Before We Lose Our Way!

Sermon Series

Lord, We Need A Miracle – Part 3

"Before We Lose Our Way!"

Pastor Jerry

Mark 8:14-25 (NIV)

 

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Over the past several months we have entered a new reality where life has taken on a new normal: stay away from others and wash your hands if you touch anything, all in an effort to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. We live in very uncertain times. No one can tell us when this will all end. Are you afraid? I often hear people say...  I just don’t see how I’m going to make it … I just don’t see what I can do to change things … When people say “I just don’t see,” they’re using a phrase of hopelessness.  How you see life determines everything in your life:  It determines how you see God.  Everything in your life is affected by your perspective, by what you see. In the book of Matthew Jesus said it like this, Matthew 6 “The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, then your whole body will be full of darkness.”   Obviously, he’s talking about more than physical sight here.  He’s talking about vision.  He’s talking about seeing with spiritual eyes. Learning to see life from God’s viewpoint in the Bible is called wisdom.  One of my goals as your pastor is to help you see clearly the path before you. It’s my purpose to help you learn to see everything in your life from God’s point of view. We began a sermon series two weeks ago entitled: Lord, We Need a Miracle. And today we are going to continue with that theme with a message entitled, “Before We Lose Our Way.”   From the stories in the Bible we are learning how to have Faith to face these trying times. So today I want us to look at this issue of seeing clearly, before you lose your way. In the book of Mark (8) Jesus uses two lessons to teach us to see correctly.  He uses a miracle of misunderstanding with his disciples and He uses a miracle of healing to clarify and help people get a better vision, a better handle on what am I supposed to be doing with my life in a time of crisis? We’ll start first with the lesson from our Scripture reading, what I would call an embarrassing misunderstanding between Jesus and the disciples.  ‘Be careful,’ Jesus warned.  ‘Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.’  The disciples concluded it was because they didn’t bring any bread. Jesus said you guys have eyes but you don’t really see.  You still don’t get it? You can know all the facts of the Bible and still not get it. Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You know your problem, you guys? You don’t know the Scriptures, and even worse, if you know the scriptures, you don’t know God.” You can know the miracle and not know the Miracle Worker’s purpose. Every miracle has a message in it.  Obviously the disciples didn’t get it.  They were spiritually blind.  Blindness can be a metaphor for a closed mind. The disciples weren’t physically blind. But they were spiritually blind. They had all the facts and doctrines of the Bible but they didn’t get it, they didn’t really know what God wanted from them. What is it that keeps us from seeing clearly and causes us to lose our way as we try to follow Jesus?  Why is it that sometimes we can’t see what’s the problem in our life? Why we’re not doing what God is asking us too? Why is it that sometimes we’re headed down the wrong road and we have no idea where we’re going? In this passage Jesus points out a barrier that cause us to not be able to see clearly: its short term memory.  Isn’t that true?  How quickly we forget: God is with us! God does something good in our lives, he answers a prayer, he bails us out of a struggle and He helps us by giving us a miracle.  Then the next time a problem comes along we act as if there is no hope for us.  In Ephesians 1:18 it says “I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened...”  He says I want you to see the way God sees, from God’s point of view.  “…In order that you may know the hope.  Lord, open the eyes of our heart.  Help us to see from your vision. Now, let’s look at the second lesson used as a means of teaching us to see, it’s the miracle of Jesus healing the blind man. Jesus is going to use this miracle to teach us three conditions for a miracle. It says when they came to Bethsaida; some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. Notice Jesus doesn’t go to him.  Here’s the first point we learn, the first condition for a miracle.

1. Miracles happen when somebody cares.

This guy didn’t come on his own. He’s blind. He had to be brought. Caring friends bring hurting friends to Jesus. There’s a word for this. It’s called intercession. Who do you need to bring to Jesus?  This man who was blind would have never had his sight back, but he had some friends who cared.  Here’s the second thing we learn about miracles:

2. Miracles happen when we get close to Jesus.

Obviously you can’t be touched by Jesus unless you’re close to Jesus. You can’t be touched by him if you’re far away. Healing comes from a relationship with Christ. The more I get to know Christ the more God’s healing is able to be done in my life. The third thing it says, “Jesus took him [the blind man] by the hand and led him outside the village.”

3. Miracles happen when we trust Jesus to lead us.

If this guy hadn’t let Jesus lead him outside the village he would have never had the miracle.  Some of you feel that way right now. You have no idea what God’s doing right now in your life. I have no idea where he’s wanting to take me. I have no idea how long it’s going to take. Congratulations. You’re getting ready for a miracle. This is called the walk of faith. If you’ve lost your way you need to trust Jesus. He loves you. He knows what you need better than you do. So Jesus put his hands on the man …then his eyes were opened fully, his sight was restored completely, and he saw everything clearly.  What do we learn from this story in the Bible?  We learn about seeing with spiritual eyes.  We learn that miracles happen when we bring our need to Jesus and when we get close to Him and when we trust Jesus to lead us. Jesus asked the disciples, ‘Who do you say I am?’  Peter said, ‘You are the Christ.  You are the Messiah.”  You are the Son of God.  How we see Jesus determines how clearly we see everything else.  When you let Jesus take your hand and you stay close to Him, and you trust Him, that’s when you’re about to have a miracle.  Do you need a miracle thus morning? It’s never too late to let Jesus heal your vision and heal your life.