Absolon Kent

Jesus changes your vision so you can see your way out.

You Have to Outgrow the Version of You Their Memory Still Needs

• He washes his face, and then he can see (v. 7).

• The neighbors were looking for the old man (v. 8).

• He spoke up to identify himself: “I am the man.”

  • Learn to introduce yourself.

  • He didn't look like what he had been through.

  • Don't let people measure your growth.

    • Unfamiliar people can't measure new growth using old memories.

Stand in who He has revealed you to be in the face of their vision.

Understand How to Discern When Comfort Is Costing You Clarity

Fear can cause us to feel as if we will lose our community, but it causes us to transfer the cost to someone else.

They tried to audit the miracle. It wasn't about him or how he felt. It wasn't to celebrate him or his healing. His blessing interrupted their story. (v. 10, v. 26)

He releases what he could not defend. (v. 25)

He was not willing to negotiate his truth.

What have you gone quiet about recently? What causes you to lose your voice?

Recognize When the Door Is Doing You a Favor

They put him out (v. 34). He wasn't put out because he could see; he was put out because he refused to unsee.

Jesus went and found him, even when everyone else had rejected him (v. 35).

Jesus found him in verse 1 and again in verse 35.

When they put him out, Jesus was outside.

There was life outside, and there was a blessing outside.

Necessity

There is the Necessity of Rebirth. We must be born again because the spirit cannot communcate with the flesh (v5-7)

Mystery

Jesus knows we get stuck in the physical, but God operates in the spiritual (v 11-12)

Compelling Evidence 

Where there was evil, now God prevails (v 20-21)

Did you pray this morning?

Saul had a plan and a destination, but it was interupted by Jesus.

No one truly encounters Jesus and remains the same.

Transformation begins. Attitudes start changing.

Jesus changed Saul before he sent him out to work.

God told Ananias what to do.

Thank God for the change; Thank God for the interuption.

The text tells us:

1. What community is - A large crowd doesn't always match community (v 1-2). Community isn't always the crowd.
2. Community cares enought to carry - Community will help you carry your cross. Love is action (v 3). Sometimes community comes with a cost and you have to carry someon else on thier mat. Sometimes, you have to help them take the roof off. Real community gets you where you need to be.
3. The fith of the community facilitates healing. Communal faith facilitates healing (v 5). Jesus cared about his soul and made sure the whole man was healed (body and soul).

Where Jesus is welcome, transformation is inevitable.

The greatest encounter we can have in life is with Jesus Christ.

1. He recognized Jesus (v 6);
2. He cried out to Jesus (v 7);

How does Jesus change us?

1. Jesus confronts what controls us (v 8-9) - We never know the man's name; only his condition. We are more than our condition. Jeus comes to confront our condition.
2. Jesus changes what confines us (v 15) - Jesus is a change agent. He specilizes in transformation.
3. Jesus commissions who he changes (v 19) - He doesn't change us just for the sake of change.