Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Blind to Jesus? | New Testament | John 7

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Can you see yourself for who you really are? Do you see Jesus for who he really is? How can you see things for what they really are? Find out how to see the true Jesus. Today, Keith looks to John 7 to discuss the danger of being blind toward your spiritual blindness. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: John 7

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. What if you're blind to the fact that you're blind? Like being blind means you can't see things, and that comes with significant challenges. But what if you're blind to your blindness? In other words, what if you couldn't see but insisted that you could? That's a pretty scary proposition.

There's a condition called Anton Babinski syndrome. and it is a rare symptom that occurs when a certain part of your brain is damaged. Those who suffer from it are blind but affirm quite adamantly in the face of clear evidence that they are capable of seeing. Now, this Anton Babinski syndrome, it is incredibly rare. But something that is similar and far more common is spiritual blindness. When we are blind to our spiritual blindness, we have a lot of misplaced confidence. Think about American Idol

And in those shows at the beginning of the season They would do these auditions all over the country And people would line up Because they thought they were going to maybe make it on the show And become famous Now, some of the people who were auditioning for the show Were terrible singers But the point wasn't just that they were bad

I mean, I think I'm the worst singer ever It's that some of the people who were incredibly bad singers Thought they were very good singers They couldn't see themselves accurately Revelation 3. You say I am rich. I have acquired wealth and I do not need a thing. But do you not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked? See, they were very confident. They thought they were rich. They didn't need anything. And yet, they were blind to their real condition. So some people are blind to Jesus. Like they see him as a man, but not God. They see him as a teacher, but not Savior. Some people look at the cross and see it as weakness, not strength. As foolishness, not wisdom, as a means of execution, not as a means of salvation. When you're blind to your own blindness, that means that you don't know spiritual truth, but you are very confident that you do. So in John chapter 7, Jesus is under threat from the religious authorities. They're trying to kill him.

Meanwhile, his brothers are telling him to go to Judea so that the disciples there can see the works you do. We're in verse four. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret, they tell him. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world. So his brothers are acting like his PR team. They're giving him advice of how to accomplish his mission. But here's the key. In verse five, it says, for even his own brothers did not believe in him. You know how hard it'd be to be Jesus' brother? I mean, he's perfect, right? He's smart. He's sinless. He's always the star. I am sure if they're like most brothers, they probably hated him. Mark, chapter 6. 3. Then Jesus entered a house and again a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not

even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said he is out of his mind. So his own family thinks that he is crazy. It's not only his family that doesn't believe in him, but the crowds don't either, because after he does some teaching later in John 7 in verse 20, the crowds say he is demon possessed. And that's a pretty typical reaction from the crowds. They see him, they hear him, but they can't see the value, they can't see the beauty, they don't hear the truth in what he says. Instead, they say he's demon possessed. Now, the leaders we've already seen, they're trying to kill Jesus. So you've got the leaders who are trying to kill him, the crowd saying he's demon possessed, and his family who thinks he's crazy. But if you just fast forward,

through the crucifixion and the resurrection, what you find is that at least some of his brothers come to faith in Jesus. One of those brothers is named James, and he not only became a believer, but he became one of the leaders in the Jerusalem Church and later died for his faith. And then in Acts 6, we find that a lot of these are religious authorities that were trying to kill Jesus. Well, they, along with priests, came to faith in Jesus. So how do we explain this change? What happened? Did they just kind of wake up? Did they just figure things out? Well, kind of yes, but kind of no. You see, a person, doesn't make themselves a Christian. A person becomes a Christian by grace. It's a gift. Jesus said in John 6, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them.

See, no one can become a Christian unless God draws them to put their faith in Jesus. You don't become a Christian on your own. Now, you might be thinking, well, are you saying there's no free will then? Well, I'm not exactly saying that. Let's think about it this way. Suppose you came over to my house for dinner and I served you a wonderful dish of monkey brains topped with human excrement and flies. Will you ever choose to eat that meal? Well, of course not. You might say I can't eat that. But that's not exactly true, is it? It's not that you can't eat it. It's that you don't want to eat it. It's not that you lack opportunity. It's that you lack desire. You see, apart from God's grace, if you gave me a thousand chances, a million chances to choose Jesus,

my sinful heart would never do it. It's not because I can't. it's because I won't, because the sinful human heart doesn't desire Jesus. Just like we have physical taste buds that cause us to crave certain kinds of food, so we also have spiritual taste butts. And those spiritual taste buds crave sin until Jesus changes them so that they desire him. Or another way of saying it is that we have to have our eyes open so that we can see. Or another way of saying it is that we have to have our eyes open so that we can see so that we aren't blind to spiritual truth.

Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 4. The God of this age, now that's Satan that he's talking about, the God of this age has blinded the mind of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God. It's not that they couldn't see Jesus. It's they couldn't see his value. They couldn't see the glory. They couldn't see the beauty. They've ever been to an art dealer and you go in and you look at a piece of art and you think, this is kind of ugly or at best it's just kind of average? And then you look at the price tag and it costs a fortune.

See, you see the art, but you don't see the value, you don't see the beauty in it, you don't see the creativity in it. That's just like the people who don't know Christ. They look at him, but they don't see what is truly valuable about him. Unless, of course, like Jesus said in John 6, the Father draws them. And that's what happens when anybody becomes a Christian, whether it's his brothers who became a Christian or the religious authority in the priests or you and me. God changes hearts. He opens eyes so that people can see in Jesus things they had never seen before. So one of the things that means is that when we recognize that we don't become Christians on our own,

but only if the Father draws us, then we should be humble, right? I mean, we don't have anything to boast about because our heart, apart from God's grace, would reject Jesus. If somebody were to ask me, why did you become a Christian? I mean, I can give them an answer from a human perspective. But behind my answer, the real truth is because God changed my heart, because God opened my eyes, because God gave me the gift of faith. That's why I have nothing to boast about. That's why I should never look down anybody who's not a Christian.

I'm not better than them. I'm not smarter than them. I'm not more insightful than them. God has been gracious to me. And I should pray that God would be gracious to them as well. See, that's another motivation that comes from this is that if we know that God draws people to Jesus, Jesus and it's all of grace. That means that anyone could come to faith. The Bible is full of stories of people who were incredibly unlikely to ever come to faith in Jesus who did become Christians. And the

truth is that no one who's a Christian became that on their own. So we were all incredibly unlikely to put our faith in him. If I could become a Christian, then anybody could become a Christian. That should motivate us to share the gospel with whoever God brings into our life. It should motivate us to never give up on anyone, no matter how far from God they seem right now. I guess the story also has a warning in it, and maybe we'll conclude with that. And that is don't presume upon God's grace. If you feel like God is working in your heart right now, don't put that off. Don't delay in putting your faith in Jesus. There's a lot of things in this world you can put off. You can put off mowing your yard, you can put off doing your laundry, you can even put off, you can put off running

You can put off starting your diet. There's a lot of things that you can put off. But one thing that you shouldn't put off is responding to whatever God's doing in your heart. If God's leading you to read your Bible, read it. If he's leading you to pray, pray. If he's leading you to get more involved in your church, then do that. Whatever God's leading to you, do it quickly. Don't delay. Because the reality is that you might not want that tomorrow. If you put it off, your heart might grow hard. God isn't an ATM machine that you punch some numbers into and get something in return. He's not a vending machine. There's this assumption that you can always choose Christ later.

You can always choose to obey later. You can always read your Bible tomorrow. You can always start to find a good church next week. I mean, in one sense, that's true. But the reality is that you might not want to next week. You might not want to read your Bible. You might not want to pray. Recognize that whatever spiritual desires you have,

those are from God and respond to them right away. Amen.