Sometime during His ministry, Jesus heals a man born blind. The Apostle John shares this story along with the uproar this miracle causes in Jerusalem (John 9). The crowd goes into a frenzy, and their leaders act paranoid. Unable to control the situation, they try to spin the story into a fraud by putting the victim (the man healed) on trial. He lectures the theologians, and they throw him out. Later:
Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him. (John 9:35–38, NASB)
As we see in other places, faith results in worship (Jacob worships while leaning on his staff because of faith – Hebrews 11:21). What can we learn about worship from this wonderful story?
The man attributed his healing to Jesus (point of focus) throughout the chapter (John 9:11, 15, 17, 25, 27, 30-34), but the man can’t worship Jesus properly because he never saw Jesus’ face. He knew of Jesus but didn’t know Him personally. This confirms the lesson from four weeks ago that true worship requires relationship. You can no more worship what you don’t know than you can worship an all-knowing God anonymously.
In this case, though, the man didn’t worship Jesus immediately. He knew of Jesus’ power to heal. The man also needs a proper knowledge of Jesus. He needed truth & training (i.e. doctrine) about Jesus. So Jesus reveals Himself as the Son of Man. Once the man knew of Jesus’s power and His divine identity, he worshiped Jesus.
For us, this means we need sound doctrine about God (including Jesus) to worship God in truth. We cannot hope to worship God if we totally misunderstand Him. Why would we praise His goodness if we believe He harms us deliberately? Why would we follow Him if we think His ways are foolish? Why would we trust Him if we don’t believe in His plan? Our knowledge of Him must be both personal and doctrinal to expect true worship.
We see something else in this example. Faith has a rational foundation of reason – gratitude & respect for healing in this case – which in turn, transcends the unknown and unprovable. The man can worship Jesus because his healing gives him the faith to believe even more about Him. What constitutes the unknown for this man? Accepting Jesus as the Son of Man. He can’t know this, but he trusts Jesus because of the fact of his healing.
His worship of Jesus (as “Son of Man”) acknowledges Jesus’ power (divine attribute) & mercy (divine character) based on His interaction with Him (divine activity). In the same way, Christians should have something that they can trace back to Jesus – a changed life, release from the guilt of sin, a renewed love, relief from loneliness, freedom from guilt/shame, etc. These victories become part of our testimony. A personal testimony based on what Jesus has done for us has more effectiveness than any theological argument or canned witnessing technique.
True worship comes from faith in Jesus. It starts with correctly identifying and interacting with Him. We cannot worship what we don’t know. He knows us and expects us to reveal ourselves to Him in truth. We worship in spirit rather than relying on the flesh with its prescribed locations and preferred rituals. True worship glorifies Jesus as the Christ and Son of Man. We experience and express this glory because of how we feel about Him. We even offer ourselves as a self-sacrifice for His service.