The Sovereignty of the Promised Messiah / Matthew 9:27-35
Celebrating God’s Work and Welcoming an Old Friend
Pastor Mike Slayton:
Well, midweek! Welcome to the Well. It is so good to be with you. I think we do deserve a round of applause—I have a functioning microphone! Excellent.
My name is Mike Slayton, and I’m one of the pastors here at The Well Community Church. You may remember about nine months ago, we introduced a group of people who were embarking on our fifteenth residency program. Back in August, they started this nine-month journey: five mornings a week, from 6:00 to 7:30 AM, studying the Old Testament and the New Testament in a team-taught environment.
I want to bring before you the crew that graduated. There are twenty-six of them who finished this crazy program from start to finish. We team-teach it, and I think one of my fellow teachers is here with me tonight. Does this guy look familiar to any of you? Shay Sumlin, everybody!
Shay was gracious enough to fly in from Dallas to be here tonight. You’re going to get a special treat of a whole lot of Shay. We wanted to remind you of the value of an equipping church. We really want to equip the body to be the body, and this residency is one of the key ways we do that here at The Well.
I also want to make you aware that we’re changing the format a bit after fifteen years to make it more accessible. Instead of a five-mornings-a-week grind for nine straight months, we’re transitioning it into a three-semester experience. It will be three mornings a week, still from 6:00 to 7:30 AM—so you still have to get up early—with the same rich content. If God is laying it on your heart to be a part of our residency program in the future, check out the information online. But for now, will you give these graduates a huge round of applause? We are so grateful for them.
Now, you are in for a real treat. If you are visiting with us, I want to introduce a dear friend of mine, Shay Sumlin, the senior pastor of Northway Church in Dallas.
Shay and I met back in 1995 when I went out to Denton, Texas, for grad school while he was at the University of North Texas. We struck up a fast friendship. What some of you may not know is that Shay, myself, and our team were at the KT Guest House in Bangkok, Thailand, in the summer of 1997. We looked at each other and said, “Hey, if God ever gives us the chance to do church together, we should do it.”
Through a wonderful turn of events, God brought us together right here, and we experienced some remarkably rich seasons. God eventually called Shay away to step into the role of senior pastor. As an equipping church, though we hate to see great leaders leave, we sent him with our full blessing to Northway Church in Dallas.
When we saw Shay was coming into town for the residency graduation, we asked, “Will you teach? And if you teach, will you jump into our series?” We are wrapping up the miracle series in Matthew tonight, and it is a joy to have Shay deliver this final installment. Truthfully, I just miss hearing my friend preach. Let me pray for him.
Father in heaven, we thank You for Your servant Shay. We are grateful for his faithfulness and for who You have grown him to be as a man of God. Lord, we were so blessed as a church family to sit under his teaching for so many years. We miss him dearly, but we rejoice in the work You are doing through him in Dallas. We pray for Your hand of blessing upon him as he opens the Word of God tonight. Fill his heart with joy as he displays the beauty of Christ. Give us a sweet understanding of the uniqueness of Jesus. May You be glorified as we exalt Christ and the gospel. We pray all this in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
A Vacation in Fresno and the King of Grace
Pastor Shay Sumlin:
Church family, it is so good to see you! My goodness, this is a true homecoming. If you don’t know me, that’s completely fine—we are going to dive straight into God’s Word together. But for those who do, you need to know what an absolute privilege it is to be back in Fresno.
For seven years, I had the distinct honor of standing behind this pulpit. Whatever benefit that may have been to this body, I guarantee you I was the greater benefactor of the love of this church. You all helped shape me more than you will ever know, and it is incredible to see what the Lord is doing now in Dallas as an extension of the kingdom work that was nurtured right here.
Ironically, this trip was actually supposed to be a family vacation. When we were planning and I asked my kids where they wanted to go, they said, “Fresno!” I told them, “That is the one thing nobody ever says for a vacation!” But there is simply too much relational history here. Then the team said, “Hey, while you’re here, do you want to help commission the residents? Do you want to preach?” And so here we are. This is how I spend my vacation, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let’s turn together to Matthew chapter 9.
Matthew 9:27-35 (NASB)
As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘It shall be done to you according to your faith.’ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: ‘See that no one knows [about this]!’ But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land. As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, [and were] saying, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’ But the Pharisees were saying, ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.’ Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
I love this Gospel that The Well has been trekking through over these past weeks. In Matthew 8 and 9, we are looking at the kingship and sovereign authority of Jesus Christ. Specifically, Matthew records nine distinct miracles, and tonight we arrive at the final two.
These two miracles display the kingship of Jesus over two profound realities: the sovereignty of God over physical disability, and the sovereignty of God over demonic oppression.
We have said this many times from this pulpit over the years: we live in a deeply broken and fallen world. Things are not the way they are supposed to be. There is evil and injustice all around us. We have bodies that break down and do not function as they should—I am about to turn forty-five, and I am feeling that reality firsthand! We experience disease, sickness, sorrow, loss, and death.
Here is the reality: you do not have to be a Christian to recognize that the world is broken. That is a universal human experience. But as the redeemed people of God, we look to the Scriptures—the revealed Word of God—to tell us why things are this way and where our ultimate hope lies.
Scripture takes us back to Genesis 3 to show us where everything went wrong. Because of human rebellion—because mankind chose to be their own gods rather than submit to the living God—a curse fell upon creation. Spiritual darkness invaded the world. Evil took root in human hearts, giving rise to hatred, violence, and injustice. Disease and decay invaded human bodies that were originally designed for unhindered life. God told Adam that in the day he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die. And that spiritual and physical death swept over humanity.
Genesis 3:1-19 (NASB)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ’Indeed, has God said, ’You shall not eat from any tree of the garden ‘?’ The woman said to the serpent, ’From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’’ The serpent said to the woman, ’You surely will not die! ‘For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make [one] wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’ And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave [to be] with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’ To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.’ Then to Adam He said, ’Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. ‘Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.’
Yet the very same Scriptures that explain the problem immediately point us to the solution. From that tragic moment in Genesis 3, God cast a prophetic vision for a coming Redeemer. God promised that He would send One who would push back the darkness, reverse the curse, heal the brokenhearted, give us glorified bodies, and bring us into everlasting joy in the presence of God.
All throughout the Old Testament, these prophetic promises roll forward like a drumbeat, pointing to a King who would inaugurate His kingdom and make all things new. The role of God’s people was to wait upon these precious promises.
Fast forward to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew, a disciple of Jesus, writes an eyewitness account to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is the direct fulfillment of every single promise made in the Old Testament. He is the long-awaited Redeemer who has come to save His people from their sins. In Matthew chapters 8 and 9, Matthew arranges nine specific miracles not as random Sunday school object lessons, but as systematic proof of Christ’s messianic credentials.
When onlookers gaze upon Jesus and ask, “What kind of man is this?” the answer rings clear: He is the Messiah. He is the sovereign King.
Centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah foretold what would happen when the Messiah arrived: the eyes of the blind would be opened, and the tongue of the mute would sing for joy. And those are the exact two miracles Matthew sets before us tonight.
Isaiah 35:4-6 (NASB)
Say to those with anxious heart, ‘Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come [with] vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you.’ Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness And streams in the Arabah.
Sovereign Authority Over Disability
Let’s look at how Jesus deals with disability beginning in verse 27.
Jesus has just finished a grueling day of ministry in Capernaum, having raised a dead girl back to life. As He moves through the streets, large crowds press in around Him. Two blind men begin following Him, shouting at the top of their lungs: “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
Matthew 9:27 (NASB)
As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’
We do not know the medical cause of their blindness. We don’t know if they were born blind or if it was caused by an infection or injury later in life. But the cause is irrelevant. What matters is that these men were living in a broken world and were desperate for mercy and hope.
Notice a recurring pattern in the Gospels: the people who consistently pursue Jesus are the sick, the hurting, the marginalized, and the broken. It is only from a posture of spiritual desperation that the power of regeneration takes root.
This echoes what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Blessed are those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy—those who realize that no nonprofit organization, no human effort, and no moral self-improvement can cure the deepest ailment of their souls. We are in desperate need of a rescue from outside ourselves.
Matthew 5:3 (NASB)
’Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
What is truly remarkable here is not what these men could not see physically, but what they could see spiritually. Up to this point in Matthew’s Gospel, no individual in the narrative has addressed Jesus with the messianic title, “Son of David.” Matthew used it in his opening genealogy, but these two physically blind men are the very first people in the public ministry of Jesus to openly proclaim Him as the Son of David!
The world says, “Seeing is believing.” But in the kingdom of God, believing is seeing. These men, completely devoid of physical eyesight, saw the identity of Jesus more clearly than all the religious elites of their day. They recognized Him as the promised King who possessed sovereign authority to heal and redeem.
Because they believe He is the long-awaited Savior, they follow Him right into the house where He is staying. Jesus turns and asks them a penetrating question: “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
Matthew 9:28 (NASB)
When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord.’
Jesus is drawing out their public confession. He wants them to explicitly connect their faith to His divine authority. Without hesitation, they respond, “Yes, Lord.”
Then Jesus touches their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be done to you.” And immediately, their eyes are opened.
Matthew 9:29-30 (NASB)
Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘It shall be done to you according to your faith.’ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: ‘See that no one knows [about this]!’
This physical miracle authenticated the spiritual reality: Jesus is the Messiah who delivers His people. Jesus opening their physical eyes served as a living parable of His sovereign power to open spiritually blind hearts.
By nature, every single one of us enters this world spiritually blind. As the Apostle Paul writes, the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:4 (NASB)
in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
We were conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. We cannot manufacture spiritual sight on our own. We need the sovereign touch of King Jesus to illuminate our darkened hearts and grant us saving faith.
After healing them, Jesus gives them a strict, stern warning: “See that no one knows about this.” In the original Greek, the word used for this warning is intense—it carries the connotation of a snorting war horse. Jesus is commanding them with the utmost gravity not to publicize this miracle.
Now, practically speaking, that is a tough command to follow! You have been blind your entire life, and suddenly you walk home making eye contact with everyone. What are you going to do—pretend to stumble around?
Jesus wasn’t telling them to hide the reality that they could see; He was commanding them to refrain from publicly proclaiming Him as the political Messiah. The crowds were yearning for a political conqueror to overthrow the Roman Empire. But Jesus did not come on His first advent to establish a political empire; He came to deal with the root problem of human sin by laying down His life on a cross. An untimely political frenzy would prematurely disrupt His redemptive mission.
Yet look at how the men responded in verse 31: they went out and spread the news about Him all throughout that entire region. It was civil disobedience born out of sheer, uncontainable excitement!
Matthew records this to show us that Jesus holds absolute, sovereign authority over human disability. He can reverse in a single moment what all of human medicine cannot fix.
Sovereign Authority Over the Demonic
Matthew immediately transitions from physical disability to the spiritual realm in verse 32.
As the two previously blind men are leaving, another man is brought to Jesus. This man is mute and demon-possessed. When Jesus casts out the demon, the mute man immediately begins to speak.
Matthew 9:32-33 (NASB)
As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, [and were] saying, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’
Notice a crucial difference between this miracle and the previous one. The blind men actively sought out Jesus; this mute man did not. He was brought to Jesus by others.
Demons do not seek out their own deliverance. This man was so bound and incapacitated by demonic oppression that he could not speak, let alone plead with Jesus for mercy. He required friends to intercede on his behalf and bring him to the only One who had the power to break his chains.
This passage demonstrates that demonic power can, at times, manifest in physical infirmity. However, we must be exceptionally careful here: Scripture does not teach that all sickness or disability is caused by personal sin or direct demonic possession.
Remember John 9, where the disciples saw a man blind from birth and asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” They assumed there were only two possible causes. But Jesus corrected them and revealed a third category: this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in his life.
John 9:1-3 (NASB)
As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ’[It was] neither [that] this man sinned, nor his parents; but [it was] so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
We should never go “ghost-busting” into every physical ailment, assuming every cold, ache, or disability is a demonic attack. Yet we also cannot ignore the reality of spiritual warfare.
Whenever the wheels fall off in our lives, biblical wisdom calls for a three-fold approach:
- Look Inward: Ask the Lord, “Is there unconfessed sin in my life that has opened a door to brokenness?” If so, repent and receive Christ’s cleansing grace.
- Look Outward: Discern if there is spiritual oppression at work. While a genuine believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and cannot be demon-possessed, we can certainly experience demonic attack and spiritual warfare.
- Look Upward: Cry out for the intercession and sovereign authority of Jesus Christ, trusting Him to do what only He can do.
The central point Matthew is driving home is not the technical diagnosis of the man’s condition, but the supreme authority of Jesus Christ. As powerful as demonic forces are in this fallen world, Jesus Christ possesses ultimate, unchallenged authority over them all.
When Jesus speaks, the armies of darkness tremble. At His mere word, demons must flee! And the moment the demonic oppression was broken, this man’s tongue was unloosed to speak and utter the praises of God.
This man’s physical deliverance is another living picture of our spiritual salvation. Apart from Christ, we were all dead in our trespasses and sins, helplessly trapped in the domain of darkness under the power of the enemy.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (NASB)
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
And then we read those glorious words in Ephesians 2: “But God…”
The great preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones called those the two greatest words in all of human history. God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ!
Ephesians 2:4-5 (NASB)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Through the cross of Jesus Christ, our debt has been canceled, and the powers of darkness have been decisively defeated.
Colossians 2:14-15 (NASB)
having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
The very same cross that washes away our sin and removes our guilt is the cross that disarmed the demonic rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame. The arrival of the King signals the inevitable destruction of Satan’s kingdom and the eternal liberation of God’s people.
Two Divergent Responses to the King
When you read these miracles through Jewish eyes, the message is unmistakable. If you were a first-century Jew steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures, you knew Isaiah 35 by heart. You knew the promise: “Behold, your God will come… He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”
Seven hundred years after Isaiah penned those words, Jesus of Nazareth walks the earth, opening blind eyes, casting out demons, and making the mute sing! These miracles were undeniable signposts validating that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
They also give us a preview of eternity. Church, a day is coming when there will be no more blindness, no more disability, and no more physical decay. A day is coming when there will be no more depression, no more anxiety, no more demonic oppression, and no more tears. A day is coming when we will never attend another funeral again!
How do we know that day is coming? Because King Jesus has already broken into human history and proven His power over sickness, demons, and death itself.
Look at how the passage concludes with two radically different responses to Jesus:
Matthew 9:33-34 (NASB)
After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, [and were] saying, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’ But the Pharisees were saying, ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.’
The crowds look at these miracles and are filled with awe, saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel!” Their hearts connect the prophetic dots, and they marvel at the King.
Yet the Pharisees look upon the exact same miracles and respond with hardened skepticism and bitter blasphemy: “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.”
Not even the bitterest enemies of Jesus could deny the authenticity of the miracles—they were undeniable! But instead of submitting to His divine authority, they attributed His power to Satan.
The Apostle John explains why these signs were recorded in Scripture:
John 20:30-31 (NASB)
Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.
These miracles were written so that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing, you would have eternal life in His name.
You can love Jesus, or you can reject Jesus, but you cannot be indifferent toward Him. There is no middle ground of casual, nominal Christianity in Matthew chapter 9. There is only wholehearted devotion or tragic rejection.
Our time on this earth is brief. The physical death rate in our world is still hovering right around one hundred percent. The day is coming when our earthly lives will draw to a close. The only question that will matter is: What did you do with Jesus Christ?
Have you transferred your trust entirely to Him? Have you cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on me”?
If you have, then like Jesus in verse 35, let us spend the remainder of our days unashamedly proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom to a broken, watching world.
Matthew 9:35 (NASB)
Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
Let’s pray together.
*Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word. As we look upon these undeniable miracles of Jesus, we are reminded that the One who opened the eyes of the blind and unloosed the tongue of the mute is the very same Savior who opens our spiritually blind hearts and cancels our debt of sin at the cross.
Lord, out of newly awakened hearts, with eyes that can spiritually see and mouths that can speak, give us the courage to spend our days gazing upon Your beauty and using our voices to proclaim the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. For Your glory and for our good, we pray all these things in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.*