Pay Attention

If you have your bible turn to John 9 starting at verse one.

Today we’re going to look at a story about a man who was ignored his whole life… but then his whole life changed when Jesus broke the rules to extend hope and healing to him.

John 9:1

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.

Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,”he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?”

Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”

But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”

“How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.

He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”

This story is about Jesus noticing someone most people ignored.

There’s a common scene:

A couple is sitting together. She’s pouring her heart out in conversation, while he’s working on his phone.

She gets more and more frustrated.

Finally, she can’t hold in her frustration any more and says to him, “You’re not listening to me.”

He says, “Of course I’m listening to you. I can repeat every word you said.” And he does.

Here’s the question. Is she satisfied with that?

No, she’s not satisfied with that. Why not?

She doesn’t want him just to get the words. She’s not interested in having a conversation with Siri. She wants him to put down the phone, look her in the eye and pay attention to her.

Am I right?

By the way, this could go either way. It could be the woman who’s looking at her phone and the man who is in conversation. It could be either way.

Paying attention is one of the most powerful forces in the world.

Studies have been done on this.

One study was done in a college classroom.

The students in the class were all in on this experiment.

The students were asked to pay NO attention to the teacher when he taught from the right side of the room. They were asked not to give him eye contact or even look at him.

As he moved to the left side of the room, they would sit up straight. The farther he moved to the left, the more attention students would give him.

When he was by the wall on the left hand side, students would take notes, smile, nod and maintain eye contact.

By the end of the quarter, this teacher was standing in the corner of the left side of the room the entire time.

Paying attention to people shapes their behavior and shapes their lives. It’s a very powerful force.

Any of you who have spoken in a public setting know how powerful attention is.

When you speak, there are certain faces that encourage you.

I find this week after week.

Some of you by physically paying attention give me energy.

There are certain faces I look for. By the way you smile, nod and make eye contact, you’re saying, “Yes, I’m getting it. Keep going.”

There are other faces it’s better not to look at.

The first time I ever preached, someone fell asleep. It was a devastating experience.

I can still remember riding home with my wife Kathy afterwards saying, “Kathy, next Saturday night, you’ve got to get to bed earlier.”

Attention is so valuable, we don’t just give it. How do we talk about distributing attention?

We PAY attention. It’s like money. It’s a valuable thing.

This brings us to the blind man in John 9.

This man spent his entire life being ignored. He simply was not worth noticing.

He was blind.
He was a beggar.

If you ever drive by an intersection and see a guy standing or sitting with a sign that says, “Homeless, Need Help” watch what happens to people in the cars.

There’s a common interaction with people and those who are in need. The needy person will try to catch your eye.

And the average person will try to avert their eyes. They pretend they don’t see him. Because once they pay attention, then they feel an obligation to respond.

Well, that was this guy’s life.

He would try to do things to get people’s attention, and people would look the other way.

He was used to being ignored.

What he did for a living was — be ignored.

John says:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.

If you like to underline things in your bible, you may want to underline the verb “saw.”

All through chapter 9, this little verb “to see” keeps popping up.

John tells this story with great skill.

He compares physical sight with spiritual sight or insight.

He contrasts the ability to see spiritually with spiritual blindness – with people who think they can see but in fact can’t see at all.

The encounter starts with this — Jesus pays attention to someone everyone else ignores.

Jesus pays attention to insignificant-looking people.

Jesus pays attention to you and me.

There is not the smallest detail of your life that is not of immense interest to Jesus.

Jesus pays attention to you. He notices you. He is fascinated by you.

You may be boring to a lot of people. You’re never boring to God.

God is not bored by the most trivial detail of your life. God pays immense attention to you.

Well, Jesus sees this guy. He notices him.

And consequently, the disciples notice this guy.

They ask a very odd question. Look at verse 2.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

This is a strange question, isn’t it?

I mean, the man was born blind. How could his blindness, which existed since his birth, be caused by his own sin?

Well, there was a fairly common belief in Jesus’ day that it was possible to be born sinful.

If a mother-to-be worshipped in a heathen temple, there were rabbis who taught that the unborn child was judged to be guilty of idolatry, because the mother worshipped in a heathen temple.

They believed it was possible for a fetus to sin.

Somehow it made people feel better if they could think that a suffering person deserved his suffering.

Generally in those days, people believed there was a cause-and-effect relationship between suffering and sin. That’s part of what this guy faced.

He spent his life with people trying to ignore him.

He was blind — that was depressing to people.
He was a beggar — that was demanding to people.
He was the product of sin — that was disgusting to people.

Mothers would walk by this man with their children and teach their children:

Don’t look at him.
Don’t listen to him.
Don’t go near him.
Don’t pay any attention to him.
He wants something, and he doesn’t deserve it.

Jesus walks by this man that everyone else ignores… but Jesus stops.

The disciples say, “Who sinned?”

Jesus says to his disciples, “You have not been paying attention. God has not forsaken him. God has COME to him.”

This is just the kind of guy Jesus is looking for. He wants something, and he doesn’t deserve it.

Jesus loves to give good gifts to people who are undeserving.

Take a look at verses 3 through 5.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

And I just have to say here to those of you who are suffering… maybe what has happened to you was so that the works of God might be displayed in you.

Now, verse 4 is one of two key verses in this passage.

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

“We must do the works of him who sent me.”

What does Jesus mean by saying “As long as it is day?”

What he’s saying is – there is now an extraordinary opportunity. And this extraordinary opportunity is time-limited. It’s possible to miss it.

However in verse 4, he doesn’t say, “I must do the works.” What does he say?

He says “we.”

This includes the disciples. By extension, it includes all of his disciples. It includes you. This verse includes you and me.

If you really want to get it, put your name there. You must do the works of God.

In general, I think one of the hardest things for human beings to believe is that they were actually created to do the work of God.

In general, one of the hardest things you will ever have to come to believe is that God really created you and sent you to this earth to do his work.

Do you remember the movie Blues Brothers.

The two central characters in the movie are two crazy musicians on a cause.

People periodically throughout the film asked them, “What are you doing?”

They have a standard answer. Do you know what their answer was?

“We’re on a mission from God.”

It’s hilarious to think that these two ordinary, mediocre, crazy, music wannabes could have been commissioned by the God of the universe.

And that’s the point of the joke. How could these two guys be on a mission from God?

You know, everything in our world — this world apart from God — is designed to keep us from believing that we’re on a mission from God.

Our world is designed to keep you from believing that.

If you don’t believe me, the next time you get stopped by a policeman and he asks you, “Where are you going so fast?”

Just tell him, “I’m on a mission from God.”

Next time your spouse asks why you left dirty clothes out on the floor, just say, “I’m on a mission from God.”

See how far it gets you.

It sounds a little grandiose, doesn’t it? “I’m on a mission from God.”

But what’s the alternative?

The alternative is you’re NOT on a mission from God.

It’s either one way or the other.

The alternative is — God has no particular interest, investment or attention devoted to what your life is about.

You see, the truth about your life, which you must at some point come to believe — and I don’t mean “believe” like you sign a statement or something. I mean you must come to experience the truth of it. It must come to make sense to you.

The truth about your life is that you’re on a mission from God.

Jesus is very clear about this. He says, “You are the light of the world. You are a city set on a hill, a light that cannot be hidden.”

You must come to believe that your life is a mission sent by God.

You must come to believe this, because it is possible to miss it. Many people do. That’s why Jesus says, “While it is day.”

There’s another thing about this. Notice when it is that Jesus did the work of God.

Jesus says in verse 4: “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.”

Look back in verse one. When did he do it?”

The very first sentence is

As he went along

This is an important point.

The main place you will do the work of God, the main place you will carry out your mission in life, the main place is – “as you go along.”

It doesn’t have to be in high-profile, important positions.

In fact, one of the great barriers to experiencing our lives as missions from God is the illusion that we must somehow have an important job, an impressive title, or a significant portfolio.

Mostly this idea of doing the work of God happens in the routine, unspectacular corners of your life… as you go along.

It happens with the people and opportunities God brings into your daily existence.

God will not ask you one day:

Did you achieve financial security?
Did you live in the right neighborhood?
Did you get the promotion?

God WILL ask you, Did you do my work…

in your job, whatever it happened to be
with your family or friends
in your neighborhood or your school

Did you love people?

This is your day. There have been other days. There have been other people who came before you. There will be other people that come after you.

This is your day.

If the light of God is going to shine in your little world, in that little chair that you sit in right now, it’s going to have to be through you.

Please don’t miss it. If you do, you don’t get it back. “Night is coming,” Jesus says.

This is your day. You are on a mission from God. As crazy as that sounds, that’s just simply the truth. You are on a mission from God.

And it will happen – you will accomplish your mission – if you do it “as you go along.”

You’ll accomplish your mission with the people and opportunities God brings into your life.

The great question is, what is the work of God?

There’s great confusion on this point. We’re always trying to turn it into narrow, rule-oriented, legalistic or religious kinds of things.

There was great disagreement between the religious leaders and Jesus on what constitutes the work of God.

Look at verses 14 through 16.

This blind man is brought before the Pharisees.

Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight.

“He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

These religious leaders had a list of what constituted the work of God.

They had a list of 39 things you were not allowed to do in order to keep the Sabbath.

And for them, the critical part of doing the work of God was avoiding these 39 things.

And one of them was you were not allowed to mix anything on the Sabbath.

Which meant when Jesus used saliva and dirt to make clay, he was violating one of the 39 things you couldn’t do on the Sabbath.

More than that, healing was not allowed on the Sabbath.

One of the rules was you could receive medical attention on the Sabbath only if your life was in actual danger… only if your life was threatened. Even then, it could only be for the purpose of keeping you from dying. It couldn’t be to improve your condition.

The details of the rules were clearly spelled out. And this stuff was all taken very seriously.

If your hand or foot was dislocated, they wrote that you were not allowed to pour cold water over it, because cold water might help heal the sprain.

For the Pharisees, the work of God was about the rules of Sabbath-keeping.

Jesus says the work of God is not primarily about rules. It is primarily about people.

Jesus is saying people are our business. If you want to do the work of God, start by paying attention to people, especially people others ignore.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were so devoted to showing their righteousness that they missed the essence of the work of God.

The essence of the work of God is what?

Love

Jesus says in John 13:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

The work of God is primarily… and fundamentally — Love.

And The place where love starts is paying attention.

To see how unloved and ignored this man was, look back at verses 8 and 9.

This guy has been on the side of the road. He’s been blind from birth, which means he’s been a beggar his whole entire life. He’s probably been in the same place year after year.

We don’t know how old he was – maybe 30 or 40 years old? He was a grown man.

Verse 8:

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?”

Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”

And here’s the thing. This guy was blind from birth. He’s been begging in the same place for his whole life – 30 or 40 years maybe.

These are his neighbors who lived where he begged. They had been with him all of that time – for 30 or 40 years.

Day after day, he’s been a part of their world.

They paid so little attention to him that when the miracle happens and he receives his sight, they’re not even able to identify him. They didn’t even know what he looked like. Some of them didn’t even think he was the same guy.

The capacity of human beings to go through their days, day after day after day, without paying attention is staggering.

I read something recently. It’s true as far as I know. It’s about a guy who had been drinking and driving, and got stopped by the police.

He was busted and he knew he was busted.

He was on the side of the road doing a breathalyzer test after walking in a line and pointing his finger to his nose, when an accident happened on the other side of the freeway.

The officer said, “Wait here,” and walked across to the other side of the freeway.

The guy thought, this is a golden chance. This is providential.

He got into the car and drove home.

He pulled into the garage, closed the garage door, and told his wife, “I’m going to bed. I’m not feeling well. If anyone comes looking for me, tell them I’ve been in bed all day.”

About a half an hour later, there’s a knock at the door. It’s the police. His wife answers the door and says, “My husband has been sick in bed all day.”

The officer says, “Well, let me talk to him.” So she takes him back to the room.

The officer says, “You were just on the freeway. You were arrested.”

The guy says, “No, I’ve been in bed all day.”

The officer says, “Would you take me to your garage?”

They walked into the garage, and there in the garage is the police car with the lights flashing.

This guy was so drunk that when he got into a car, he got into the police car and drove it all the way home, parked it in his garage and left it there.

The human capacity to go through a day without paying attention is just staggering.

Let me give you two questions to reflect on this week. The first question is:

Are you paying attention to God?

Are you listening for the still, small voice in which the Spirit usually speaks?

Part of what that probably will require is a lot of quiet. Probably, if you’re going to pay attention to God, you will need to significantly reduce the noise in your life.

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Do you know what causes noise in your life?

Maybe it’s your schedule.
Maybe it’s your pace.
Maybe it’s television.
Maybe it’s social media.
Maybe it’s your phone.

It’s important to know what it is.

Probably, if you’re going to pay attention to God, you’re going to need to get serious about reducing the noise in your life.

The second question is:

Are you paying attention to people?

We talk about creating irresistible environments here at Blue Oaks. Do you want to know what the secret of being irresistible is? Would you like to know? It could come in handy sometime.

Pay attention to people.

If you want to do the work of God, start by simply paying attention to people.

Notice them. Especially notice the people no one else notices.

When you pay attention to someone and focus totally on someone, what you say is, “You’re the most important person in my world right now.”

That’s what Jesus does for the blind man.

You know, we live in a world where people are just used to being ignored.

Scott Peck wrote this about love:

“Love is a form of work. The principle form the work of love takes is attention. When we love another person, we give him or her our attention. We attend to that person’s growth. The energy required for the discipline of focusing total attention is so great that it can be accomplished only by love.”

Jesus breaks the rules in order to pay attention to this man everyone else ignored.

The Pharisees are so opposed to Jesus that they seek to find a way to discredit what happened.

And we have another kind of blindness that surfaces in this story.

It’s the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees.

There clearly has been a miracle here. But the pharisees don’t want to see it. They don’t want to see the reality of who Jesus is.

They call in the guy’s parents. Look at verse 18:

They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”

The parents’ response is very interesting.

“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.”

The mom and dad are not really going out on a limb to protect their boy. The next verse tells why:

His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.

That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

In other words, sometimes you’ve got to choose who you will give attention to.

There are forces in this world that do not want you to pay attention to Jesus.

And devoting full attention to Jesus may involve a price. It most likely will.

The Pharisees called this guy back in for a second round.

Remember, this is a guy who spent his whole life being ignored. Year after year, he was ignored. All of a sudden, everyone is falling all over themselves to get at him. First, Jesus sees him, then the disciples, and then his neighbors. They drag him off to the religious leaders. Now he is in for a second interview

And these leaders have a clear agenda, which is to get him to say something that will discredit Jesus.

And the way he handles himself here is amazing. He’s got to be one of the most compelling characters in the Gospel of John.

They call him in, verse 24:

A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”

He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!

Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

There’s a little bit of sarcasm going on there.

This guy is a remarkable character for someone who has been ignored his whole life.

Look at verse 28:

Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.

Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

And now we begin to see their blindness.

And here’s the irony. These religious leaders think of themselves as being totally devoted to the work of God.

Yet they’re so busy with working that God himself comes, and they don’t even notice. They’re not paying attention.

There’s not a better way to describe them than — they’re blind.

Let me read a passage from Isaiah 42.

The Prophet Isaiah is speaking on behalf of God, trying to express God’s great frustration at people’s refusal to pay attention.

This is what God says in Isaiah 42:18:

Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see! Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one in covenant with me, blind like the servant of the Lord?

You have seen many things, but you pay no attention; your ears are open, but you do not listen.”

And down to verse 23:

Which of you will listen to this or pay close attention in time to come?

Over and over and over, God expresses this tremendous frustration in the Bible with people who just simply will not pay attention to him.

One of the words John uses in this text is a special word for vision which has a particular shade of meaning to it.

In verse 8, he talks about how they looked at the blind man but didn’t really see him or notice him.

It’s a word that has to do with overlooking.

Have you ever been reading a book and got to the bottom of a page and realize you don’t have a clue what it is you just read?

Have you ever been listening to a message and realize you don’t have a clue what the teacher just said?

Anyone miss the question?

This capacity to not pay attention, God says, is a staggering thing.

Look at verse 35, as we come to the conclusion of the story.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

John is very careful throughout this whole story to show a picture of this man’s increasing understanding of and insight into who Jesus is.

In verse 10 the man’s neighbors ask him: “How is it that you can see, and who healed you?” His response is, “The man Jesus.”

All he knows about him is his name is Jesus.

In verse 17 when the Pharisees are interviewing him for the first time, they say, “What do you have to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man says, “He’s a Prophet.”

There’s something special about him. He has some kind of religious authority.

Then in verse 33 in the second interview with the religious leaders, he says, “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

In other words, it has become clear now that this man is not just a Prophet. He has been sent from God. He’s a special messenger.

And now finally, Jesus goes back to this man, and pays attention to him again, and tells him, “You’re in the presence of the Son of man.”

Look at verse 38:

Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

That’s my hope for some of my friends who are exploring Christianity… that they’ll come to the point where they say, “I believe,” and they worship him.

Again, John paints this picture so beautifully.

Notice in verse 37 what Jesus says to this man who was blind his whole life.

Look at the words he chooses.

Jesus said, “You have now seen him

You can see, not just with your eyes. You can see with your heart. You have found the one worth seeing.

When the disciples looked at this guy on the side of the road, they saw an interesting, theological problem: “Who sinned that he was born blind?”

When his neighbors looked at him, they saw an eyesore, a reminder of suffering and poverty that they learned to overlook.

When the Pharisees looked at him, they saw a violated Sabbath, a threat to their spiritual authority.

When Jesus looked at this man, Jesus saw an opportunity to do the work of God.

Jesus sees a child of God who needs to be delivered from blindness.

Jesus says in this pivotal verse, verse 39, that all human beings, you and me, are on a certain trajectory leading in one direction or the other.

This is the foundational verse.

Think about how profound this is.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world

Now, understand when Jesus says this, it doesn’t mean he comes to bring condemnation to people… or that he enjoys being an evaluating-type judge.

What he’s saying is, “When I come, it presents people with a choice. They will choose one way or the other. There will be a kind of judgment that is inevitably the result of my coming.”

That’s the spirit of what he is saying.

“For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

“So that those who are blind and insignificant on the side of the road like this man can be given sight – not just physical sight, but spiritual sight… to see what matters.

“I have come so that those who do not see, those who are blinded by sin, may be forgiven and given the gift of sight.

And then he says:

“For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see… and those who see will become blind.”

In other words, “Those who think they see – those who are judgmental and self-righteousness who claim to be the spiritually insightful ones. I have come that they may be shown to be as blind as they, in fact, are.”

Look at verse 40:

Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

They are expecting Jesus to accuse them of blindness.

Jesus says something far more serious.

“If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

In other words, “now that you refuse to acknowledge your human sinfulness before a God who longs to forgive — now that you refuse to acknowledge that, and now that you take this posture of stubborn self-righteousness — your sin remains.”

Jesus says earlier in verse 5, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. But here’s the deal. There are people who are blind. There are people that have been blinded by their sin and guilt. And all they have to do is come before God and say, ‘I’m blind,’ and God will give them the gift of sight.”

Like the blind man in this story, they can say, “I was blind but now I see.” You can say, “I was blind but now I see.”

Jesus says, “There are people who claim they don’t need God. They claim they have all the insight they need on their own. This is a kind of blindness. And God will allow them to live in it, if that’s what they choose.”

So we have two questions to reflect on this week:

Am I paying attention to God?
Am I paying attention to the people that he loves so much?

Last thing and then we’ll be done.

Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.”

He also said, “You are the light of the world” in the sermon on the mount, referring to his followers.

You are the light of the world. I am the light of the world.

Let’s go out this week and be the light of the world… as we pay attention to God and pay attention to the people he loves so much.

Let’s be like this blind man when he says, “I was blind but now I see.”

You don’t have to refute every argument people have about your faith.

When someone comes to you and says, “What is this thing that Jesus did for you?”

Simply say:

“I once I lived according to the way of the world. My life was headed to Hell and I was in trouble. Then I found Jesus Christ and now my life is different.
“I once I lived in a pile of guilt, but now that I am a Christian, I’m forgiven and my life’s different.
“I don’t know all the answers to all the questions people have, but I know this – I was blind but now I see.”

Simply tell your story. There’s power in your story – “I was blind and now I see.”

People can’t refute that.

Alright, let’s close in prayer as the ushers come forward to receive the offering and the band gets ready to lead us in one more song.