05-02-20 Kevin Goins, John 9:7, Part 3

“Anatomy of an Illness: The Church’s Ministry of Healing”
John 9:7 (Part 3)

I First, sickness gets our attention and it gets the attention of Jesus (9:1).
II Second, sickness makes us uncomfortable (9:2).
III Third, sickness is caused by alienation (9:2).
IV Fourth, oftentimes our best theological or commonsense explanations for sickness are not good enough (9:3a).
V Fifth, sometimes sickness happens for a good reason, so that God can be glorified in our life (9:3b).
VI Sixth, all believers in Jesus are called to help sick people find health (9:4).
VII Seventh, sickness is a work of the kingdom of darkness; healing is a work of the Kingdom of light (9:5).
VIII Eighth, the how of healing is very important (9:6).
IX Ninth, sickness can be overcome by divine healing, but healing does not happen without some action on our part (9:7).

-This verse makes four key points:

A. First, Jesus told this man to go.

B. Second, Jesus told him to ____________.

-What is the significance of this instruction by Jesus?

1. First, some believe that what Jesus is doing here is simply to repeat an _________ ________________ miracle of healing.

a. N_______________ went to see E______________ in 2 Kings chapter 5.

b. While there is some s______________ between the Old Testament miracle and John chapter 9, the circumstances in our text are too d_____________.

i. First, Jesus is not a _______________ like Elisha, he is M________________.

ii. Second, the man born blind is not a _______________, as Naaman was.

iii. Third, Naaman ___________ to be healed.

iv. When the man born blind is told by Jesus to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, he does not ___________ at all.

2. Second, some believe that Jesus sends this man to wash in order to symbolize being _____________ from _______.

a. The Bible has a lot to say about the cleansing power of ______________.

b. This would mean that Jesus is not only planning to heal the man’s b______________, but he is also going to heal the man’s s____________.

c. But that does _______ fit here:

i. First, Jesus has already made clear in the f_________ three v_____________ of this chapter that the man’s blindness has nothing to do with sin.

ii. Second, if the washing symbolizes being cleansed of sin, and the need to be washed is because Jesus put _______ in the man’s eyes, that would make Jesus the s_____________ of the man’s sin.

3. Third, the washing could represent what we would call c_______________ or r______________ cleansing.

a. Ritual cleansing is using water to represent something which is true in the _________________ world.

b. Ritual cleansing was very important to Nazirites. A Nazirite was a person who was consecrated, or s_________ a__________, to serve God in a specific _______ for a specific period of _______.

c. I believe this man is told by Jesus to immerse himself in the Pool of s______-ness. He is to leave behind his old life, a life in which he did n___________ but sit and beg all day.

d. This man becomes, not just a happy healed person, but a powerful a_________________ for Jesus.

e. This miracle shows us that we must stress the fact that Jesus does not heal us simply to make us f__________ g___________ again.

f. We need to remind people that when God heals, he heals to take us from a place of l_____________ availability for service to a place of g_________________ availability for service.