Episode 1305: In the Presence

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,305 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Dan Miller: Hi, I'm Dan Miller from 48 days.com. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your. Having the ability to find the work you love is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer,

[00:00:40] Scott Maderer: and this is the right time. Over and over. God has given a message of don't look at the appearance, don't look at the. Don't look at what mortals see, but look beyond that. Look to the heart. Look to the mind. Look to the spirit. Look to what [00:01:00] is bigger and deeper than that. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:08] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true call. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:34] In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about one Samuel chapter 16 verses one through 13, and again about John chapter nine verses one through 40. I share how the stories here of healing aren't really just about healing. In fact, if that's all you hear, then you're missing the point. And I share how the real point is about opening our eyes.

[00:01:58] The story from First [00:02:00] Samuel is this story about how the Lord is talking to Samuel about grieving over sa. And asking him to go out and do these sorts of things, sacrifice to the Lord, and inviting Jesse there and then anointing that one who God points out to him is the future king here. And Samuel does.

[00:02:25] He goes there and they ask if he becomes peacefully and he says, yes, I'm here to sacrifice to the Lord. And then he invites Jesse and his sons and invites them to the sacrifice. And the first son shows up and he's this big strapping guy, and the Lord says that's not him, that's not the future king.

[00:02:43] And then the next son comes forward, and again, he looks the part and the Lord says, this isn't the king either. And they, this keeps happening until all seven of the sons have passed before Samuel, and none of them are [00:03:00] who he was sent to. . And so he asked Jesse wait, is this really all of your sons?

[00:03:05] And Jesse says actually, no. The youngest one is out there. He's feeding the sheep, he's taking care of the sheep, and they sin for him. And this young man comes in. He was handsome and he had beautiful eyes that says, and the Lord says, rise and anoint him for this is the one. and that's how David got identified as this future king.

[00:03:31] The other passage that I want to talk a little bit about is John chapter nine, and this story I think some of us have probably heard before, where Jesus is walking along and he sees a man who's blind, who's been blind from birth, and so his disciples ask, Notice, not somebody else but his disciples. Ask him, who sinned this man or his parents so that he was born blind?

[00:03:55] Because something like blindness would've been seen as [00:04:00] being given because somebody has sinned and Jesus says, neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born blind. So that God's works might be revealed in. And then he talks a little bit about being the light of the world. And the reason that he was sent was to show God's works.

[00:04:20] And then he spats on the ground and he makes some mud out of saliva and he puts the mud on the man's eyes and he sends him to go wash in this pool. And the man went and washed and he came back and suddenly he was able to. And the neighbors and those before him who saw this beggar who used to be a beggar because he was blind, and now all of a sudden he can see and they say, is this not the man who used to sit and beg?

[00:04:49] And some were saying, no, it's not really him, it's just somebody that looks like him. And the man kept saying, no I am that man. And they asked him Then how were your eyes? [00:05:00] And he says, the man named Jesus came. He made some mud. He spread it on my eyes. He told me to go and wash. I went and washed, and now I can see.

[00:05:10] They said, where is he? And he says, I don't know. Then they brought this man to the Pharisees and because it was the Sabbath day that Jesus had made mud and helped the man see the Pharisees. Wait, how did this happen? And he tells the story again of the mud and the eyes and washing and so on. And the Pharisees, some of them said this man can't be of God because he was working on the Sabbath.

[00:05:37] You can't do that. And others said, but how could he be a sinner or be wrong? Because he performed this miracle and so they were divided. And so they said to the blind man, what do you say? Your eyes were open. What do you say? And the man said he is a prophet. And again, they didn't really believe that he had been [00:06:00] blind and made to see again.

[00:06:01] And then they called in the parents and they said, this is your son. He was born blind, but now he can see. How did that happen? They said we all know . This is our son. And he was born blind. And we don't know. Ask him. He's old enough to talk for him. and they were afraid because they were afraid that anyone who saw this as a miracle and saw Jesus as the Messiah would be put out.

[00:06:28] And so again, they called the man back and they said, how did this happen? Give glory to God. We know that this man, meaning Jesus is a sinner. And he says, I don't know whether he's a sinner or not. The one thing I do know is I was blind, and now I can see. And he says, they said again, what did he do? How did he do this?

[00:06:49] And he said, I told you already. I told you once before, this is how it happened. You won't listen to me. And do you also want to become his [00:07:00] disciples? And they said, you are his disciple. But we are disciples of Moses and we know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, Jesus, we don't know where he comes.

[00:07:14] And the man says, here's an astonishing thing. You don't know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. And since this happened, never since the world began, has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person.

[00:07:34] Blind. Blind. And if this man were not from God, he could do. And they answered him, you were born entirely in sin and yet you're trying to teach us. And they drove him out and Jesus heard that the man had been driven out and he went out and found him and it says, do you believe? And the answer, the man answered, who is the son of man?

[00:07:55] Tell me and I will believe in him. And Jesus said, you've [00:08:00] seen him, the one who is speaking to you as He. And he said, Lord, I believe. And Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment so that those who don't see may see, and those who do see may become blind. And sir, some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said, sure, we are not blind are we?

[00:08:20] And Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, we see your sin remain. . These stories are both ones that are pretty famous in the Bible, and you've probably heard them before. And starting with a story from John, it probably sounds like one of those many healing stories from the gospels, and there are a ton of them.

[00:08:42] And it's a story about miracles and revealing Jesus's power and bringing healing to one of the sufferers, lining the city streets of Israel. But it's actually a little bit more than that. It's an invitation to look at the world through God's eyes, [00:09:00] not only to see God, but to see what God sees. God acts in a way that's different than the way we would act, and John is giving us a glimpse of that in this story.

[00:09:14] The healing takes place as the result of a question. Now, normally if the disciples ask Jesus a question, he usually responds with a story or a parable or some sort of teaching, but here he actually heals a bind blind from birth. He does something the question is about sin, and Jesus says sin or not, I can heal.

[00:09:36] He wanted to move the discussion beyond that of fault, which is often where we start, is it this man's fault? Is it parent's fault? Whose fault is it something went wrong, it must be somebody's fault. Let's spend the time figuring out whose fault it is. And instead, Jesus wants to focus on possibility.

[00:09:54] He says that this man at this moment is given over so that we can [00:10:00] see the presence and power of. and then he makes the mud paste and rubs it on his eyes. This may seem a little odd, dirt and spit and all of these things mixed together, and it's happening on the Sabbath, which is the day that was set aside for worshiping God and nothing like work was to be done.

[00:10:21] It seems almost designed to be upsetting to people, to poke people in the eye. He's bringing about the power of God through some of the most mundane of elements and through acting in a way that seems to be counter to what was put forward at this time to do something to show the power of God, normally we would think it has to be something extraordinary.

[00:10:45] It has to be something flashy, it has to be something big. And here it's happening in the simplest of. Here's some mud on your eyes. Now go wash. Jesus is in [00:11:00] part trying to tell them it's not about the flash and dash, it's just about loving on each other. And then there's this long text after the Healing where there's this big argument about is Jesus of God?

[00:11:15] Is he not? Is this some sort of trick? Is he really, was he really the guy? Was he really blind? Maybe it's his twin brother. Whatever. that this couldn't possibly be the truth, even though people witnessed it. Even though it happened right in front of people, even though his parents say it's real, even though he says it's real, it can't possibly be real.

[00:11:39] And they challenge this and then when that doesn't work, they drive him out because surely somebody like this couldn't teach them something and. Whether you look back at that passage from Samuel the anointing of David, here's David selected to be the King [00:12:00] of Israel while there was still another king on the throne.

[00:12:04] And here's the smallest youngest, least of the children of Jesse. Who's been serving all of his older brothers, who are all heroes and king material and all look the part and act the part and should have the part. And yet Samuel is called by God to anoint the smallest, the least, the one that came in still smelling of sheep.

[00:12:27] And if you think about that's again this example of God looking at the world and seeing it in a way different than the way you and I. He's saying this is the right person and this is the right time. Over and over God has given a message of, don't look at the appearance, don't look at the height.

[00:12:49] Don't look at what mortals see, but look beyond that. Look to the heart. Look to the mind. Look to the spirit. Look to what is [00:13:00] bigger and deeper than that. Because when we look at the things that are normal to look at, to evaluate people, we often get it wrong. When we live on the surface, we miss what's really going on.

[00:13:13] But when we get deeper into it, when we really get to the purpose behind it, the why behind it, the emotion behind it, the reason behind it, the spirit behind it, then we begin to look at things with the vision of faith, which is a different way of looking at. . That means sometimes looking at things a little differently, looking at things, the way that God looks at them is harder, but also more important.

[00:13:42] It's one thing to just overlook things, to miss stuff, but sometimes we're actually blind, and even worse, sometimes we're de deliberately blind. We choose actively to not. Through the eyes of God to not see things with love, to not see things with grace. [00:14:00] We choose actively to believe things that we're told that we know deep down inside are not true.

[00:14:07] We forget about seeing contentment and joy and sustenance and abundance because we lose. We lose the ability of thinking about things and looking at things with that abundance mindset and that belief and that faith that God ask us to look at the world with. And because of that, we are often blind in the presence of God to how God sees the world.

[00:14:40] Thanks for listening.

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