Well, this morning we'll be in John chapter 9 once again. This is a chapter that we've been looking at for a few weeks now. What has happened in this chapter? Well, in verse 1 we see that Jesus and the disciples see a man who is blind from birth, and Jesus heals him. Then it seems that almost immediately in the narrative, this man begins facing some opposition, even persecution. He defends Jesus, it seems, courageously before the Pharisees. And they eventually chastise him in verse 34. You were born under utter sin, would you teach us? And they cast him out. They cast him out of the synagogue. He's not allowed to worship with the people of God any longer. Why? Because he followed Jesus. Well, last week we looked at his lifetime of suffering blindness from birth, that it was used that the works of God might be displayed in him. It was used for God's glory. But now we also see that his present persecution is also part of God's plan. Being cast out of the assembly was more than it might feel today. There were very few places of public worship And in the particular place where he lived, to be cast out of the synagogue would certainly mean being cast out of all places of public worship. He was apart from the people of God. All because of his faith in Christ. This persecution, though, was used also for his good and God's glory. And because of it, it seems bearable for us as well. It seems bearable for this man because he found Jesus. We know this at the very end of the chapter. He worships Jesus. Or should we say, Jesus finds him. I love the Heidelberg number one. What is your only comfort in life and in death? Think of this narrative through this man's eyes reading these words, if you will. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul In His case, with blindness from the day of His birth, I belong with body and soul in both life and death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. For He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him." I believe that this statement probably summarizes much of this man's feeling. We're going to talk about his belief in Jesus and what it means for us as well. Would you please stand for the reading of God's holy and inspired Word. John 9, beginning in verse 35. Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And having found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of God? He answered, And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believed. And he worshiped him. Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, are we also blind? Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say we see your guilt remains. Amen. Please be seated. Let us pray. Father, we come to You once again, and we ask that You would distribute Your Holy Spirit to each one of us, that our hearts would be filled with understanding, that the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts would be pleasing in Your sight. O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer, O Lord, our consuming fire, burn up the dross within and make us new. In Jesus' name, amen. Do you believe in the Son of God? That's the name of the sermon. Do you believe in the Son of God? Well, if you remember, this is the entire reason for this Gospel. John said in John 20, verse 30, Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. and that by believing you may have life in His name." Do you believe in the Son of God? Jesus reveals Himself to this man in a way that's very special as well. In verse 37, when the man said, well, who is He that I might believe? Jesus said to him, you have seen Him and it is He who is speaking to you. This is one of the four or five times in John where Jesus explicitly declares His divine identity. In John 4.26, He was speaking to the woman at the well, if you remember, and He's talking about the Messiah. And He said, I who speak to you am He. But more specifically, He declares Himself to be the Son of God in John 5.25. speaking to the crowd, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.'" After this, in John 10, he says, "'Do you say of Him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said, I am the Son of God?' He's talking to the Pharisees. And then in John 11, Verse 4, when Jesus heard it, He said, this illness does not... talking of His friend who had just died. This illness does not lead to death, for it is the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Well, what I find interesting about this is He declares Himself to be the Son of God just to this one man. Whereas the other instances are seemingly to more than just one person. But He's speaking just to this man. Saying that He is the Son of God. Well, what does it mean to believe in the Son of God? What does that exactly mean? Of course, Jesus asks him the right question. This is the question He asks you. Do you believe in the Son of God? And he gets the right response. Of course, this man has already been worked on, it seems, by the Holy Spirit. We know this because he was courageous in his dealings with the Pharisees. He was courageous in that he had been cast out of the fellowship because of his testimony of Christ. And God goes and finds him. Jesus went and found him. In verse 35. He sought after him. showing the great mercy of God, the love of a father for his son or a mother for her child. He's tender and compassionate with us. He goes to find us in our times of weakness and misery. He's not callous towards us when we're in trouble. He's filled with tenderness and pity when he sees the miseries of our lives. And he's compassionate towards his children. He goes and finds this man. This also shows His great grace as well. His unmerited favor, as Joel Beeky puts it. His free generosity. Going to someone completely unrelated who's undeserving of good things. He goes and finds this man who had been cast out by his own people. His wise and tender care of this poor man shows the wise care that our Good Shepherd has for us as well. When His precious lambs are mistreated by wolves. And He found him and He said, do you believe in the Son of God? It's a simple, direct question, but it's the most important question that you could ever answer. Some translations say, do you believe in the Son of Man? It means the same. Do you believe in the Son of God? It's the most important answer you could ever give to any question is the answer to that one. It informs the rest of your life and certainly your time in eternity. But what does it mean? I think that's a fair question. What does it mean to believe in the Son of God? Believe in the in the English language is a word that can be used in a variety of ways, isn't it? Like many words in English, it's it. It feels kind of mushy. I believe that the Dallas Cowboys will win the Super Bowl this year. You might laugh. I don't know anything about football. I don't know if that's anywhere close to reality, but I believe it. Okay. Although I was born a man, I believe I'm a woman. You've heard that. Really? This is what believe means today. It's so malleable. I believe it might rain tomorrow. So you have a suspicion. Maybe you have looked at the weather channel. And so you say that you believe it might rain. Or as a child, you might say something like I believe in Santa Claus. Although the parents know that it's not real, right? Or someone who's about to do some important thing. You could say I believe in you. I believe in you. Or maybe it's a more scientific belief. I believe that the Pythagorean theorem is always right. But what does it mean to believe in Jesus? Well, certainly it means something closer to a scientific view. A real belief. A belief in a person, though. So it certainly is a belief in a person. Not just based on facts. But this belief is also something that's a gift from the Holy Spirit. So what does it mean to believe? Well, we're just going to look at the Scriptures as they talk about it, especially in John, as John talks about belief in God. I'll show you that it means at least eight things in the Scriptures to believe in God, to believe in the Son of God. Well, the first thing that we see, I believe in this text is that belief in Jesus is belief in God. In John 11, he writes, Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. In John 14, he says, Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. You see, to believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father. To believe in God. The triune God. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." In John 6, he says, this is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He has sent. 1 John 3, this is His commandment. The Father's commandment. That we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ. Finally, in John 12, verse 44, Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in Me, believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me. And whoever sees Me, sees Him who sent Me. So to believe in Jesus is to believe in God. If you believe in the Son of God, then you believe in God. But there are great blessings that come with our belief in God. Of course, the first is eternal life. Belief in the Son of God is eternal life. John 3, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man, the Son of God, be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. And praise be to God. This is, of course, one of John's points throughout the entire Gospel. To believe in the Son of God is required for life. You must believe in the Son of God. John 1, the introduction to John. But to those who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. To believe in the name of Jesus is to believe in all that He stands for. His Word, His works, His ordinances, His law. To stand for all that He came for. to believe in Him. Paul says in Romans 10, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. We preach Christ and Him crucified because only in faith in Christ can you be saved. In 1 John 5, We read, "...I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." A few more Scriptures. John 11, 25. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Speaking to Martha. I'm the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live. and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? Do you believe this, brothers and sisters? John 6, verse 35, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. Verse 40, this is the will of My Father that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. You see, belief in Jesus, belief in the person and the work of Jesus, belief and faith in Jesus Christ, in all that He is and all that He has done, is the gospel. John 14 says, let not your hearts be troubled. Hear these words for you who believe in Jesus. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. in my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" You see, this eternal life is a life with God and the Father, by the Spirit, forever and ever and ever. Belief in Jesus is eternal life. But we also see that there's a practical effect There's a practical effect in your life. To believe in Jesus means more than something intellectual. Your life is changed forever. So the third thing I would say is belief in Jesus. Belief in the Son of God is having your eyes opened. Being regenerate. Repenting. I go to it often because it's so profound. But Charles Wesley wrote, Long my imprisoned spirit lay, Fast bound in sin and nature's night, And thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, and the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, and my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. So to believe in Jesus is to see clearly, which produces a complete change in life. To have your eyes opened. John 12.46 Jesus says, I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness. Your life is changed when you see light. John 16.8 And when He comes, He will convict, talking of the Holy Spirit, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin because they do not believe in Me. Concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you will see Me no longer. Those who do not believe, do not see. Numbers 14 and 11. The Lord said to Moses, how long will this people despise Me? How long will they not believe in Me? In spite of the signs that I have done among them. They didn't see clearly. They saw the signs. But they still didn't believe in Jesus. They didn't believe in God. But when you believe, everything changes. We see the psalmist in Psalm 119.66 talking about the change in his life and his desire to live for God because of his belief. Teach me good judgment and knowledge for I believe in your commandments. To believe in God is to believe in everything that he says. To believe his word. In Mark 1, verse 14, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel. So to believe in the name of Jesus is to believe His Word and to believe in the Gospel. And to repent. To have your eyes opened. Part of believing in the Son of God is seeing clearly and repenting. But fourthly, a belief in the Son of God, a trust in Jesus, means abundant life for you now. You get a new family. You get a new life. You get a new inheritance. A new purpose for living. A new identity. Isn't it interesting, too, how the only identity that really matters in life is, are you a son of God or a son of the enemy, Satan? That's the primary identity. And yet, even that, Satan seems to be taking and culture is taking and twisting into so many different false identities all under the aspect of Satan's kingdom, of course. The only identity that's important is, are you a son of God? Do you believe in the Son of God? And if you do, there's abundant life for you. Whoever believes in Me, John 7, verse 38, whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. The Holy Spirit lives in you. In John 4, Jesus said, whoever drinks of the water I give him will never be thirsty again. Speaking of spiritual life. And the water I give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. You see the great hope, the great change in your life that comes from a belief in the Son of God. And you are brought into a spiritual family as well. In 1 Peter 2, Peter talks about this. The effects of this belief are that you are part of a family. And he calls it a spiritual house. You yourselves, verse 5, like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We can worship together well. He goes on, For it stands in Scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe. But for those who do not believe the stone, the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And he goes on to describe this great blessing, this great honor for us who believe. For you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you. So to believe in the Son of God is to have your life changed and to assume a new identity as child of God, a royal priesthood. And to have the Holy Spirit, which springs up and flows out of you throughout your life on this earth now. And praise God. Fifthly, to believe in the Son of God is to see a new obedience to His commandments. in our lives. John chapters 14, 15 and 16 really all show the outcomes of obedience. Sorry, the outcomes of our belief in the Son of God are the outcomes of our belief in Jesus. All the benefits of our belief in Jesus. A life lived in faith, a life lived out of love for our Savior. There's going to be a new obedience. If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments. John 14, 15. Part of a belief in the Son of God is a love for the Son of God. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And all these words shall be on your heart. Those who do not obey certainly reflect their own unregenerate nature. Those who have no desire to obey the Word of God. 2 Kings 17 verse 14 describes this phenomenon. They would not listen. They were stubborn as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised His statutes and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and the warnings that He gave them. They went after false idols and became false. They followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. In every generation, this has been the state of those who do not believe. But whoever believes in the Son has life. whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life." John 3.36. And the wrath of God remains on him. So to believe in the Son of God is to obey the Son of God. Number six, to believe in the Son of God is to also have His favor and His protection as children of God. Remember in 2 Chronicles 20, which we read. They trusted in God. They went out in courage. And Jehoshaphat told the people, believe in the Lord your God and you will be established. Believe His prophets and you will succeed. And then they sing to the Lord and praise Him. Give thanks to the Lord for His steadfast love endures forever. to believe in the Son of God is to believe that He has good intentions for you, that He will protect you, He will sustain you, He will care for you, and then you move out in His favor and in His blessing. In John 14, Jesus says, Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do. And greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. The point he's trying to communicate to his disciples is that we have the favor of God. And as we act in His name, as we ask in His name, the Father glorifies the Son in us. We have the favor of God. We will not be put to shame. The psalmist in Psalm 139 says, Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You're familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before, and You've laid Your hand upon me. And such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too lofty for me to attain. You see, when you believe in the Son of God, God is with you and He's got you tight. He holds you close. You have His favor. You have His protection. So Paul can say, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not give His only Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him give us all things? To believe in God is to have His favor. To have His protection, we trust and we move out. Number seven, to believe in the Son of God. As this blind man saw, brings great blessing, but it also brings great persecution and hardship. Philippians 1.29, it's been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, and we should, but also suffer for His sake. Why? Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1, "...so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible, filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. When we face persecution, we rejoice, not that it's painful. We rejoice not because we like pain or suffering or misery. We rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory because we know who our Savior is. Persecution, belief in Jesus and the Son of God will bring persecution. And we will see hardship in our lives. In this world, you will have trouble. But He's with us and He gives us peace. Finally, we see that belief, number eight, belief in the Son of God brings a responsibility for the Christian. Paul says in Romans 10, verse 9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And then he goes on to say, how will they then call on him and whom they have not believed? And how are they going to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? So you are equipped with the Gospel. You, each one of you, Meadow Creek saints, you know the truth of Jesus Christ. And you are to go and tell. And you are to invite people to this place to hear the preaching of the Word. Or encourage them to go hear the preaching of the Word. There's a responsibility for those who believe in their hearts that Jesus is the raised Son of God. So these are eight things I believe we see. that Jesus and His Word show us about true belief in Him. It's not just an ascent to a piece of knowledge or a fact. It's a life devoted to Jesus. 1. It's a belief in God. 2. It is eternal life. 3. Our eyes are opened. Our lives are changed. 4. We have abundant life now. A new identity. A new family. A spirit. the Holy Spirit within us. It produces a new obedience in love. It brings God's favor and protection. Belief in the Son of God also will result in persecution, even though we do have His favor and His protection. And it brings responsibility that we should go and tell. But Jesus also tells us what it means to not believe. for those who reject Jesus, the Son of God. He says, for judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. And the Pharisees near Him heard these things and said, are we also blind? And Jesus said, if you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now you say, we see, your guilt remains. We'll talk about two things. He's telling these Pharisees, not that they actually do see clearly, they really are blind, they don't see Jesus as He is, but He is making the point that you say you see clearly, and yet you're rejecting Me, and your guilt remains. But what about the first part of this verse, verse 39, where He says, for judgment I came into the world. I thought Jesus came to seek and save the lost. John 12 says He didn't come to judge the world, but to save the world. So in what way is He saying that He came to the world for judgment? Well, it's simply this. Although He did come to bring salvation to the world, and He will come a second time in judgment, He came to bring light into the darkness. And the effect of that light shining is itself Judgment. A.W. Pink says the moral effect of His light was judgment. The moral effect of His light. His light shone on everyone. His light shone into everything. And it brought salvation to all who would receive Him. And it brightly showed the rebellion and the immorality of all those who would reject Him. It's like I remember being horrified as a child. We had this cellar at my great grandmother's house. And the kids loved to go play in the cellar. It was kind of a storm shelter, big concrete thing in the backyard. You open this big wooden door, and you could walk down these steps. We would go in there and play. The lights didn't work very well. It was dark. And my great-granddad changed the light bulb or gave us flashlights or something. And we went down there with the lights shining, and it was scary. Bugs everywhere, spiders hanging, caterpillars crawling, dirt everywhere. Cans of old stuff. We were horrified. What had happened? The light had shined on what had once been dark. And that's the effect of Jesus' life. This judging effect of His light. John 1 says, the light shone in the darkness. and the darkness hasn't overcome it. John 319. This is the judgment. Light has come in the world and people love darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. Whoever does wicked things hates the light does not come to the light lest their works be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. You see, it's judgment in the sense that His light shone on everyone, and whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, he says in John 3.36. But the wrath of God remains on him. So these Pharisees remained blind. They claimed to see, but they remained in darkness. And the wrath of God remained on them. In that sense, judgment had come upon them. But let's conclude with just this most beautiful part of this chapter. Jesus said to him in verse 37, You have seen Him, and it is He who is speaking to you. Who is the Son of God? You have seen Him, and it is He who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe. And He worshipped Him. You see, that's what it really means to believe in the Son of God. It's to worship Him. And it's not just a day. It's a whole lifetime of worship. Yes, worship is a particular activity on the Lord's Day. But it's also a whole lifetime of worship. So that begs the question, what do you worship? Have you allowed some idols into your life? are the world, the flesh, and the devil, the unholy trinity, if you will, providing counterfeits for your worship that you are holding onto. Fame or fashion. These are all alliterations for you. Fame, fashion, fortune, or freedom. And you could go on. Prestige or power. Pride. Possessions. Pleasure. Pursuits. Fear of man. Love of self. A desire for money. The Bible talks of all these things. What do you spend the majority of your time and resources thinking about and doing? What are you unwilling to give up? If you were the rich young ruler and you came to Christ, and you said, Lord, I've obeyed all your commandments, what would He say to you? But you need to go do this. Is there anything He would ask you to give up and come follow Him? May we all be like this blind man who seems absolutely devoted to the worship of God in Jesus Christ. Truly, there is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved. It's the name of Jesus Christ. Believe on Him. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank You that You have given us Your Word and we thank You for the opportunity that we have to study to hear You proclaim Your truth to our ears. And we pray that we would believe in the name of Jesus. That we would believe in the Son of God. Lord, we pray that Your Holy Spirit would challenge, convict, encourage, strengthen, uphold us, so that when the day of evil comes, we might stand firm in the truth. Lord, thank You for this blind man. whom You gave sight. Thank You for giving sight to our blind eyes. Please be glorified in our midst, in Jesus' name, Amen. Will you please stand with me and sing our hymn of response, number 210.