Bulletins - Church On The Rock-Abilene (TX)

Graves Into Gardens
My Feet Are On The Rock
Abide
REVELATION SONG
Gratitude
The Lord Will Provide
Text:
Mark 8:22–26 NKJV
22 Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. 23 So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. 24 And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.” 25 Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. 26 Then He sent him away to his house, saying, “Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.”
Introduction:
One of the most difficult parts of walking by faith is not believing that God can do something. The difficulty comes when God does not do it in the way we expected Him to do it.
We hear the testimonies of other people. We hear how God opened a door, provided a need, restored a relationship, healed a body, or fulfilled a promise. Without realizing it, we can turn someone else’s testimony into the pattern we expect God to follow in our lives. We believe that if we have the same faith, pray the same prayer, and obey the same Lord, then our experience should look like theirs.
But what happens when it does not?
What happens when we step out in faith and the door does not immediately open? What happens when we obey God, but the result does not look like it is working? What happens when God has touched the situation, but what we see still does not look like what we believed?
This is where many people become discouraged. We assume that if the answer is not instant, then God is not working. We mistake an unfinished process for a failed promise. We begin to question our faith because what is unfolding before us does not resemble what we expected.
Mark records a miracle that is unlike the other healing miracles of Jesus. Jesus takes a blind man by the hand, leads him outside the town, spits on his eyes, and lays His hands upon him. When Jesus asks what he sees, the man answers, “I see men like trees, walking.”
Something happened, but it was not yet clear.
Jesus did not lack the power to heal him instantly. The process was intentional. Although the entire miracle occurred during one encounter with Jesus, it did not happen in an instant. Between complete blindness and clear sight, there was an uncomfortable and confusing stage in which the man could see something, but what he saw did not yet look right.
That is where many of us are walking today. We know that the Lord has touched us. We know that something is happening. We are not where we started, but we cannot yet see clearly where the process is taking us.
Faith unfolding means continuing to trust God when His work is real but still incomplete. It means refusing to give up because our experience does not look like someone else’s testimony. If the Lord does not do it for us in the way He did it for someone else, that does not mean He is not working. It may mean that He is creating a new testimony.
As we continue walking this journey of faith, we must allow the Lord to open our eyes, correct our vision, and teach us to trust Him through every stage of what He is unfolding.
We started this journey blind.
Maybe some of us already possessed great faith, and this sermon series has presented no challenge to us at all. I hope that is not the case, but it is possible.
Hopefully, this journey has caused us to begin asking questions such as, “Am I inviting the Lord into my daily life?” and “Have I been living like a normal person?”
When I say “a normal person,” I mean someone who lives without consciously submitting every area of life to Christ. Christians are not normal. We believe that Jesus is Lord. We believe He wants to be consulted about our decisions, our relationships, our finances, our plans, and our future. We are not merely talking about believing in Jesus; we are talking about walking the journey of faith and trusting the Lord with every area of our lives.
When we first got saved, we were blind to many spiritual realities because everything was new to us. We did not yet understand how completely the Lord wanted to be involved in our lives. If we are still struggling with God’s desire to be Lord over every area, then we will continue dealing with that struggle until we surrender it to Him.
The Lord is calling us, as a people, into a deeper level of trust.
Once we begin to realize that He wants to be involved in every aspect of our lives, our eyes begin to open. The questions we are asking are evidence that something is already happening within us. We may not see everything clearly yet, but we are no longer as blind as we were when this journey began.
God wants us to trust Him more deeply because He desires to do something great in this Church—not merely through the organization, but within the people. God works in His people before He works through His people. He wants every part of our lives, and He wants us to trust Him in both great matters and small ones.
He is moving us from being people who say that we trust Him with our lives to becoming people who are actually trusting Him with our lives.
Like the blind man, we may have arrived unable to see very much at all. However, Jesus did not leave that man where he began, and He will not leave us where we began. He is opening our eyes and calling us into greater faith.
“I see men like trees, walking.”
Scholars commonly understand this healing as an illustration of the spiritual blindness of the disciples. The two-stage healing did not occur because the Lord Jesus needed a second attempt to heal the man. Jesus could have restored his sight instantly, just as He had performed so many other miracles instantly. The process was intentional.
However, the symbolism of the disciples’ blindness does not exhaust the meaning of the miracle. This passage also shows us that the work of God does not always happen instantly or unfold in the way we expected.
Four Greek words related to sight and restoration help us see the miracle from the perspective of the man being healed:
Anablepō (ἀναβλέπω)—means “to look up” or, when used of blindness, “to regain sight.” The man experienced a genuine change after Jesus touched him, but his vision was still incomplete.
Diablepō (διαβλέπω)—means “to see through,” “to see distinctly,” or “to see clearly.” After the second touch, the man could distinguish what he had previously seen only vaguely.
Apokathistēmi (ἀποκαθίστημι)—means “to restore something to its proper or former condition.” Jesus did not leave the man partially healed; He continued working until the man’s sight was fully restored.
Emblepō (ἐμβλέπω)—means “to look at” or “to see.” Its tense in this verse pictures continuing sight. The man did not merely experience one clear moment; he was now able to continue seeing everything clearly.
The man’s first response was not evidence that nothing had happened. Before Jesus touched him, he could not see. After Jesus touched him, he could see, but he could not yet see clearly. The first touch produced a genuine change, but it was not the finished result.
The miracle also illustrates the progressive understanding of the disciples:
They came to understand that Jesus was the Christ.
They did not yet understand that the Christ would have to suffer, die, and rise again.
They did not yet understand that following Him would require them to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him.
They saw something, but they did not yet see everything clearly.
The same thing can happen while we are walking by faith. We can obey God, step out in faith, and then discover that the result does not look like the testimony we heard from someone else. It may not happen in the same way, according to the same timetable, or through the same process.
That does not mean God is not working. It may mean that He is giving us a new testimony.
There will be times when God calls us to do something, but what happens next will not look as though it is working. We cannot allow the “men like trees, walking” stage to move us from the place where God told us to stand.
Faith does not only step out; faith presses in after it has stepped out.
Pressing in means that we continue trusting, praying, obeying, and standing when the result is real but still unclear. We must not abandon an unfolding work because it did not become an instant miracle in the way we expected.
Can I remain the man of God who stands where God placed me, even when what I see does not yet look like what He promised?
The victory will come in us (We will see clearly)
The circumstances may remain the same for a season, but the Lord develops our spiritual vision so that we can recognize His presence and trust His work within them.God will change the way we see before He changes what we see.
When we continue trusting, praying, and obeying while we still see “men like trees, walking,” uncertainty loses its power to move us from where God placed us. God will use the unclear stage to develop a steadfast faith within us.
What once appeared confusing will eventually be seen through the clarity produced by faith, maturity, and a completed work within us. God will bring us to the place where we can recognize what He has been doing.
Conclusion:
We started this journey blind. We believed in Jesus, but we did not yet understand how completely He wanted to be Lord over every area of our lives. As we have walked with Him, our eyes have begun to open. We are seeing more than we saw before, but there are still times when what we see is unclear.
Sometimes we step out in faith expecting everything to change instantly. We expect our experience to look like someone else’s testimony. We expect the doors to open, the answer to come, and the promise to be fulfilled in the way and at the time we imagined. Then, when it does not happen that way, we begin to wonder whether we heard God correctly or whether He is working at all.
But “I see men like trees, walking” was not the testimony of a man whom Jesus had abandoned. It was the testimony of a man whose miracle was still unfolding.
Something had happened. He was not as blind as he had been, but he could not yet see clearly. Jesus did not condemn him for his incomplete vision, and He did not leave him with a partial result. Jesus touched him again and continued the work until his sight was restored.
We must not call an unfinished process a failed promise.
We must not walk away because the result does not yet look the way we expected. We must not compare our unfolding testimony with someone else’s instant miracle. The same Lord may work through a different process because He is creating a different testimony.
The people and the trees did not have to change before the man could see them clearly. The victory happened within him. His eyes changed, and when his sight changed, he could finally recognize what had been in front of him all along.
There will be times when God changes our circumstances, but there will also be times when He changes us while the circumstances remain the same. He will develop our spiritual vision, strengthen our faith, and teach us to recognize His presence in places where we once saw only confusion.
Therefore, when the answer is incomplete, press in. When the outcome is unclear, press in. When obedience does not produce the immediate result you expected, press in. Continue trusting. Continue praying. Continue obeying. Continue standing where God placed you.
Faith does not only step out; faith presses in after it has stepped out.
The victory is not that everything immediately looks the way we expected. The victory is that what we see no longer determines whether we trust God. We are learning to trust His hand even when we cannot understand His process.
Faith unfolding is not failed faith. It is faith that is still being brought into focus.
The Lord did not leave us where He found us. He has already opened our eyes, and He is still working within us. If we remain under His hand, we will move from blindness, through partial sight, into greater clarity.
We will be able to look back and say, “I could not see. Then I could see something. It did not look the way I expected, but I did not give up. I pressed in, the Lord continued His work within me, and now I can see clearly.”
- - Mark 8:22–26NKJV

We started this journey blind.

“I see men like trees, walking.”

Anablepō (ἀναβλέπω)—means “to look up” or, when used of blindness, “to regain sight.” The man experienced a genuine change after Jesus touched him, but his vision was still incomplete.

Diablepō (διαβλέπω)—means “to see through,” “to see distinctly,” or “to see clearly.” After the second touch, the man could distinguish what he had previously seen only vaguely.

Apokathistēmi (ἀποκαθίστημι)—means “to restore something to its proper or former condition.” Jesus did not leave the man partially healed; He continued working until the man’s sight was fully restored.

Emblepō (ἐμβλέπω)—means “to look at” or “to see.” Its tense in this verse pictures continuing sight. The man did not merely experience one clear moment; he was now able to continue seeing everything clearly.

They came to understand that Jesus was the Christ.

They did not yet understand that the Christ would have to suffer, die, and rise again.

They did not yet understand that following Him would require them to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him.

The victory will come in us (We will see clearly)

Mark 8:22–26NKJV