Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Mission work is about being available to go to other people wherever they are.
That can be your neighborhood, that can be in Tangier, that could be across in another
state, somewhere it could be in another country, it could be in another continent.
But it's about listening to what God speaks in your spirit and going where He sends you.
And I know this, one of the reasons I love to have these teams come up is because you
hear the testimony, right?
And some of you, God's going to move and speak to you.
There's going to be other opportunities.
There's going to be more opportunities to go to Tangier, there's going to be more opportunities
to go out locally and globally.
And I know God speaks to hearts and lives.
That's what the Holy Spirit does.
And I know some of you are getting prompted right now.
You ever get God just kind of knocking on your heart a little bit, right?
The Holy Spirit, I talk about the Holy Spirit giving you a nudge.
Some of you are getting nudged right now and you're thinking, well, I don't know, maybe,
right?
And God's saying, oh yeah, it's you.
And so don't ignore that.
You can step out of here today.
You can leave this morning and you can say, well, that was just because I saw a nice video
and I heard some great testimonies.
Or maybe it's just the Holy Spirit saying it's time, right?
I encourage everybody, somewhere in your lifetime, you need to go on at least one mission
trip somewhere and experience God in a different way.
I'm telling you, it's different.
Amen?
How many know that?
Raise your hand if you've gone on a trip and you know how different it can be.
So just be in prayer about that.
I'm encouraging what God's doing in Tangier and in hearts and lives and what God's doing
through people here at LifeHouse.
Amen?
Amen.
I won't make you raise your hand if you get nudged this morning.
I'll just let that between you and God.
If you've got your Bibles this morning, I want you to turn to John chapter 9.
As you get there, I'm going to pray and then I'm going to give you just a little background
in the scripture.
I'm going to preach.
They told me I only got 20 minutes, but how many of you got some extra time today?
Yeah, amen.
All right.
I got one.
Amen.
That's all I need.
Lord, we thank you for this day, for your blessing.
I thank you, Lord, for the trip.
I thank you for the lives that were changed.
I thank you, Lord, for God, what you're going to do in the future.
God, should you not return, Lord, we're going to get opportunity, Lord, to go out and to
reach others with the gospel.
I ask that your hand would be upon this word today and we give you glory and honor in Jesus'
name.
Amen and amen.
By the way, there are people listening online.
The Holy Spirit can nudge you just where you are as well.
Amen.
That's true.
It's true.
Well, Jesus is about to perform a genuine miracle.
He heals a man who was blind from birth.
He healed somebody that wasn't blind, that became blind somewhere along the way.
Maybe they saw and had an accident and they lost their vision and Jesus returns their
sight.
He heals a man who was blind from birth, somebody who has never seen the sunlight, somebody
who's never seen a tree, somebody who's never saw an island or a beach, someone who's never
saw the face of his family or his friends.
He doesn't have that imagery in his mind.
He maybe never saw colors, right?
Green, red, yellow, blue.
He doesn't know any of this.
And Jesus comes along and in this passage, he'll heal this man.
And this is sixth of the seventh miracles that you'll see in the book of John.
And it's really one more proof that Jesus really is the Messiah.
But as we go into this scripture, something's going to grab you as you begin to read with
me in this scripture, because you're going to see how the disciples see this man who
is blind and how Jesus sees this man.
Two very different perspectives on how they see this man who has been blind from birth.
I mean, you're John chapter nine, raise your hand right now.
John chapter nine says this.
Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth and his disciples asked him
saying, Rabbi, who sinned?
This man or his parents that he was born blind.
And Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sin, but that the works of God should
be revealed in him.
Now in our culture, we would never make the assumption that this man who is blind from
birth would be a result of sin in his life.
We want thinking our minds are in our hearts.
You know, I bet you something's going on in this guy's life.
That's why he was born blind or more importantly, I bet you something his parents did right
cause this man to be born blind.
We don't think that way.
But in that culture, in that time, if you were blind, if you were lame, if you had some
kind of physical abnormality of some kind, a lot of times they believe that there was
sin in your past.
They thought you were either sinning somewhere in your past, you sinned somewhere in the
present.
And some of them even believe that was just prejudgment on some sin that you were going
to take place that was going to take place in the future.
And that's kind of where the disciples were coming from, right?
They're seeing a man, they're looking at a man thinking, man, right?
What kind of sin was this guy messed up in?
And Jesus is looking for an opportunity to do the father's work to completely different
perspective.
And Jesus quickly straightens up the theological misnomer of the disciples.
This theological inaccuracy of this, this lie that they believe Jesus starts to straighten
up pretty quickly because he says, neither this man nor his parents sin, but that the
works of God should be revealed in him.
And verse four says this, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.
The night is coming when no one can work or no one can work as long as I'm in the world.
I am the light of the world.
The disciples are thinking who's sinned?
And Jesus said, let's get some spiritual work done.
Amen.
They're looking at the same guy.
Verse six says this, when they had said these things, he spat on the ground, made clay with
saliva and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.
And he said to him, go wash in the pool of Shalom, which is translated sent.
So he went and washed and came back seeing.
Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, is that this
not he who sat and begged?
Some said, this is he.
Others said he is like him.
He said, I am he.
Therefore they said to him, how were your eyes opened?
And he answered said, a man called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes and said to me, go
to the pool of Shalom and wash.
So I went and washed and I received sight.
And they said to him, where is he?
He said, I don't know.
They brought him who formerly was blind then to the Pharisees.
Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.
The Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight.
He said to them, he put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see.
Therefore some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, but he does not keep
because he does not keep the Sabbath.
Others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs?
And there was a division among them.
Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth.
Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath.
And some people were in complete awe, just like happened all the time with Jesus.
Some people were amazed at the miracle.
The religious leaders are all been out of shape because Jesus did it on the Sabbath.
And they believe that if you healed somebody, that was work on the Sabbath.
That was just kind of in their own minds, their own making.
Some people were just kind of talking about the whole thing that was going down.
How many people just talk sometime.
When things happen, somebody's talking.
And to add to all this that's going on with this man, Jesus heals this man in a super
unique manner.
He spits on the ground, makes clay with his saliva and then smears it into this blind
man's eyes.
Now I thought about this for a minute or two.
And I thought about this from the blind man's perspective.
I want you to think about this for a moment.
You've got an individual who's never seen anything.
He lives in this world of darkness and I'm sure he's hearing.
They say a lot of times when you lose one sense, your other senses are much greater.
He's standing there, he's blind and he hears about this man, Jesus, who is at least a healer,
a prophet, some holy man that's coming.
And he's hoping that this man comes to him and brings healing.
And all of a sudden this man, Jesus walks up to him, doesn't really get into much of
a discussion with him at all.
And all this blind man can, I want you just to close your eyes for a moment.
Go ahead and close your eyes like you're blind.
All right.
Be the blind man for just a moment.
All we hear is.
All right.
Now you can open your eyes.
Jesus spits on the ground.
Right.
And then he hears something going on in the dirt and something mixing around in the dirt
and awesome.
Right.
Come on.
This is real.
Splat right in his eyes.
Right.
Jesus smearing mud in his already dysfunctional eyes.
I read this story.
Jesus smears spit clay in his guy's eyes.
This is strange.
This is unusual.
This is almost a little bit weird.
Right.
Come on.
But this man listens to Jesus.
He doesn't get all wound up.
He's got mud in his eyes.
These eyes that he can't see.
And he listens to what Jesus says and he goes to the Pool Shalom.
Now we're going to put a picture up there just so you get a little idea.
Sometimes we talk about these things.
You don't know what that might look like.
And there's a picture of what it looks like today.
The Pool Shalom and what it might have looked like.
Right. an artist rendition of what it was.
But the Pool Shalom was a it was in the city of David in Jerusalem.
And and this was a pool.
It was a public area where they would go and they would wash.
It was cleansing that would take place there.
And this man listens to what Jesus says.
Someone led him to that pool.
Right.
Mud smeared all over his eyes.
And he goes to this vast public pool and washes off the mud that Jesus placed on his eyes.
And when he washes that mud off for the first time, he sees what he's been feeling all along
for the first time.
He looks into a pool of water and sees a reflection of himself for the very first time for the
first time.
He looks into the clouds and he sees blue in the sky and clouds of white.
And he looks at a tree that he heard was green.
But now he knows what green is.
Right.
I mean, think about this for the moment.
He's never seen any of this for the first time.
He sees the face, a human face for the first time.
He looks down and sees the ground for the first time.
Everything is new.
Everything changed.
Jesus completely changes this man's life in one moment in time.
Everything's brand new.
No longer will he beg sitting along a road or sitting beside a building.
No longer will he be led by somebody right by the hand to get him to wherever he's going.
No longer does he have to ask what's happening, what's going on around me.
All of a sudden, this freedom comes into his life.
It's incredible.
But there's some lessons in this incredible story in this story where Jesus, you know,
heals this man.
There are some very practical lessons in this unique, unusual way that Jesus heals this
man.
I think there's some things that think about there's some things that consider some things
that we that help us get straight so that we don't get derailed in the middle of a God
thing right in the middle of a God miracle.
And one of those things is is that our healing may not look like we think right.
Our healing might not our miracle may not look like we think our healing might look
very different.
It may come in a very unappealing package right when God's moving in your life.
It might look instead of a pretty ribbon and some bow.
It might look like spit mud in your life.
Spit clay right smeared in your eyes.
And it sounds a little gross and it sounds like you know this guy could have felt embarrassed
or humiliated.
You know, no no one's walking around praying and saying God I need a miracle.
I need a healing.
Jesus please send somebody to buy to spit in the mud and make into a clay and splattered
on my face.
Nobody's thinking that right.
No one's praying that but the miracle came in an unusual manner.
It came in something that was strange.
It came in an opportunity that nobody would think about and sometimes that's how God works
our healing or our miracle may not look like we think it may not come wrapped in a pretty
little package.
It might not have a bow.
Birds might not be singing in fluffy clouds going by.
Right when the miracle takes place when God gets you sometimes it's in the mess.
Sometimes it's in the mud.
Sometimes it's not real pleasant to your senses.
I think a little bit about Jonah in scripture.
Right.
God how many oh God Jonah needed an attitude healing.
I don't know if you ever needed an attitude healing.
I have a few times right.
He needed his attitude you and God sent a big old fish by swallowed him up and he lived
three days in the belly of a well.
All right.
Now that sounds cool.
When we showed in BBS the Jones just stand there and the lights are on right.
It's really nice.
Oh he's inside.
No man he was in the dark.
He's laying in sludge.
He doesn't even know what's going on.
He just got swallowed.
You know if he's going to get digested he doesn't know he's just laying in the dark for three
days in disgust right in the mess and the whale spits him back out and he goes and he
gets it.
How many how many know that change your attitude.
All right.
That changed my attitude.
Anyway he's his attitude.
God healed.
Our healing may not look like we think it might not come in the package that we're we're
thinking about and sometimes we can miss it because it doesn't look like our preconceived
idea of what this should all look like.
Right.
My miracle should look like it doesn't fit our optics.
It doesn't fit our lens of what we have in our mind.
How many of you ever said this.
God's in the middle of something.
It's messy as all get out.
You're like it just doesn't feel right.
Anybody ever say that.
Sometimes we need to put our feelings over on the shelf and we need to ask the Holy Spirit
what's going on because your feelings are not always a clear indicator of what's going
on.
Sometimes we miss what God's doing.
We missed America.
We missed the healing because we're going off of our feelings.
Our feelings are not an accurate indicator of always maybe what's taking place in the
spiritual or what God's doing.
Our feelings are actually simply a reaction to our perception right of what's happening
around us.
That's what you're feeling.
And I can give you a little example of what I'm talking about.
We put up that picture of a mouse right.
I brought a killer mouse with me today.
How many of you get a feeling when you see a mouse running around your house.
Come on be honest.
Some of you are up on a stool.
You're freaking out.
That thing's this big.
How many of you have ever heard of a newspaper article that says the person injured by mouse.
Anybody ever read anything death by mouse.
No.
Right.
It's irrational.
You're feeling it's based on something that's conjured up in your mind that this thing is
a killer.
All right.
It's squeaking and running away from you.
It's this big.
Its teeth are even tinier.
It can't do anything.
It really can't.
And the blind man he could have felt really negative.
He could have thought you know his feelings could have got really hurt.
I'm already blind.
My eyes are already dysfunctional.
Somebody spits on the ground makes clay and slaps it on my eyes.
How humiliating.
But I think somehow the Holy Spirit left this man know that whoever was smearing mud in
his eyes was no ordinary man.
That this was Jesus.
Don't base your actions and your inactions on your feelings.
Find out what the Holy Spirit is doing in the middle of the mud.
In the middle of the spit clay.
In the middle of the mess.
In the middle of the unusual.
Find out what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you.
Find out what Jesus is trying to reveal to you because your miracle might be right on
the other side of it.
Amen.
It's true.
Can I give you one more thing.
You got time for one more thing.
All right.
I got two.
That's good enough.
All right.
Sometimes the miracle will all follows your obedience in the mud.
Sometimes I have a question for you.
What do you think would have happened?
If this man who was blind from birth would not have went to the Pool of Shalom.
I don't think it would have been.
I don't think it had been healed.
If he would have just stood there and Jesus smeared the mud on his eyes and he got thinking
his mind, you know, I really don't want to go to the Pool of Shalom.
I'm going to have to get somebody to leave me there.
This was embarrassing enough.
I think I'm just going to go home, you know, lick my wounds.
You know, I'm going to.
This has been a weird day.
It's been a strange thing happening here.
I don't even know what's going on.
I was going to go home and have a latte, sit down, put my feet up.
Right.
He could have said that he could have done that, but he did it.
He went and it was this act of obedience.
And that sometimes you got to look at the timing in God's work.
You got to notice what happened in what order because in verse 11 says, then he answered
and said, a man called Jesus made clay, anointing my eyes and said to me, go to the Pool of
Shalom and wash.
So I went, I washed and I received my sight.
He received his sight after he listened to what Jesus had to say.
It wasn't when he got the mud smeared on his eyes.
It wasn't while he was standing there conversing with Christ.
It wasn't any of that.
It's when he went in obedience to what Jesus said that the miracle followed.
Right.
The miracle was in the mud when he listened in obedience.
The miracle followed the obedience to Christ's command.
The healing came once he was obedient to Christ's command.
The freedom came following the obedience to Christ's command.
The new life came following the obedience to Christ.
What?
His command.
The new opportunity came after obedience to following Christ.
What command?
It all came after what was said.
Jesus will provide the healing mud, but it might be that you have to provide the obedience
to what he's saying.
There's a miracle in the mud.
Obedience to his written word.
Right.
The word of God, the Bible logos, whatever you have.
We all have opportunity.
The United States of America to the written word of God, obedience to that word.
And then also to the rainbow word.
God gave him, Jesus gave him a rainbow word.
Go wash in the pool of Shalom.
He gave him, he gave him a word.
Right now word is what a rain word is.
Move on what I said.
Right.
Go to the pool of Shalom.
Our healing, our miracle, it might not look like we think it might not come in the package
that you're looking for.
But if you're in the middle of the mud, hear me in this, if you're in the middle of the
mud, God might have healing.
He might have the miracle on the other side.
You just got to stop and ask the Holy Spirit, is this you?
Is this mud you?
Amen.
And then walk in obedience to what I say.
Walk in obedience to what I say.
So let me ask you this.
How do we respond to this message today?
Well, two things.
One, if you don't know Jesus, you can know the man who makes the mud.
They can bring the miracle.
You really can.
So I'm asking you to do this right now as a pretty seat comes on.
I want you just to just where you're sitting, just close your eyes right now for the moment.
The praise team is going to make their way up here.
You might be in the house this morning.
You might be listening online this morning and you want to know about the one who has
the has the miracle in the mud.
You might want to know about the one who will walk you through out of the mess.
And his name is Jesus.
He came.
He died on a cross.
He rose from the grave.
He's now at the right hand of the father.
And he did all that for you and I so that we could come to a place of salvation because
the sin that's in our lives, we can't do anything about the sin that we've committed.
We have no power over that.
And that sin will eternally separate us from God.
And Jesus said, I'm going to come and fix that problem.
I'm going to allow you to come back into relationship and I'm going to pay the price for you because
the price for sin was death.
And Jesus took that death.
He took the burial.
He rose from the grave so that you could be free.
So if you're listening online, if you're in the house this morning and you want to know
this miracle man, this one who will walk you, the one who will never leave you, who will
never forsake you, the one who can walk with you from now to eternity and forever, the
one that will bring you into his kingdom.
He'll step you through now and forever.
If that's you in the house this morning or if you're listening online, you can know him.
The word of God says this.
You just have to believe in your heart that Jesus was raised from the grave and that he
is actually the son of the living God.
That he has all power.
He is the Messiah.
He will rule and reign.
And he wants to come into relationship with you.
He wants to provide the healing and the miracle in the mind.
If you believe that in your heart, that's what the word of God says.
It's a heart thing.
And you confess that with your mouth to him in prayer.
The word of God says you'll be saved.
That's all that's required.
So I'm going to pray that prayer.
Lord, I thank you for this day.
I thank you for those who are here.
I thank you for those who are listening online.
But today there might be one.
God, there might be two.
There might be a dozen.
There might be a hundred.
God, they want to know the man who has the miracle in the mind and that's you, Jesus.
All they have to do is say, Lord, come into my life.
I believe that you are the son of God.
I believe that you paid the price that my sins might be cleansed, that I might come
into relationship with you.
Lord, I accept you today in my life.
I'm going to search after you in my life.
I'm going to seek you out.
I'm going to follow you today.
I'm going to make that commitment.
In Jesus' name, amen.
That's all it takes.
For those of you who do know Jesus as Lord and Savior, you can look up this morning.
Communion represents Jesus' Calvary.
It represents His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension to the Father in power.
But Jesus provided a miracle in the mud at Calvary.
There was not a person in the Jewish community of Jesus' day who thought that the Messiah
would come the way He did.
It seemed way too messy.
He was born of a virgin.
For many of them, they thought it was questionable circumstances.
He was born to a carpenter.
He was a commoner's son in a small village.
That didn't fit their perception of Messiah.
It seemed all too messy.
He was uneducated.
He didn't fall in with the religious norm.
It was, again, way too messy.
Everything about Jesus seemed way too messy for the religious community.
He died on a Roman cross, which seemed completely a powerless position.
They were looking for a Messiah to come in and to take over to rule and reign.
That's what the Jewish people were waiting for.
Jesus comes in and dies on a Roman cross, seemingly powerless.
But it was in the mud, it was in the mess, that Jesus rises from the grave and comes
into full power.
Is He sitting at the right hand of the Father now?
One day, we'll set up His kingdom on the earth.
It was a miracle in the mud.
It was a miracle in the mess.
Some of you sitting here today, there was mud in your life.
There was mess in your life.
And the miracle was that Jesus came into your life, and you got saved.
And you're on the other side of that.
How many remember that?
Right?
I do.
I'm going to ask you to stand.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from Life House Church.
We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.
If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with
us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.lifehousecog.com.