Sermon Central
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Believing Is Seeing! Series
Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Feb 16, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: We see what we are looking for. Seeing is not believing, but believing will make you see!
Believing is Seeing!
35 Jesus…said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."
37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."
38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?"
41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
(NIV)
Find five things that have green in them:
With a GREEN mindset, you’ll find that GREEN jumps out at you.
We SEE what we are LOOKING for!
A certain pastor observed a little girl standing outside the preschool Sunday school classroom between Sunday school and worship, waiting for her parents to come and pick her up for "big church." The pastor noticed that she clutched a big storybook under her arm with the title "Jonah and the Whale."
Feeling mischievous, he knelt beside the girl and asked, "What’s that you have in your hand?"
"This is my storybook about Jonah and the whale," she answered.
"Tell me something," he continued, "do you believe that story about Jonah and the whale?"
The girl said, "Why, of course I believe it!"
The pastor inquired further, "You really believe a man can be swallowed up by a big whale, stay inside him all that time, and come out okay?"
She declared, "Yes! This story is in the Bible, and we talked about it in Sunday school today."
Then the pastor asked, "Can you prove to me this story is true?"
She thought for a moment and then said, "Well, when I get to heaven, I’ll ask Jonah."
Finally the pastor asked, "What if Jonah’s not in heaven?"
The girl put her hands on her hips and sternly declared, "Then YOU can ask him!"
Believing is SEEING!
The African Impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. Why? These animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will land.
Believing is SEEING!
9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"--
(NIV)
Believing is SEEING!
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"
27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
(NIV)
As with Thomas, so it is with us. We have trouble believing it until we see it. The true of the matter is that we really can never see it until we believe it.
John 7-10 records for us events that happened in the life of Jesus during the Feast of the Tabernacles, one of three festivals every Jewish man was to attend every year. Jesus was not going, and then went secretly, so as not to draw attention to himself. When He did make Himself known, the Pharisees did everything in their power to try and discredit Jesus. They argued, told lies, entrapped a woman they caught in the act of adultery (for some reason, they only brought the woman! Doesn’t it take a man and a woman to commit adultery?), argued some more with Jesus and even tried to stone Him. As Jesus is leaving the temple grounds, going down into the city of Jerusalem, he and His disciples encounter a man who had been blind all his life.
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.
