G'day, Dave here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God for kids.

I'm sorry it's taken a little while to get this episode out.

My back has been really sore and it's been hard to get things done.

But it's time to get back into it.

When you think of being brave, what do you

think about? Do you dream of sneaking through a dark and

deadly jungle to find a mystical and ancient artifact?

Do you dream of putting on your superhero disguise, swinging into a hostage situation,

getting rid of all the baddies, giving a cheeky wink to one of the hostages, and flying

away to your secret hideout? Actually, I did that one the other.

Oh, um, no, I didn't.

Uh, what am I talking about?

Hahaha.

Anyway, maybe you think it's really brave to

jump out of a plane or join the army or to wear socks and sandals at the same time.

Have you ever thought about how brave it is to believe the truth?

That sounds a lot more boring than all those other things.

But actually believing the truth can be braver than all of them put together.

In todays episode, we get to meet a man whos that brave.

And even though the people around him are getting angrier and meaner and more and more

scary, hes brave enough to say, I know what's true and I'm sticking with that.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a faithful God for kids.

At the end of our last episode, once again, people were trying to kill Jesus.

This time they were doing it because he'd called himself I am.

That's the name God gave himself back at the burning bush in Exodus.

Basically Jesus was saying, I'm God given everything else he's said and done and what

God the fathers said about him, that's a fair call.

The evidence says that that's exactly who Jesus is.

Because it wasn't time for Jesus to die yet, though Jesus slipped away.

Now Jesus is walking along with his disciples and they come across a man who's been blind

since birth.

Think about that.

He's never seen anything.

He hasn't seen his parents.

He hasn't seen anyone smile.

He hasn't seen the back of his own hand.

He's never seen anything.

That's hard at any time.

But it's especially hard in Jesus day because lots of people think he's blind because he's

being punished.

Maybe he sinned inside his mum's tummy and

that's why he's blind.

Or maybe his parents sinned and they were

punished with a blind baby.

Now it's not that God never punishes people by

making them sick, but most of the time it doesn't work like that.

And it certainly isn't what's happening here.

Jesus disciples ask him in John, chapter nine,

verse two, teacher, whose sin caused this man to be blind?

His own sin or his parents sin? And Jesus is like, whoa, it hasn't got

anything to do with that.

Rather, this man is blind so that God can show

his power through him.

In other words, strap yourself in, guys.

You're about to see the power of God through Jesus.

Then Jesus does something kind of gross.

I'm going to tell you what it is, but you've

got to promise not to vomit.

Jesus spits on the ground.

He makes some mud out of the spit and dirt and.

And he puts the mud on the man's eyes.

Ew. I know, totally gross, right?

Then Jesus tells the man to go to a pool in Jerusalem, the pool of siloam, and wash the

mud off.

The man does it.

And as he's splashing the water on his eyes, something happens that's never happened

before.

A flash of light gets into his eye, then a

sparkle of water.

Then he can see his hand, both hands.

He looks around and he can see other people.

He can see the sky and sun and dirt and trees.

And suddenly this man, who's never seen anything in his whole life, can see

everything.

So what's going on with the spit and mud

thing? Why on earth has Jesus healed the man like

that? Well, do you remember a few episodes ago,

there was another man who'd been sick for a very long time, 38 years.

He'd also been near a pool and wanted healing.

When he was healed, Jesus slipped away.

That meant the man had to talk to the jewish leaders about what had happened.

And he had a choice between being really brave and following Jesus, saying that Jesus is

really good, or siding with the jewish leaders to get out of trouble for carrying his mat on

the Sabbath.

Unfortunately, he wasn't very brave.

Even though Jesus had amazingly healed him when no one else could, the man preferred to

be on the side of the jewish leaders rather than Jesus.

Now, because this blind man has to go away to the pool of Siloam to be healed, he's left

alone, away from Jesus.

He's gonna have the same choice as that other

man.

Be really brave and stand up for Jesus or not.

Let's see what he does after the man's been healed.

People see him and are really confused.

They recognise him as the blind beggar.

But the thing about the blind beggar is.

He's blind, right?

And this guy isn't blind.

So is it him or not?

In verse eight, we read this.

Some people had seen this man begging before.

They.

And the man's neighbors said, look.

Is this the same man who always sits and begs? Some said, yes, he's the one.

But others said, no, he's not the same man.

He only looks like him.

Meanwhile, this guy's jumping up and down and saying, it's me.

It's me.

So the people ask him, what happened?

How did you get your sight? He tells them.

And they're like, whoa.

Where is this guy who healed you?

And he's like, I don't know.

The people are totally confused.

And so they take the man off to the Pharisees.

That's right.

The Pharisees.

Remember, these guys had tried to have Jesus

arrested.

And some of them had even tried to have Jesus

killed.

This is where John tells us one more thing.

That's the same as when Jesus healed the man who couldn't walk.

In verse 14, John tells us.

The day Jesus had made mud.

And healed his eyes.

Was a Sabbath day.

The day God had said not to do any work.

Jesus has already shown that healing someone.

Is actually fine to do on a Sabbath.

But the Pharisees didn't buy it.

They think Jesus is disobeying God, which he isn't.

So they get the guy in and they ask him what's happened.

He tells them, and they have a big debate.

Some of them are saying jesus can't be from

God.

He doesn't obey the Sabbath law.

But others are saying, hang on a second.

There's no way, right?

No way he could heal people like this if he's from God.

That doesn't make any sense.

So they ask the healed man what he thinks

about Jesus.

And he's like, this isn't rocket science,

guys.

He's obviously a prophet.

The Pharisees are not happy with that answer at all.

They've already decided Jesus is really evil.

So they don't want people going around saying

he's a prophet from God.

It's just that it is really hard to say he's

evil.

When he's going around doing all these

miracles.

You know what I mean?

Then they have a brilliant idea.

They think maybe.

Maybe the miracle never happened at all.

Maybe this guy never was blind from birth.

Maybe Jesus is just a liar.

So they call in the guy's parents.

To find out if their son really had been blind.

Now, remember, these people have had to live their lives with everyone looking at them,

thinking, did they do a really bad sin? And that's why their son was born blind.

And now they're brought in front of the Pharisees.

Who really like telling people how sinful they are.

These parents are scared.

In verse 18, the Pharisees ask the parents, is

this your son? You say that he was born blind.

Then how does he see now? His parents answered, we know that this is our

son.

And we know that he was born blind.

But we don't know how he can see now.

We don't know who opened his eyes.

Ask him.

He's old enough to answer for himself.

Oh, they don't know how he was healed.

Okay, that's fine.

Except it's not fine.

They actually know more than they're saying.

They know it's Jesus who healed their son.

More than that, they know it's Jesus who's

stopped people asking if their son's blind because of their sin.

They know the truth, but they're not brave enough to stand up for the truth.

And John tells us why.

In verse 22, he tells us, his parents said

this because they were afraid of the Jews.

The Jews had already decided that anyone who

said that Jesus was the Christ.

Would be put out of the synagogue.

That is why his parents said, he's old enough.

Ask him.

The synagogue was like a jewish church.

And it was really important to how people live

their lives.

These parents know that if they start getting

excited about Jesus, they're going to be kicked out of the synagogue.

So instead of bravely believing the truth about Jesus, they decide to not be brave.

They decide to say nothing.

Then the Pharisees go back to the man who was

born blind.

They've just found out that the man really was

born blind.

They can see that Jesus has healed him.

They should be brave enough to say, hey, we've been completely wrong.

It turns out that Jesus is from goddess.

But they're not that brave.

Instead, they just choose to not look at the truth.

It's like they want to be blind to the truth.

They'd prefer to be blind to the truth than to

be brave enough to see it.

So they try and force this man to say horrible

things about Jesus.

In verse 24, they tell him, you should give

God the glory by telling the truth.

We know that this man is a sinner.

Thankfully, unlike his parents, unlike the Pharisees.

This man who is born blind.

Doesn't want to be blind to the truth.

He sees the truth more clearly than all the people who have been able to see all along.

Unlike his parents and the Pharisees.

He's brave enough to believe the truth.

So he says to them, I don't know if he's a sinner.

But one thing I do know.

I was blind, and now I can see.

This makes the Pharisees really angry.

So they try to ask him all the same questions

again, hoping for a different answer.

It's like they've suddenly become blind.

And they keep walking into the same wall.

They ask in verse 26, what did he do to you?

How did he make you see again? And this is where the man who was born blind.

The man who sees the truth and is brave enough to believe the truth.

Starts to get a little bit cheeky.

He realizes these guys don't care about the

truth.

So he answers them.

I've already told you that.

But you would not listen to me.

Why do you want to hear it again? Ha. Do you want to become his followers, too?

And the Pharisees are like, what followers? We don't want to be his followers.

They say, you are his follower.

We are followers of Moses.

We know that God spoke to Moses.

But we don't even know where this man comes

from.

Now the man gets really, really brave.

He's never been to Bible school like these guys have.

But he knows how to look at what's happened.

And work out the obvious answer.

All through John's gospel.

The miracles or signs that Jesus has done.

Have proven time and time again.

Where Jesus comes from, he comes from God.

This guy who was born blind.

Sees that really clearly.

And he starts to teach these guys.

Who are much more blind than he's ever been.

He says in verse 30, the man answered, this is a very strange thing.

You don't know where he comes from.

And yet he opened my eyes.

We all know that God does not listen to sinners.

But God listens to anyone who worships and obeys him.

Nobody's ever heard of anyone giving sight to a man born blind.

If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

Then the Pharisees show just how blind they are.

They yell, you were born full of sin.

Are you trying to teach us?

And they threw the man out.

Remember what Jesus had said about this man?

Way back at the beginning? He'd said he wasn't blind because of his or

anyone else's sin.

But these Pharisees have just said that he

was.

And why do they say it?

Because they're not brave enough to believe the truth.

They've chosen to be blind to the truth for this man.

He's been really brave.

He's seen the truth.

He's chosen to believe the truth.

He's stood up to the religious leaders who

tried to force him to deny the truth.

And it would be nice to say that that made

everything else easy for him.

But that's why he needs to be brave, because

he's just been kicked out.

The religious leaders now want everyone to

think that he's a baddie.

People shouldn't be friends with him.

They shouldn't hang out with him.

It can be really hard to stand up for the

truth.

But.

But even though there's lots of things he loses, he does get the best thing in all the

world.

This is what John tells us happens next.

In verse 35, Jesus heard that the man had been thrown out.

So Jesus found him and said, do you believe in the son of man?

He asked, who is the son of man, sir? Tell me so I can believe in him.

Jesus said to him, you have already seen him.

The son of man is the one talking with you

now.

He said, yes, lord, I believe.

Then the man bowed and worshipped Jesus.

Now, what have we been hearing all through

John's gospel about believing in Jesus? If you believe in Jesus, you have eternal

life.

If you believe in Jesus, you become a child of

God.

If you believe in Jesus, he'll give you his

holy spirit.

This man has lost a lot to believe in Jesus,

but he gets what's best.

There are lots of people who are going to

laugh at you for believing the truth about Jesus.

Some people are going to get really angry that you believe the truth about Jesus.

You're going to need to be brave.

Remember this man and how brave he's been.

Be a brave believer like him.

And remember just how good it is to believe in

Jesus.

In fact, Jesus is about to explain just how

good it is to be one of his followers.

But that's a story for next time.

Bye for now.