Pool of Siloam 1999

Coming home. This is home, and it's great. Jim, I really appreciate the chance to be with you again.

It's just a blessing. Sometimes, as people get older, and sometimes when they're still quite young, the memory begins to fail. They're in the middle of the stairs and can't figure out whether they're going up or coming down.

They wander out into the kitchen, scratch their heads, and say, what am I doing here? Where did I put the nail clippers? Did I park the car on the fourth level or the fifth level? Well, this is spiritual Alzheimer's. That works the same way, and it can hit you whether you're 75 or 25 or 15. It comes when you find yourself like old Dan Tucker in the kitchen, staring at his face and saying, what am I doing here? There was a time when we had a sense of mission.

We knew that Jesus had called us. He drew us to his cross, delivered us from the powers of darkness with his own blood, anointed us with his spirit, and sent us out into that world to bear witness to him and prepare the earth for his return, but at least for many of us. Somewhere along the way, we lost our focus.

We went blind to that vision. We woke up one morning and said to ourselves, what am I doing here? Am I going up the stairs or down the stairs? Oh, we still go to work every day, look after the family, pay the bills, watch the news and the weather. Sundays, we go to church.

But what happened to that call from God? What happened to that certainty that Jesus sent me into this world to be his witness? From John chapter 9, as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent me Why did he say, night comes when no one can work. We must work the works of him who sent me.

Everything Jesus did, he did because he was sent to do it. He was not doing his own thing. He was doing what he was sent to do.

He never had to ask, am I going up the stairs or down the stairs? What am I doing here? Because he was conscious all the time that he was where he was because that's where the father sent him. So now he's standing in front of this blind beggar because that's where the father sent him. So this man, blind from birth, not because he sinned or because his parents sinned, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.

As long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world, said Jesus. As he said this, he spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, and anointed the man's eyes with a clay, saying to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent. So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Jesus was sent to the blind man. A blind man was sent to a pool called sent, and when he came back, his eyes he could see. You could say that we're all blind until our eyes are washed out in that pool of Siloam, the pool called sent.

Until that happens, and sometimes we have to keep going back to it, until we wash in that pool and allow the Holy Spirit to somehow again cause us to know, to see that the same Jesus who called us to be his disciples and covered us with his blood, poured out his Spirit upon us, is sending us out just the same way the Father sent him. The pool of Siloam is no longer in first century Jerusalem. It's here.

The pool of Siloam is that place where we wash the mud out of our eyes and let the Spirit show us the road we're being sent to travel. Go wash in the pool of Siloam. Open your eyes and see what God is sending you to do.

John chapter 20, verse 19. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, peace be with you. The Father has sent me, even so I thank you.

There is no such thing as becoming a disciple of Jesus and then spending the rest of your days going to church and Bible studies and that's it. You're a witness. You've been sent 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You and I are under orders from the Messiah. If our following Jesus amounts to nothing more than going to church and Bible studies, we're missing it. We're missing the purpose of our getting together like this.

Sure, we come together to give thanks and praise to God for his mercy. To offer ourselves back to him in joy. Yes, we come here to commune with our Lord and the bread and the wine.

But every time we come together like this, he tells us the same thing he told those first disciples. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night comes when no one can work.

As the Father has sent me, so I thank you. We have to begin, we have to discipline ourselves, to think of ourselves all the time, wherever we are, as people who have been sent by the Messiah. And that boils down to three things.

First of all, know what you are. You are a witness to the crucified and risen Lord. And you didn't volunteer to be a witness.

He made you a witness. Just before Jesus went back to be with the Father, the disciples asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said, it's not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Algeria, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Notice he didn't say, come on, fellas, try to be my witnesses. He said, you will be my witnesses. And that's what his Spirit is saying to us.

You are my witnesses. You didn't choose me. I chose you and ordained you that you should go and bear fruit.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you're a witness. You're not a spectator watching other people do it, like somebody in the crowd at the football game. You're not a neutral observer.

You're not an associate member of the kingdom of God. There is no such thing. You're a witness.

You've been sent. If the blood of the Lamb covers you, you're a witness to that blood, to that cross, to that power. Know what you are.

And secondly, be what you are. You are the light of the world, he said. Notice he doesn't say, come on, try to be the light of the world.

You are the light of the world. Of course, if the light is under a bushel, what good is it? So get the bushel off. Let the light shine.

If that means that you have to be a voice crying in the wilderness, be a voice crying in the wilderness. If that means you have to suffer a little bit of ridicule, suffer it. Just make sure that your life matches your message, that your walk is like your talk, because a city settlement hill cannot be hidden.

So Monday morning, Friday afternoon, live as a person who has been sent there by the Lord Jesus to bring hope to people, to minister healing, to sustain with the word him that is weary, your very presence in that place conveys the presence of the Lord. You're a sacrament. Your body is a sacrament.

You're broken bread and poured out wine. Be what he has already declared you to be, a sign that will convince people of integrity that this universe is ruled by a personal God and that Jesus is his Messiah. And they're going to learn that just by watching you and listening to you.

They're going to learn that. And finally, do what you've been sent to do. As he got ready to heal this blind man, Jesus said, we must work the works of him who sent me while in his day.

He didn't say I, he said we, meaning that everything that Jesus was sent to do, we are called to participate. He preaches the gospel. We preach the gospel.

He laid, lays down his life for us. We lay down our lives in thanksgiving and praise to him. We lay down our lives for each other.

Every day we do this. He brings hope to people. We bring hope to people.

He reaches out to the forgotten ones. We reach out to the forgotten ones. As the father has sent me, so I send you.

Well, we know that all this, and yet it seems in all our lives, to some extent that there's always something that has to get taken care of first. And I got to get bills paid. Well, first I got to get the kids through college.

Lord, certainly you understand I got to take care of this. I got to take care of that. I'll get around to it.

From Luke chapter nine, verse 59 to another, Jesus said, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. But he said to him, leave the dead, bury their own dead.

But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Another said, I'll follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the cloud and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Everything in our lives, everything, takes the backseat to the call that has been placed on us, each one of us. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses. Well, we have received power.

The Holy Spirit has come upon us, is coming upon us even now. We are his witnesses, so let's get on with it. And the place to begin is not Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth.

It's Jerusalem, the place where we are right now. The people we already know, these are the ones to whom we're being sent. And all we need to know is that we have been sent there by the Lord Jesus to these people.

It's not an accident that so-and-so lives next door to you or across the hall in the apartment. It's not an accident that a certain person keeps saying hi every time they come to work. It's not an accident that you have so-and-so as your beautician, your barber, your doctor, your mailman.

That's your Jerusalem. These are the circumstances in which you witness to your Lord just by being there. And when there's something specific he wants you to do, you'll know it.

So quit scratching your head, trying to figure out whether you're going up the stairs or down the stairs. Go either way. But go, don't stand there.

Because when you end up at the top of the stairs or the bottom of the stairs, you are going to meet somebody who needs the light that God has put in you. Somebody who needs to meet Jesus. So do it.

Let's get going. This afternoon, tomorrow morning, and every day this week, remember that your eyes have been washed in the pool of saloon. God has opened them and you can't shut them.

You cannot escape the knowledge that you are a sent one and that the Spirit of God is giving you all the power you need and all the words you need to bear witness to the Lord of your life. Just do it. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, the night comes when nobody can work.

Lord God, we confess to you, all of us, that the urgency that rings in your command to us somehow has been deflated inside us by our own desire to do it our way or on our schedule so that somebody else doesn't get hurt or whatever our excuse may be. We pray that you would, by your Spirit, today and in the days that follow, cleanse our wills that they may be pure and single, our hearts that they may be clear, our vision that it may no longer be blurred, and grant us by the power of your Spirit the courage to take that one step that we now know we got to take. And may your name be praised and may people be blessed by your grace, your healing, your power, your love, your forgiveness flowing through us.

We thank you for this, Lord God, in Jesus' name. Amen.