on those opportunities for God to display his works in you? That's why we don't run from our problems. We run into them. Because we say, "Lord, now if you don't 28:22 have God's power, if you're not born again, you're not filled with the Holy Spirit, then please run from your problems." And because you don't want to try to face them without God's power. But if you have the power of God in you and you know that you're headed into that storm, you're like, "No, Lord, 28:34 you're going to take me through it." So we have a short time. And then in verse 6, well, he says also, verse 5, "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." What does that mean? Who is the light of the world now? Is Jesus the light of the world now? According to verse 5? 28:55 We are. Jesus said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Very interesting verse. I don't know if you've seen that before. We sing, "Light of the world, you step down into darkness." You know who we should be singing that to? Each other. Matthew 5:16, 14. "You are the light of the world." Now, 29:15 we're not speaking about us as the light. The light that we shine is the light of Christ. So we are singing it to Jesus. But Jesus is not the light of the world anymore because he's not in the world. But it's his light shining through us now that makes us the light of the world. Sing it to yourself, 29:32 dear young person, dear young man, young woman, when you're about to go to work on Monday. Light of the world. You stepped into this dark workplace. Open my eyes. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see your purpose in my life. Verse 6. So Jesus decides to heal this man. 29:56 When he had said this, Jesus, now this is the creator who can speak and say, "Eyes be opened." In fact, I think, if I remember right. In another case, he just touched the man's eyes and they opened. Maybe in another case, he just spoke. But he does something interesting this time. He spat on the ground 30:14 and then put his finger in that spit, mixed it around with the dirt to really make the spit even dirtier than it. You know, it's already spit. And then you stir it up with the mud and then take it out into a nice little ball of clay. Take two pieces, split it into two pieces and then put it on his eyes. 30:33 We're talking about a humiliating experience. It says, "Now go wash that off in that pool over there, the pool of Siloam, and you'll be healed." Now this man, I believe, had a choice at that point. He could have said, "You know what? I don't know about this Jesus guy, but I went to his church and all he did 30:50 was humiliate me. All he did was spit on the ground, mix it with mud, stick it in my eyes, and then tell me to go and wash. I'm not going to that pool. What kind of church is that? What kind of healer is that?" He would have missed the miracle. Sometimes God's way of working a miracle in your life will feel 31:07 humiliating. It'll feel like, "Lord, no, I can't do that." And the devil will hold you in fear this side of that miracle because there's a wall there and you can't see. And Jesus is saying, "Go through that gate." It's going to feel humiliating. It's going to hurt a little bit, but go through it and you will 31:24 see a miracle on the other hand, on the other side. And you might think, "Lord, no, really? Why?" And I'm sure the blind man had doubts. "How dare this man? Already I'm a blind man. How dare you humiliate me by putting that spit and mud on my eyes?" 31:40 And verse 7, a very simple phrase, but you see faith in that blind man. The last part of verse 7, "So he went away and washed and came back seeing." Hallelujah! For a man who said, "Oh, Lord, I'm just here to display your works. Did you spit on my eyes and you put 32:00 mud in it too? That's fine. But I'm here to display your works." Okay. He goes and washes and his eyes are opened. You know, in Mark chapter 8, I'll show this to you briefly. This is a different parable, but in Mark chapter 8, you remember that story where Jesus healed another man 32:25 in Bethsaida. Mark 8, verse 23. Jesus did something similar with this man. Also in 23, he says, "Taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village. And after spitting on his eyes and laying his hands upon him, 32:43 he asked him, 'Do you see anything?' And this man was honest." Now, what had happened at that point was this guy's eyes kind of partially opened. This is a half miracle. You know, Jesus sometimes does half miracles. Here's an example. It's not that he cannot do the full miracle. He does not want to, for a 32:58 reason, to test your faith, to test your honesty, to test your hunger, to test what you're really satisfied with. So this man, he's had his eyes half open, and he's kind of seeing with a with a blur. The scale's still over there, and he's like, "Yeah, I can, I used to be completely blind. It was just 33:13 complete blackness, but now I open and I kind of see this. Yeah, there's something over there. It looks like a box or a tree or something." That's what he said. "I see," verse 24, "I see men, but I'm seeing them like trees walking about. Can't really see." Now, he could have said, "Hey, God, thank you. I can get 33:32 by with this." And if you've had an experience with Jesus where he's given you something, maybe he gave you forgiveness of sins and says, "Oh, thank you, Lord, for showing me that you're the forgiver of my sins. Now I know that every time I sin, every time I look at where that woman would last, or every 33:45 time I go on the computer and look at those pictures, I know you'll forgive me. Thank you for that." That's a man walking around with these scales. And I tell you, dear young man, God has something far greater for you. Sisters, whatever it is that you struggle with, relationship issues or identity 33:58 issues or issues or struggles with your weight or whatever it might be, comparing yourself with others. This is walking around. If Jesus is just your forgiver, I have good news for you. Come back to him. Tell him, "Honestly, Lord, I see in your word that there's so much more." When I hear other people 34:12 talking about what it means to see, they're able to drive cars with it. And they're able to fly rock, control rockets with it and type with it and look at really fine print. I want to see like that. And Jesus will say, "Good, I'm glad you asked because I have the power to give that to you as well." 34:30 Jesus says, you know, imagine the excitement that Jesus felt when this man, Jesus in verse 25 says, "Again he laid his hands upon his eyes and he looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly." Come to Jesus for that second touch that you've been waiting for. I believe 34:49 that Jesus sometimes intentionally withholds some of his power to see, "Are you satisfied?" He shows himself as not quite as good. Preeminent is way, way, way, way up there. This is eminent. Well, that's not really the right word. Preeminent is completely different, but this is halfway preeminent. Let's call it 35:08 that. Halfway preeminent. He's pretty big, but preeminent is like way, way, way up there. And as you get revelation on God's word, you see that Jesus wants to be bigger in your life and through your life and the lives of the people who watch you and interact with you, bigger than you've ever 35:24 imagined, bigger than anybody else has ever seen. And you think, "Okay, Lord, I want that." And you come back to him for another touch and he opens your eyes. Back in John chapter 9. So if you get the half miracle, don't walk around. That's why I believe it's a constant, 35:41 daily touch. This is another picture of what I believe it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Constantly says, "Lord, I know you've been preeminent in my life up to this point, but now I'm walking with you. I'm another day older." I mean, are you satisfied 35:55 with your physical growth and growth in maturity if you stop? I mean, imagine if you and I had stopped growing at the age of 10. Or you saw somebody says, "Hey, I'm 10 years old. I think I'm pretty big. I don't need to grow anymore." You'd say, "No, keep growing, man. You can get taller. You can get 36:11 stronger." I mean, there are men in their 40s and 50s who are trying to get stronger. They work hard, go to the gym and eat healthy and all that stuff. People are constantly trying to get healthier and stronger. Spiritually, unfortunately, that's not the case. They think, "Well, I'm pretty healthy for now. 36:25 I don't need to read my Bible. I don't need to get plugged into a church and have fellowship. I'm pretty strong." No! Get stronger! God wants to do something more through you. He wants to be more preeminent. And perhaps you'll get that theme coming across that preeminence is... See, we have 36:43 limited vision. We can see only so far, even spiritually, I think. But I want Jesus to be as preeminent as I'm able to... He can only be as preeminent as I'm able to see. And so, we must constantly be getting revelation on God's Word so that tomorrow when I wake up, my eyes have been opened to how Jesus can 37:02 go another foot higher, maybe, in preeminence, or another 10 yards higher, or another mile higher. And after this conference, if God has really opened your eyes to how high He can lift Jesus in your estimation, in your perspective, then you've grown. Jesus is more preeminent than He was before. 37:20 So, if He has been preeminent in your life, and He is preeminent, was preeminent in your life yesterday, guess what? He wants to be even more preeminent in your life today. I don't have time to read the whole chapter of John chapter 9, but I want to encourage you to do 37:36 that also sometime. I want to skip down to the end of the chapter. If you read this chapter, what happens, and this happens as soon as Jesus opened this man's eyes, the devil starts to wreak havoc in his life. He gets all kinds of people upset with him, and 37:55 the religious leaders come and try to tell him, "No, you did a wrong thing in getting your eyes opened," essentially what they're saying. Imagine telling a blind man, "That man who opened your eyes, he's a sinner," is what they told him. And he sinned by opening your eyes. Why? Because he did it on a 38:07 Sabbath day. That's how evil and wicked these legalistic religious leaders were. And the devil will bring people into your life. Essentially what the devil is after is to try to get you to compromise. He wanted, after the blind man's eyes were opened, he wanted that blind man to miss out on that 38:25 second touch that Jesus was about to give him later on. Another revelation of Jesus that we'll look at in a moment. And so he brought these religious leaders, and they tried to put pressure on him, and they tried to say, "No, you can't do that. You need to listen to us. We're the pastors of the 38:39 church. You don't tell us what to do. This is how it's done, and this is how it should be. And these are the religious leaders of his time." And they put rules and regulations on him, and they made life miserable for him. Then they went after his parents. You read that in the story too. And the parents were 38:53 afraid of the leaders, but they didn't want to get involved. They loved their son, but they were afraid of the leaders. So they just kind of said, "Hey, leave us out of it, man. Go talk to him." Basically threw him under the bus. And this is this blind man, feeling deserted by his parents, 39:07 like they let him down, abandoned by his religious leaders. They're beating him over the head. And he's just excited that he can finally see. And he's probably regretting at that point that he had his eyes open. You mean I had to open my eyes to come to a world like this, where people are yelling at me and screaming 39:23 at me? And you might think you gave your life to Jesus, and all of a sudden problems got way worse. Did that happen to you? If you really had a true conversion, it probably did, didn't it? When you decided that you were sold out for Jesus, all of a sudden the devil got really mad at you. 39:41 And he sent all his hosts against you. Got all kinds of people turned against you. Your best friends all of a sudden became your enemies for no reason at all. Why? Because the devil hates the fact that you're now in the kingdom of light. And he's lost another soul that was one of his. That will 39:56 happen. If you're not born again and you decide to be born again this weekend, I hope you do. But I have good news for you. You've become the devil's enemy. But it's good news because Jesus is on your side. And there's nothing the devil can do to harm you. He can scare you. He can shoot all those arrows at you. But you 40:12 have a shield of faith that can quench all of those fiery arrows that the devil shoots at you. You can have confidence in that. So this guy goes through worse. I mean, the blindness was bad enough. Now he gets his blindness healed. But now he's got relation issues 40:26 that he's got to deal with, with his parents and with these religious leaders. And at the end of it, you'll see that it ends with them essentially excommunicating him. John 9 verse 34. They put him out. Let's get out of here. We know that you had this miracle done in you, but you refused to 40:51 listen to us and obey us. So get out. They kicked him out. Something interesting happens though. The next line. Have you been put out? Have you been mistreated? Have you been taken advantage of? That's what happened to the blind man. Verse 35. Jesus heard it. Jesus heard that they had put him out 41:12 and he went and found him. He says, I got to find this guy. Jesus is in the business of looking for people who've been kicked out of circles. Is there a circle that nobody wants to include you because you don't fit and you're different from them? You're not cool enough. You're not, you're not pretty enough 41:30 or whatever. Kicked out of their circle or never included in their circle in the first place. Jesus is looking for you. Jesus is looking for the kicked out, bruised, left out people in life. Jesus heard that and he says, finding him, he said, listen, do you believe in me? Forget about the 41:47 people who've kicked you out. Forget other people that are excluding you from their cliques and their circles. But do you want me? Do you believe in me and the son of God? And he answered and says, Lord, I don't have anybody else, Lord. My parents have deserted me in my church. They've kicked me out, 42:01 but I want the son of God, the son of man. And he said, who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? I will believe in him. And Jesus said to him, you have seen him. This is a different revelation. This man had already seen Jesus. And well, actually, I don't know if he did because he had his eyes opened 42:19 only at the pool. Maybe he never got to see Jesus. But then he came back to Jesus, found him. And then he actually saw Jesus, perhaps for the first time. This is revelation. After he had his physical eyes opened, he had his spiritual eyes open to see Jesus himself. And he got revelation. 42:37 He says, you have both seen him. And he is the one who is talking with you. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. This blind man had been going to that synagogue as a blind man for years, where the religious leaders 42:53 just probably preached from the same Bible, preached about Jesus without even realizing who he was. And Jesus was sitting there in the same synagogue. And they're preaching about him from the law and refusing to acknowledge him sitting in their midst. And he's sitting there in the back. 43:06 And Jesus knew they were talking about him, but he was quiet. He was looking for the left out, the kicked out, the bruised ones, who would go through these situations of turmoil and hardship so that he could pick them out and say, come, I want to show you. I think Jesus often gives revelation. 43:22 Most often you see it like this, that he takes them aside. I picture Jesus maybe in that synagogue, and the Pharisee has just got up finishing reading from Isaiah chapter 53 about Jesus. And then Jesus himself grabs the blind man who has now got his eyes open and says, hey, let's go outside for a walk. 43:37 Let's go get a cup of coffee. And Jesus opens the blind man's eyes to see him. Before that, it was just words in the scroll and words preached by the preacher. And then Jesus took the man aside and says, let me open your eyes to see me. My dear young people, if you do anything 43:57 else in the next half hour, I know you're excited to go get coffee and talk to each other. But let Jesus take you by the hand into a private place, into a secret place and reveal himself to you like, I cannot do. I can't. He did that to this blind man and that man worshiped. You will worship today, 44:18 dear young people, if you allow Jesus to do that to you. This is what it means to be a worshiper. Has God done a miracle for you? He's forgiven you of your sins, saved you from the kingdom of darkness and brought you in the kingdom of his marvelous light. That's great. But he wants to give you a 44:32 revelation of himself. And it says in Matthew 11:25 that God gives revelation to those who are babes, not the experts, the babies. I praise you. He says he lifted with a loud voice and said, I praise the heavenly father that thou has hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, the people who 44:50 think they know it all and the cliques and all those people that are excluding others and have revealed them to the left out, the bruised, the kicked out, the babes. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your love for us, for your compassion for us, your long-suffering work with us. Reveal yourself to us, Lord, I pray. 45:10 I pray that the devil will not be able to steal the word we've heard, but more importantly, the revelation of yourself that you want to give us in that secret place, Lord, during those times of quietness, during those little dead spaces of time in between the sessions where you want to take us aside privately by 45:28 the hand, take us on a walk with just you and reveal yourself to us. We want to see you, Jesus. Thank you. You will do it in Jesus name. Amen.
