Saying the right things about Jesus can feel like a low-risk move until He keeps walking and we have to follow. The next part of our journey in Matthew 9 leads us to face the uncomfortable junction of faith and faithfulness.
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In his hands, he’s got the whole world, in his hands, he’s got the whole world, in his hands, he’s got the whole world in his hands. He’s got you and me, brother. In his hands, he’s got you and me, sister. In his hands, he’s got you and me, brother. In his hands, he’s got the whole world, in his hands.
How many of you know the name Lonnie Johnson? Anyone know Lonnie Johnson? Well, you may not know his name, but I’m confident you do know what he invented. Because it’s the sort of thing that we remember a lot this time of year.
You see, Lonnie Johnson worked for the military. He was involved in research for the stealth fighter. But then he decided to turn his attention to energy-efficient motors and cooling systems. And so it was in 1982 that he found himself in his bathroom experimenting with a valve to pressurize water, thinking that maybe he could eliminate the need for Freon and heat pumps. Interesting idea. Because at the time, there was the old-style Freon that worked really well, but was supposed to be bad for the environment and inefficient, and he thought maybe he could use water. So he’s experimenting with this valve.
You say, ah, Lonnie Johnson, maybe I should thank him for my current cooling system. No, not that. You should thank him for the super soaker. Because you see, Lonnie Johnson, as he was playing with his valve, the water was focused, and it shot out with such force, he thought, this would make a great water gun. And so it was, he made a prototype, he put it together, gave it to his daughter, and his daughter loved playing with the prototype high-powered water gun, and could squirt all of her friends with it. So, cooling, but not, you know, air-conditioning or heat pump, cooling with water.
And so he started trying to find somebody, anybody, that would look at this design he had, he patented it, and make an actual production water gun with it. He wanted to do it himself, but, you know, there wasn’t 3D printing at the time, that kind of thing. It wasn’t really practical for some guy who had a good idea, but didn’t have a factory to make a water gun.
Finally, at a New York toy show in 1989, he ran into Laramie Corporation, which was mostly known for making those cheap movie-related toys that would be at the checkout of a grocery store. And the owner of that company looked at the design, thought he saw potential in it, and agreed to a deal to manufacture what ultimately became known a few years later as the Super Soaker. Took two years even after that point. So by that point, nine years after he came up with the idea, to finally bring to life that amazing high-powered water gun. But he did it. And today, you can go into any place that sells toys, and you will see Super Soakers available.
They’ve sold over one billion dollars in Super Soakers now. A lot of people getting soaked by the Super Soaker. I thought it was interesting as he reflected on not just the Super Soaker, but the other things he’s invented. And he’s been a lifelong inventor all the way back to when he was a teenager, and his friends nicknamed him the Professor. Because he was always engineering ideas.
He reflected on how you come up with something. He said perseverance is the one thing that makes the difference. You don’t fail until you give up. You see, he had faith in his ideas, and so he kept pursuing them. And he saw the worth in that idea. And we can say very clearly, if someone has that idea, maybe someone else had even thought of that exact idea, but didn’t pursue it, it wasn’t going to work, right? There needed to be that faith in that idea.
Tonight, as we turn back to Matthew chapter 9, we’re right after the healings that Jim took us to last week. As we turn to chapter 9, if you want to go there, what we find is that we have two more people in need of help. And the key thing is they do have faith. But what we ultimately find is that there are two things that are important in this story. Faith and faithfulness. They go together.
So let’s go ahead and meet these people that were waiting, believing in the coming of the Messiah, and think about this connection between faith and faithfulness. Because sometimes that gets a little uncomfortable, and we’re not quite sure what to do with it. But this passage is going to walk us through it.
So let’s pray. Father, we do pray that you would help us to be those who understand that we are saved through faith, that it isn’t anything else we can do. It’s believing in the promises that you give us. But would you also help us to see the call that you have for us to be faithful? We wouldn’t lose sight of that in the midst of receiving that grace. We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Well, let’s turn to verse 27 to start. Here’s what we read: “As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, ‘Have mercy on us, son of David.’” And when he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith, will it be done to you?”
A lot packed in there. And not necessarily the things that we immediately think of. Because, for example, they call him son of David. So what, right? So what? We’re used to people calling Jesus son of David. But here, this is a new thing coming up, and it’s a crucial thing. Because what does it mean to call someone the son of David? It means that you believe he’s the Messiah, the promised son of David.
Now, we’ve already seen people, some people that understood who it was that they were dealing with in Jesus, and some people who didn’t see so clearly, and some people that were in between. But one of the beautiful ironies of this story is that we have two blind men. They can’t see. All the people around them, they can see what’s going on in the world. They can see Jesus doing all these miracles. But who is it that actually sees clearly who Jesus is? Well, it’s the blind men.
Now, why do they call him son of David in particular? Well, that was a phrase that had become associated with the promise of the coming Messiah. Not just saying Messiah, but sort of that expectation, because, well, the Messiah is the son of David. And so when you’re saying that, you’re speaking of that idea that one day there’s going to be a son of David born, and that son of David is going to be the son of David.
So as they cry out, aiming for some kind of help, whatever that help might be, they’re saying, we believe in this promise of the Messiah, and we believe that you are that Messiah, the very Messiah that was promised in Isaiah 35, verse 5.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and with the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
They were thinking of that coming to life. Now, when they cry out, have mercy on us, we might say, well, did they get the fact they were sinners in need of salvation, and they need to have mercy for their sins? No, not necessarily. That wasn’t really what that phrase would have meant at the time. What it meant was, would you please give us alms? Would you help us? Because if you were blind, you were a beggar, because you couldn’t do anything to bring in income for yourself, other than beg and ask for other people’s assistance. And so the cry for mercy is normal.
The key thing is that, as they think about Jesus, they believe that Jesus is the one who’s going to usher in a time where their plight is solved. What does Jesus do? Well, this is the interesting part. Jesus walks by them. They say, but Jesus, don’t you see what’s going on here? Don’t you see how wonderful this is, that these men recognize that you’re the Messiah? And Jesus just keeps going, goes in the house, we’re told.
Why would he do that? Because Jesus knew, well, there were lots of people that would try something out, try out the fire insurance. Well, if it turns out that some of the people who think that Jesus is the Messiah, if it turns out they’re right, maybe it’d work. So as we’re sitting here begging, if we call him Son of David, and he happens to be the Son of David, maybe he can do something for us. And if he’s not really the Son of David, but he’s a nice guy, maybe he’ll toss us some coins, and at least we got our alms for the day. And if he’s none of the above, well, what did it really hurt? It’s a low-risk, low-investment kind of cry. We’re already here begging, here’s Jesus, let’s see what happens.
Jesus is going to challenge them, but do you really believe what they say? Because as he walks by into the house, they have to get assistance into the house, get into the house if they’re going to continue to seek for Jesus’ healing, and that’s exactly what they do. That’s why Jesus presses them on the issue. He says in verse 28, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” And they said to him, “Yes, Lord.”
See, so in both action and word, he’s asking them, okay, you can say words, but do you believe the words? Do you really think this is what it is? Or is it just like there’s all these things, you think about your phone, all these notifications coming in, and a lot of times, you know, what I think when it buzzes, I think, well, it probably isn’t anything. But if there’s something really important, you say, well, maybe I should check anyway, right?
Well, was that all it was? Because it’s a whole other matter if you say, I can’t even see what’s on here, but I’m going to run and see if I need to respond to something. I’m going to go and stop what I’m doing and go someplace else because I think there’s something going on. And that’s the kind of thing that Jesus is asking them to do.
Okay, I want you to actually leave your post where you’ve been begging, come into the house, because if you really believe you’ll do that. If you really think I’m the son of David, you’ll do that. He’s challenging them. Now, of course, Jesus can read hearts, but he’s really challenging them to wrestle themselves with this. Are you willing to do this?
And for them to take the extra step and say, okay, it’s not just that we believe that this is enough to utter the words, but it’s enough to be inconvenienced for. It’s enough to actually go and do something for. They do indeed have genuine faith.
And notably here, I think this is really important. Notice how Jesus answers them in verse 29. He says, then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith, be it done to you.” Now, we can misread that and think that what it’s saying is that Jesus’ point is, well, you had so much faith, you received it. That’s not what Jesus is saying there. He’s saying, because you believe, because you have faith, this is going to happen.
It’s not Jesus measuring and saying, okay, you didn’t just have a one on the faith scale. You had a two or a three or a four on the faith scale. Okay, I’m going to heal you. No, the point is, do you have faith or don’t you? Do you believe in me or don’t you? That’s the measure of faith. Indeed, they do. Perhaps more than most people we encounter at this point in the story, these blind men see clearly. They may not see clearly the world yet, but they see clearly.
They see the promises that they’ve heard about since they were little coming true. While the teachers of the law had studied those same prophecies and looked at them and thought Jesus was an inconvenient hurdle to get past so they could keep teaching about the prophecies, these blind men said, no, Jesus is the one that you’ve been teaching about. And they believed and they followed him.
They anticipated that the Messiah was more than just some nice idea or title, but a real and active promise that God was actually going to do the things he said, that he was going to heal things and make things right. Always a worthwhile question for us.
The kind of question that often we hope that we don’t have to really test that much. Do we believe to the point that God is working, to the point that we are willing to actually go and be inconvenienced or endangered or even die for it? Because that’s a whole list of different stages, and they’re insightful when you think about it, when we think about where we are. Do we say the words? There are a lot of people that cried out to Jesus and they said nice things about him, but they weren’t about to follow him. They didn’t believe, here is my Lord and my Savior. They believed, let’s see if it works.
Maybe we’ll just take out the insurance policy. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. They believe. And that’s so crucial for understanding what comes next. Because belief, having faith in Jesus, that’s the thing that matters. And yet it doesn’t mean that how we respond thereafter is utterly meaningless. It’s a tension that scriptures keep calling us back to that on the one hand, we’re not going to be saved by our good works. We’re not going to get into heaven because we were good. We’re not going to even get into heaven because we had superior faith. This person had really, really good faith. Okay, come on in. You’re kind of halfway on the faith scale, maybe, maybe, maybe not. Let’s sit in the waiting room for a while. Let’s see if we want to let you into heaven or not. That’s not how God works.
God invites all who believe into his kingdom. It’s about that belief. It’s not about the quality of what we can muster inside. But our response does matter. I believe here as Matthew tells the story, he has a nice, succinct telling of it. He wants us to hear both of those compacted together so we don’t miss either side of the story.
The idea of the super soaker, it’s an interesting process because, like I said, Johnson, as he invented it, had been working on stealth fighters. The guy who made the water gun that many of us have played with over the years had spent time before that creating actual military technology and transformative energy technology. And that’s what he’s done since then.
He’s created, I can’t even fully get my head around this, but something called the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter. And the thermoelectric energy converter can be a recipient of different heat sources, say the garbage decomposing in the dump or solar power or nuclear power, whatever it might be. You expose it to different sorts of heat and it can efficiently, maybe about as efficiently as anything thus far discovered, convert that heat into energy. And if it continues to develop, well, it could be a massive breakthrough.
This is the guy that came up with the super soaker. So if he had these incredibly lofty ideas, why was he wasting his time making water guns? And then he made various variations of it with Nerf foam, too. If you go and buy a super soaker today, it’s Nerf branded. Hasbro ultimately had acquired the licensing deal with Johnson and merged the two together and he’s been instrumental in that. Why is he wasting his time on that? Well, it’s really quite simple. These ideas are going to take a very long time to develop. And he developed these toys because he realized the toys could sell and fund this research he wanted to do. There was only one problem. While the president of Laramie Toys saw the potential, Laramie and his successor Hasbro had not been faithfully paying the royalties for it.
And so in 2013, Johnson sued. And in arbitration, he ended up being awarded $73 million additional dollars in back royalties on his invention. You see, he wanted someone to look at his toy that he designed and have faith in it, but that wasn’t the destination. And so he wanted not only someone to have faith in the idea of this toy, this water gun, he also wanted them to be faithful after they had faith in the idea. To be clear, Jesus is not going to sue us. He isn’t going to say, oh, you owe me $73 million. But you think about, what is it that this man who has an incredible ability to come up with different ideas and to invent things, what was he not able to invent during the time where those royalties were being withheld? How much could he have done if he’d been receiving it appropriately throughout time?
There’s a fruitfulness lost when there’s faith but not faithfulness. Hasbro didn’t lose faith in the Super Soaker. They lost sight of the faithfulness required for the Super Soaker. And that’s the part that really can challenge us as well.
And it’s this part that comes to head in what I’d say is a real head scratcher of a verse. We saw one like it in chapter 8. We come back to it here in chapter 9. Take a look at verse 30. It says, “And their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, see that no one knows about this. But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.”
It’s important to believe in Jesus, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to obey Jesus. From the get-go here, if you look at it, Jesus was calling them to faithfulness, to keep a secret. I mentioned he goes into the house, he passes them up, goes into the house, and they have to follow him in to be healed. And that does test their faithfulness. But think about it. Jesus could have just kept walking down the road. He didn’t need to go into a house. Why did he go into a house to do this? He went into a house because he didn’t want everyone to see it.
Now, to our human minds, if we think about this, it makes perfect sense for everyone to see it. If I could heal someone’s sight, would I want to hide it? That I won’t wait and just have people say, oh, I think I heard something about this. No, I want people to see, here’s this person, he can’t see anything, and look, I touch him and I speak to him, and suddenly he sees clearly. Everyone says, oh wow, look at Tim, the healer. I mean, that’s our human logic. But Jesus has something else in mind.
And he’s been saying this at different points throughout his healing. Let’s take a look at chapter eight, verse four, that I mentioned. Then Jesus said to him, see that you don’t tell anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them. When Jesus sends the lepers out, likewise, he says, don’t tell anyone. And it’s kind of bizarre to us.
A lot of times when we believe in Jesus and yet we decide not to do things Jesus’ way, you know what it really comes down to? We ask that question, why not? Why not, Jesus? It seems like a perfectly good idea if we just improvise a little here, right? Jesus, haven’t you heard of jazz? Come on. I know you said not to say anything, but Jesus, don’t you realize people will believe in you if they see it?
It’s interesting, these two men see more clearly even before the healing, they see more clearly who Jesus is. They have that faith, but they don’t have obedience.
Now, one reassuring point up front on this is we can see that Jesus honors that faith and he heals them and he already knows they’re not going to listen. So it’s not like he’s shocked and said, well, I wouldn’t have healed them if I’d known they’d do this. But that doesn’t excuse what they do either.
They actually have Jesus himself tell them exactly what to do, and their answer to what Jesus says they should do, we can think of something better, Jesus. No problem. No problem at all.
And I think that’s a place that we say, well, I would do better than that. But in truth, we don’t because we have his word. We have his word and his word is very clear on so many things that we go right past and ignore. Sometimes very intentionally, sometimes less intentionally, but oftentimes repeatedly.
And you think about that. I mean, even when we realize, well, you know what I’ve been doing? I don’t think that’s really what God wants me to do. We say, well, but come on, God, it’s so much better if we do it this way.
John Calvin reflecting on this passage said, through inconsiderate zeal, they spread the rumor before the proper time. And I like that phrase, inconsiderate zeal. I think that captures it. They’re zealous, right? They’re on fire, as we might say today.
And we say, well, what could possibly be wrong with being on fire? Well, if you think back to when you became a Christian, if it was not as a child, especially, but as a teenager or an adult, you may remember a time that you had what ultimately ended up being inconsiderate zeal. And maybe some people aren’t talking to you because you were so excited, but you had inconsiderate zeal about it.
And throughout time, I think we’ve seen a lot of, even mature Christians end up with inconsiderate zeal in some way or another. When we, for example, try to cover up what a church does wrong, deep wrongs, we try to cover it up because we think, but God’s glory needs to be shown. And this is going to become a distraction. What do we do? Well, we have inconsiderate zeal. We’re trying to protect God and God’s saying, honor truth and righteousness. You don’t need to protect me.
I kind of have the whole world in my hands, you know. I just need you to listen.
This was the very problem that King Saul had. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul’s out to battle, doing indeed what God’s called him to do, but then Samuel shows up and Saul’s been told not to take any loot, not to take any prisoners. And Samuel shows up and says, what’s that sound of sheep that I hear?
1 Samuel 15: But Samuel replied, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination and arrogance like the evil of idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord. He has rejected you as king.”
I’m sure Saul could justify everything he did because after all, the sheep hadn’t done anything wrong. Why not take the sheep as you conquer this people? And if you wipe out the army, but then you take all their goods, you have everything, right? You have the victory and you also have extra wealth. And what can you do with the extra wealth? Well, you can offer some really great sacrifices to God. Yeah, and maybe have a little larger flock, but never mind that. We can offer sacrifices to God and then we can fund the building of grand cities that honor God, and we can pay the army so we can expand further the kingdom of God. We can do all these things. Isn’t this great, Samuel?
And Samuel says, you know what God really wanted? He didn’t need you to improvise and come up with something better. He wanted you to listen to him.
The king in Israel uniquely in history was given the job of representing God to his people as the one setting up what ultimately would be the role of Messiah. And Saul is the anointed in his time, right? So he is the Messiah in his time representing God on that mission for God that he’s going to convey with justice, the rule of God.
One thing he needed to model to his people more than anything else was actually caring about what God says. He doesn’t do it. And that we understand why God rejects him as king. It’s not that God is unmerciful. No, we see plenty of times where God even takes those who sin and has mercy on them.
But repeatedly, what the problem for Saul is that he’s so focused on what he thinks is best, he can never hear what God says is best. And even when he’s listening to God, he’s adding to it and actively disobeying God because he thinks that somehow that’s better. And if only God had understood, he would know this was better. And he’ll praise me once he sees what I do because I think that’s a great thing.
And every step of the way, he misses the fact that no matter how much he’d increase the GDP of Israel, now it’s bigger and wealthier and whatever else. His job wasn’t to make Israel bigger and wealthier. His job was to represent God to Israel and for Israel to represent God to the world. That was the fruitful thing and that was the thing he wasn’t doing. The one thing that matters.
And sometimes, even good things fall into that trap. Telling about Jesus like the blind men do, is that a good thing? Is that something that Jesus ultimately sends people to go do? Yes, it is. But it wasn’t the right time.
We can see very clearly in that time period how it was dangerous for a crowd to be all hyped up on the Messiah but not actually understand who the Messiah was. Because there was a big crowd that was really excited on Palm Sunday, wasn’t there? There was a big crowd that was awfully excited on Good Friday too. Just not excited for the right reason.
Jesus knows this. He tells these men, “I’ve healed you,” and I’d imagine there was even a point in time where they were going to be called to tell, but at the moment their commission was, keep it quiet because you know what’s going to happen as people hear? More people are going to come. More people are going to want miracles. More people are going to be thinking maybe it’s time for a political Messiah who will finally right our nation and make things good. And it wasn’t fruitful. Jesus knew that. And he tells them a better way and they don’t listen.
Even good things. Even really good things. Even the things that we’re commanded to do if done at the wrong time in a way that distracts from what God specifically calling us to do can be bad.
Thinking about a church I served in years ago where at one point everything kind of came together and we started having a really productive mercy ministry. And I hope someday that we can do more of that here. Every once in a while we do have someone write in and say, hey, could you help me with the utility bill? Could you help me with some food or some shelter or these sorts of things?
And I really wish every time they did we could just say, oh, done. Taken care of, right? Your power’s on tomorrow. We’ll take care of it. No matter how big we get though, I am confident that we’re never going to reach the point where we can do that for every single person because here’s what happened. We had some money that had been sitting there for years. No one had been using it.
And so some of the deacons got really excited about it and started to do something and immediately those whom we helped—because every church gets some calls for help— as soon as those people that we helped were helped, what did they do? They went and told other people and other people. And I remember at one point the secretary was basically spending her whole day answering phone calls, from fielding calls from people saying, my utilities are off. I don’t have any food. I don’t have a place to stay.
It became an absolute zoo because all we were doing oftentimes was trying to figure out how to deal with this mercy ministry. And then we were starting to store supplies that we could give out to people and couldn’t do other ministry because the supplies were there and this whole thing ballooned. And it was a good thing in so many ways, but notably for the most part people believed that we would help them. They didn’t believe in Jesus.
Now sometimes, as Christians, we’re called to be hands of mercy that help people even though they don’t believe so that God can work through that moment and that they can come and believe in Jesus. And to be fair, this ministry, the leader of it did a really good job of trying to sit down with people and talk through about who Jesus was and so on.
But for the most part, for as many people came in and out of the doors getting help during the time before we exhausted all the funds and ultimately was shut down, there weren’t very many people who said, oh, wait, I want to hear more about Jesus. No, let me get back to you next month if another utility gets shut off.
And I was thinking about that. There are a lot of things that we can do as churches that are really good. Wonderful things. Ways to serve the community. Ways to serve the church family. What we need to ask is actually being fruitful for the things God’s actually called us to.
At this moment, these two once blind, now healed and able to see people, for them to be fruitful they really need to be quiet in this moment because there are going to be lots of people that wanted to be no longer blind that would come to Jesus, but how many people in that moment, in that period before Jesus had gone to the cross, would go a step further and say, but I need my sins forgiven and I believe Jesus is the one who could do that. It wasn’t time yet. It was a time for training.
If they wanted to do something useful, they should have sat there and listened to Jesus. Followed him like the twelve. Followed him and learned who he was so that when the time came and he sent out his disciples, they could have gone out and testified to the one who had healed them, not just physically but also spiritually.
Maybe they ultimately did. But it wasn’t as fruitful as it could have been. It’s not a story to say that we shouldn’t do mercy. That we shouldn’t and certainly not a story to say we shouldn’t go and tell. Right? We are in a time where Jesus has said very clearly, go and tell the story. Tell people about who I am. It’s not that.
But it is a time where we need to still listen. We need to be very discerning in what God is speaking to our particular moment. There are things that say a church that has more resources can do that if we did them it’d be the only thing we could do and it isn’t the thing that God’s called us to do. And there are other things that we have been uniquely gifted to do that we ought to do even if other churches aren’t doing them. We need to be willing to hear, but the key thing is to say not just I believe in Jesus and I have zeal and so now I’m going to go and do something and I have lots of energy and I’m going to play it out. I’m actually taking time to listen to Jesus on what it is that I ought to do.
Is it that inconsiderate zeal? The key here is that Jesus was saying it’s not the time for you to go and tell. Not that moment. That was the lesson for them. But I think it’s important for us to ask, well, what’s the lesson for us?
The lesson for us isn’t to be silent and the lesson for us isn’t to be careful when we’re giving out our giant benevolence fund because we don’t have a giant benevolence fund. That’s not our lesson either. That’s not the challenge, right? But there are challenges for each and every one of us as individual Christians and as a church.
Are we using what God has given us in the way that he wants us to use it? And what might even be good in one moment may not be what’s good in another. Not because it’s objectively bad but because it’s not a thing that’s fruitful in that moment. We need to be listening and saying Jesus, help me to be fruitful for you. Help me not just to do good stuff. Help me to do the good stuff that’s fruitful for your kingdom in this moment that more people will know you and hear what they really need to hear.
And so often we get blinded by the fact that we really think that we know better. We know best, not just better. We know best. But it’s so much better to follow someone who does know best than to think that somehow we know best.
Even the good things that he calls us to do, even the best things aren’t good if it isn’t what God has called us to do right now.
And I think as we look at this sort of mysterious moment where it feels really like a head-scratcher that these two men are so excited and Jesus says don’t share that excitement. The reason we’re told that is so we understand that as those who believe, yes, we believe, God still desires for us to listen too.
Let’s pray that we are the people, are those who not just believe, not even believe with great fire and passion, but believe and care in the one.
Would you pray with me please? Father, we do pray that you would help us to be those who are receptive to what you are saying and doing. Lord, so often we get really excited about what you’re doing and that’s wonderful. Lord, would you help us to be directed as we’re excited? It’s not enough just to do stuff. Lord, we want to do the stuff that you say is good.
Sometimes Father, that’s hard. We’re not always sitting there in the crowd listening as our very God speaks to us and says directly this is exactly the thing you should do in this moment. Lord, would you give us clarity as we study your word first for those things that are always and ever true, that there’s things that we simply shouldn’t do and simply things we should do.
Lord, in those would you help us to see that all the more clearly when our spiritual eyes are blinded. And when we come to the things where you’re calling us to a particular mission, to a particular focus, there’s this particular spot that’s fruitful for us as individuals, for us as a church. Lord, would you also help us not to be blinded by even zeal but to be guided by your Spirit.
We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
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