What came first for this man, friends? Was it sight or faith? What came first? Faith preceded sight. Faith always precedes sight. You have to trust before you see. You have to trust Jesus before it all makes sense. You have to begin with faith. The truth has to be believed and trusted, and then you see. Some of you are waiting to see. Let me say, you are blind. You begin with faith and then you see. You don't have all the answers. You won't know all the details. There is no certainty regarding the future and God's purposes and provisions and plans for our lives. But what we do is we trust him by faith. And in time, we see.

And apparently, if history's correct, when Jesus died and was buried, Blind Bart didn't abandon him. He hung around. I'm sure he was telling other people, "Look, I know he's dead. I promise you, I've seen what he can do. He'll figure this out. Just wait a little while." Three days later, Jesus rose from death and there was Blind Bart. "Hi Jesus! Nice to have you back. My eyes still work. Where are we going now?" And he followed Jesus. And after Jesus ascended into heaven, we don't know, Blind Bart might have been there with functional eyes. "There goes Jesus, okay. I can't follow him now. I got a thirty-inch vertical. That's not going to be enough." History records then he became a witness, preaching about Jesus, talking about Jesus, going places, telling his testimony for the rest of his life. That's a Christian, somebody who meets Jesus, gets changed, never recovers, worships, witnesses, walks with him. Walks with him.

We need to pray for a miracle of God, where Jesus touches them and opens their spiritual eyes just as he's opened our spiritual eyes. But sin is like blindness. [Our sin] is an incurable condition. This man's condition was incurable. He needed a miracle. Our sin condition is incurable. We need Jesus to do a miracle. Sin blinds us so that we don't see God clearly. We don't know him rightly, particularly about Jesus. Had you, for example, asked me prior to Jesus opening my blind eyes at the age of 19, "What do you think about Jesus?" "Oh, he's a nice guy, said some nice stories, helped some people, fed the poor." "Is he God?" "I don't see that." "Is he Lord?" "I don't see that." "Is he coming again to judge the living and the dead?" "I don't see that." "Should he tell you what to do?" "I definitely don't see that." I didn't see Jesus for who he was. When we're spiritually blind, we don't have the ability to cure our incurable condition. We don't see God and Christ for who he is. We don't see ourselves for who we are. We don't. We don't see ourselves for who we are. So some of you think, "I'm a really good person." You don't see yourself. Some of you would say, "Oh, I see myself. I see how sinful, broken, damaged goods I am." But if you don't have any hope, you don't have any joy, you don't have any Christ, you don't have any sight. People tend to see themselves as not needing a Savior or either being beyond salvation. One leads to pride. The other leads to despair. Neither lead to Jesus. We don't see ourselves. You're not damaged goods. You're not beyond hope. You're not broken irreparably. You're not beyond the grace of God. How'd we look at Blind Bart? There's no hope for him apart from Christ. But in Christ there's hope for him. Now, with Blind Bart, there's no hope in him. But in Christ, there's hope for him. You and I are exactly the same. There's no hope in us, but in Christ there's hope for us. So we could see ourselves and see our sin and be honest and be repentant and come clean and tell the story. And the story is, we're the villain, he's the hero. It was a total wreck. He showed up. I love Jesus. And lastly, we don't see others clearly because of sin. Some of you look at people, you think, "They're beyond hope. They're beyond help. I don't know what to do for them. I don't know what to do with them." See, once our eyes are spiritually opened, we see people as Christ sees them. "Ah, they're blind. They need Jesus. They need the power of God. That's what they need." And it gives us a heart of compassion because we remember, "I was blind too. And without Jesus, I'd be as blind as they are. And so I'm not angry with them but I'm brokenhearted for them. And if I'm going to talk to them about one thing, it's going to be Jesus."