Two Year Gospel Study Week 91

The Gospel of John Week 13 Scripture: John 9:1-41. Pastor loves today's scripture and he shares it with great enthusiasm that will draw you right into the middle of this story! This story is a powerful story of Jesus healing a blind man. We will see tragedy, sorrow, wonder and even humor in this fascinating story. We will also see many amazing pictures of recent discoveries that will bring this story to life. Today's study opens with the story of a man blind from birth. Jesus in His love and compassion, heals this man. Jesus places mud on the man's eyes and sends him to the Pool of Siloam to wash the mud off his eyes, when he rinses them off, he is no longer blind.  Pastor shares many pictures showing the area in which this story takes place, an area that has been recently excavated. These pictures show where Jesus was walking, where He would have met up with the beggar, along with pics of the Pool of Siloam, Gilhon Spring, and Hezekiah's Tunnel.  
Pastor share how in the last 100 years things that have been hidden for century upon century are suddenly being uncovered.  Pastor shares how in these last days, God is pulling out all the stops for a world that is often skeptical and rebellious and saying, "See, this is what I did! And this is REAL!"  God is bringing a host of reminders, that this is not a story, this really happened, and that these events really did indeed take place. In this story we see once again that Jesus is doing really great God-things on the Sabbath.  Why? Because what he is doing is confronting the religious hypocrisy of His day, the kind of religion that wants to turn everything into a matter of rules and regulations which makes it all about me. And Jesus instead is calling us into relationship with Him. When human beings set up regulations that God has not set up, Jesus confronts them. His desire is to wake them up to the fact that religion is often the greatest opponent of God. When the religious leaders hear of the healing of the blind man, they interview him, his parents and then interview the healed man again. Jesus ends up being accused of breaking their man-made laws of having kneaded together the clay and put it on this man's face.  As our story ends, we see this man who was blind, but now sees, standing bravely before the religious leaders and he's not backing down from their onslaught of questions and accusations. The man tells the religious leaders, "Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of one born blind. If this man was not from God, he could do nothing. Open your eyes! Can't you see this?!" And then in anger they threw the healed man out of the temple - but then we read that Jesus found the healed man and asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" The man replies, "Who is He? Tell me so I may believe in Him!" Jesus says, "You have now seen Him. In fact, He is the One now speaking with you." Jesus reveals Himself to the man and the man replies, "Lord, I believe!" And he worshiped Jesus. Jesus wants  us to believe He is who He says He is, too!  He wants to hear each of us say to Him, "Lord, I believe!"   Jesus wants us to encounter Him. Just as this man who was blind, now sees, Jesus invites us to see Him, too. Our website – https://www.awakeusnow.com Watch the video from our website! https://www.awakeusnow.com/2-year-study-of-the-gospels-upper Watch the video from our YouTube Channel!! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTaaqrC3dMOzMkhPyiNWwlJRpV6Bwpu01     ⁃    The Gospel of John study is part five of five of our Two Year Study of the Gospels.      ⁃    The Gospel of John may be one of the most powerful books ever written. Many people have come to faith after reading only this book of the Bible.  Scholarly and archeological discoveries in recent decades give us new insight on details in the Gospel of John. We can now understand it as the most Jewish rather than the most "Gentile/Greek" of the Gospels, and when we do that we see many things that we missed before. Our 2 year study of the gospels is great for large group, small group or home group study and can be started at any time!