We love a good story. What’s a story you love? Maybe you read the book or watched the movie or saw the play or it was told to you.

I love the story of Wicked.

I love how the great storyteller, Gregory Maguire tells the story from the wicked witch, Elphaba’s point of view. I’m immediately drawn into the story because in all my years of watching Wizard of Oz, I never thought she might have been misunderstood! I believed she was wicked and Glinda was perfect and the munchkins were forever indebted to Glinda and didn’t want to think of the wicked witch ever again.

However, the story shifts dramatically when told from a different perspective. What is assumed as a weakness has potential to tell a different story.

And that’s what led Maguire to write Wicked:

He said, “I thought to myself about the 2 women, 'They know each other. They've crossed paths before.”

In the story, the people of Oz didn’t know what to do with different.

They asked, “Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?”

In the Biblical story of the Healing of the Blind Beggar, the people of Jerusalem didn’t know what to do with different. “Did he sin or his parents that he is this way?”

Let’s read this story from the great storyteller John, the disciple.

John 9:1-14

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.  “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.” But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”  “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked. He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”  “Where is this man?” they asked him. “I don’t know,” he said. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. John 9:1-14

I got to visit the Pool of Siloam a few years ago.

We walked through Hezekiah’s tunnel deep down through excavations. At times we were ankle deep in water and as we exited, we entered into the pool of Siloam, the very pool Jesus sent the man to wash his eyes. Water is still flowing today. We sat there and read this story and imagined it from the viewpoint of the disciples, Pharisees, his parents, the neighbors, the man and Jesus.

When we only see from one perspective, we have a limited view.

The title of today’s message is UNLIMITED.

People make assumptions about our limitations. Don’t they?

It might be why we didn’t get hired or picked. Why we didn’t get the loan, apartment, assignment.

We make assumptions about people’s limitations, too, don’t we? As a society we know what to do with limits: exclude, shun, disassociate, label, create a narrative without getting to know the story. We figure out what to do and how to label limitations.

Who comes to mind when you think of people in limited circumstances right now?

Pause for a minute and pray an honest prayer right now in your heart for people in limited circumstances. Just like in this story, we have a God who sees them, a Savior who can heal and rescue them, and the Holy Spirit who can fill them.

Limits fit in a box. Limits have boundaries. Limits are safer. Limits fit in the flow of life.

Our lives are limited when they are just about us. But when we tell what Jesus is doing, has done - well, then, our lives become unlimited!

In the story of Wicked, they knew what to do with Elphaba - with her weakness, with her limitations. They put her in a box. It’s when she began to speak up, to stand up for the oppressed, to discover the power inside her, she became unlimited.

The world doesn’t know what to do with people who are unlimited.

The world doesn’t have a framework, an explanation for the power of God, the movement of God, the miracles of God. It’s why we can’t just read this story from the Pharisees or the parent’s point of view.

It’s important to see from the different perspectives in this story.

From today’s text in John 9: Who’s in the story? What are they limited by?

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Blind beggar

- Blind since birth

- Spoke direct, simple answers

- Didn’t know Jesus

LIMITED BY SIGHT

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Disciples

-Assumed sin was a factor

-Asked Jesus because they did have a relationship with him and talked to him about many things.

LIMITED BY ASSUMPTIONS  

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Neighbors

- Contributed to Conversation and gossip

- Didn’t know him too well because they weren't sure it was him

- Curious  

- Took him to law-abiding, governing people  

LIMITED BY SOCIETAL NORMS

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Pharisees

- Investigators, prosecutors, upheld the law

- Some were overly concerned with rule breaking than they were with miracle working

Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” (John 9:14-16)

- Couldn’t see outside the box, outside the category

LIMITED BY THE LAW; LIMITED VIEWS/MINDS

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Parents

- Astonished like everyone else

“they sent for the man’s parents. “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind.  But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.  That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” (John 9:18-23)

- Full of questions like everyone else

- Afraid of Jews

- No intentions of associating with Jesus

LIMITED BY FEAR

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Jesus

- He saw the blind man

- He replied to the disciples first

- He healed on the Sabbath

Pause for a minute and think how many spiritually blind eyes have been opened by the preaching of the Gospel on the Sabbath.

It’s like Jesus had a strike against Him, but He doesn’t. He’s Lord of the Sabbath.

Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.

Now the day on which Jesus had made! He made the day. He made the mud. He made the man’s eyes and now it was making them see. I don’t understand it all either. Miracles can’t be explained. Miracles are a testimony of our unlimited God!

When you hear a story like this in Scripture, in the past, in this church community, what is your initial reaction?

My high schoolers tell me these are MCQs (multiple choice questions). If you like them, thank them. If you don’t, it’s okay. I don’t think next week’s preacher will give them!

It was 1996. I was a college freshman….

Story of Smuggling Bibles into China: It was 1996, 2 months before the handover when Hong Kong was given back to China after 156 years in British control. I was on a mission trip with the goal of helping a Bible translation organization get as many Bibles into China in the last two months from a warehouse in Hong Kong. weakness - I got caught more than anyone else on our mission team. Confiscated and put in office. This got to me. What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I figure out how to be successful like everyone else on the team?

But what if God intended for those Bibles to be for the security officers? We took a limited number of Bibles further into China by train. All made it to the church and the ladies began to tear them apart. They actually got read.

What in your life can you not explain apart from God’s activity?

I cannot explain why I got caught more than anyone else at the border. I cannot explain how all of the Bibles made it further inland and how Scripture continues to be distributed and read in the most remote parts of our world. I can’t explain how God appears in dreams and visions in places where the church is persecuted.

I cannot explain how you are all here at a church that was started in an apartment building with 13 people.

I am limited. You are limited.

Our limitations reveal God’s power though.

Pharisees: it didn’t make sense. It breaks code, rules, law.

Disciples: it needs human explanation.

Parents: fearful to talk about it.

When we get to the end of ourselves, when we surrender, saying "I can’t", "You can", "God, I think I’ll let you". It’s like the gap that Ben taught on last week. The gap between what I have and what I need from God.

How much of your story can you tell void of God?

How much of your story can you tell, do you tell and leave him out of it?

The longer you journey close with God, the more of your story you can’t claim. You begin to see God in all parts of your life: your work, your routine, your health, your family, your dreams and desires, your friendships, your choices.

The blind beggar, this healed man, this brand new disciple, this eye witness to Jesus’ healing power - he could not tell his story any more without sharing what God had done in his life.

No one can tell your story like you can.

In the message translation, the Pharisees say, "You’re the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about Him?”

Do you know you are the expert of your story? No one can tell your story like you can. And you’ve got a great story. You might not have been born blind. You might not have had to beg a day in your life.

If you can tell your story void of God, it’s just that you haven’t met Him yet. Because if you’ve met Jesus, if He has healed you, if He has saved you, if He has brought you back to life, if He has brought you out of darkness into light, then you’ve got a story to tell!

The healed man, this brand new disciple is clearly on Team Jesus! His testimony is growing stronger and deeper the more he tells it! The Pharisees are making fun of him: “You are this fellow’s disciple!” They are calling him out for following Jesus.

When you tell your unlimited story, you might get called out, too. When you can’t give a full explanation to all God has done in your life, people might not have a box for it.

The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:30-33)

The man can’t help but point his changed life to Jesus.

What difference has Jesus made in your life? What has He done with your limits? What’s your HOW? This is your unlimited story.

In this story, people wanted to know how. They asked the man, How were your eyes opened?

How did Jesus change your life? He was blind now he could see.

This past Ash Wednesday, I was walking parallel on the street and saw a young lady walking with the ashen cross on her forehead. She had a visible sign of the unlimited God. I joined her on the sidewalk and brought attention to her forehead and asked her, “What difference has Jesus made in your life?” "He gives me strength. I’m usually one of a few people at church on Wednesdays for prayer and today the church was packed! I’m not the only one He is giving strength too!"

How did the man answer their how question? Remember, he didn’t even know who Jesus was… "the man they call Jesus made some mud, put it on my eyes, told me to go to the pool of Siloam and wash. I did what he told me to and now I see."

Our lives are limited when they are just about us. But when we tell what Jesus is doing, has done - well, then, our lives becomes unlimited!

What are you limited by right now?

This man wasn’t even looking for Jesus.

Jesus was looking at this man.

This man had gotten use to his limitations.

You might not even be looking for Jesus.

You might have gotten used to your life, your circumstances.

Jesus is looking at you.

He wants to take what’s limited in you and open your eyes to His unlimited power, healing, love, forgiveness, truth and grace.

Pharisees wouldn’t allow it.

Parents were afraid of it.

They didn’t step into the unlimited. They stuck with their limited stories.

Neighbors were curious about it.

But this now seeing man, he didn’t give an eloquent speech or have his theology worked out. He still wasn’t sure of who Jesus was, but he’s certain he encountered him.

The people threw them out.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. (John 9:35-39)

What are you limited by right now? This man is no longer limited by his eyesight. You are no longer limited by lack of truth. Will you step into a relationship with the unlimited Christ? Will you surrender to Him today?

Worship unlimited! At your seat. Here at the altar. On your knees. Hands up high.

Pray with someone. We want to be the church where you are either receiving prayer each Sunday or you’re praying for someone.