John 9 Part 1

When life hits hard, it’s easy to fall into the thought process that God must be punishing us for our sins. In fact, that’s exactly what satan, the accuser, wants you to believe. In John 9, Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind beggar, and the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?.” The short answer is neither! Just as people do today, the disciples believed that one could be punished with sickness, disease, and overall ‘Bad Luck’ if they sinned, almost as if the gracious God we serve constantly sought a way to punish us. The reality is that your sin, and mine, was nailed to the cross. “Therefore there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1. So, why do bad things happen to good people? Sin. Although our sin is paid for, there are still natural consequences of sin that spill over into the lives of people around us, just like a distracted driver can blow through a stop sign and instantly destroy a family. Every sin has a natural consequence, as sin itself was not God’s design for humanity. Just because we are created new in Christ does not exempt us from the pain of living in a fallen world. The question is: what are we going to do with that pain? The test of a blacksmith is the quality of his steel, just as the test of a master is the quality of his disciples. If we desire to have Godly lives, we should prepare for the hammer. The world’s sin will spill over onto our lives as fire burns everything in its path. As it heats our lives, God’s word becomes that hammer that shapes us. 

Read Job 1 and 2 as a group. What is the attitude of Job, and how does it compare to the issue of sin and judgment?