As we always do, if you would take out your copy of God's word, open it up, turn it on, however you brought it with you this morning, and join me back in the Gospel of Mark.
We're gonna finish chapter 10 this morning.
Mark, chapter 10, we're gonna pick up in verse 46.
If you don't have a Bible with you, there are some in the pew back there in front of you.
We're gonna be on page 908 in that pew Bible, and it is our gift to you.
If you don't own a Bible, if you need a Bible, please take that one with you this morning.
I truly am excited about Vacation Bible School.
I know I routinely and annually say that it is my favorite week of the year, but in many ways it truly is.
It is because we have such a wonderful opportunity to impact children with truth.
If I were to take a poll in here, I imagine there are many of us who are impacted with the gospel when we were young, perhaps even during a vacation Bible school.
And so I pray that you would be praying this week.
If you are participating, we thank you for taking time out of your schedule to invest in our kids.
But if you aren't participating, you can still participate.
And if you would, just pray every morning.
Just pray for the kids, pray for their families, pray for the leaders that are in vacation Bible school and helping.
Uh, pray that children would come to see and know and understand the truth.
Uh, particularly on Wednesday and Thursday.
Those are the days when we pull the third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade aside, and I just spend some time personally with them, and we talk about what the gospel is.
We talk about what it means to be a sinner and what it means to have a savior.
And so uh I would covet your prayers this week as we have vacation Bible school.
The goal isn't to fill this room with a bunch of screaming kids, although that's a lot of fun.
Uh, the goal is to share the gospel with kids.
And so if you would uh pray with us this week.
The theme verse for VBS this year is John chapter 8, verse 12.
Jesus said, I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows after me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of light, of life.
Our prayer for our kids this week is that they would move from darkness into light, that they would see the light of Jesus Christ, that they would understand how much He has loved them and desires to spend eternity with them.
We pray that God would open the eyes of their hearts to see that truth, that he would open their blind eyes to understand that truth.
And honestly, our prayer is that for some of them to go home and that their moms and dads would hear the same truth and follow that as well.
We pray that lights would come on in people's lives.
This morning, as we come back to Mark's gospel, we are going to come back to yet another contrast in his gospel.
Last week we saw a contrast between Jesus' disciples and what their expectation of Jesus was and the reality of who Jesus actually was.
We saw their expectation of thrones and power and prestige.
They thought he was going to set up an earthly kingdom, and they wanted to sit on his left hand and on his right hand.
And Jesus came and he said, The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to be served, but to serve and to give his life up for many.
We saw a contrast between that in this morning as we come to the end of Mark chapter 10, we're going to see yet another contrast.
We're going to see the contrast between a man who is physically blind and yet can spiritually see.
And we're going to see the contrast between men who can physically see, but were yet still spiritually blinded.
We're going to see the contrast between a man who puts his faith in Jesus, trusts in him only, and those who are trusting in their own goodness.
We're going to see a contrast between somebody who comes to Jesus and just simply asks for mercy versus others who have come to him bringing their resumes, expecting rewards.
Contrast is what we're going to see today between a group of blind people.
We're going to read the story about a man named Bartimaeus.
Some of you even remember the story of blind Bartimaeus, but Bartimaeus isn't the only blind person in this story.
He could not physically see, but God opened his spiritual eyes so that he could understand.
But there are other people in the story who were more blind than Bartimaeus was, who needed to have their eyes opened.
It is a stark contrast in how to approach Jesus.
There is a contrast in how James and John approach Jesus and how Barnamaeus approaches Jesus.
There is a contrast in how Jesus responds to his own disciples in their arrogance and how he responds to Barnabas in his humility.
It is a stark contrast as we look in God's word.
Mark chapter 10, beginning in verse 46.
If you're willing and able, would you stand with me as we read from God's Word this morning?
Then they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road.
When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out, saying, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me.
And Jesus stopped and said, Call him here.
So they called the blind man, saying to him, Take courage, stand up, he's calling for you.
Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus.
And answering him, Jesus said, What do you want me to do for you?
And the blind man said to him, Raboni, I want you to regain my sight.
And Jesus said to him, Go, your faith has made you well.
Immediately he regained his sight and began following Jesus on the road.
Heavenly Father, as we stand today with our Bibles open, we pray that you would open our hearts, you would open our minds to your truth.
In fact, today, as we talk about spiritual blindness, Father, we pray that you would open our eyes to see.
Lord, help us to see a man who humbly comes before God, understanding who he is, understanding his need, and crying out simply for mercy, and how that stopped Jesus in his tracks, and how Jesus responded to genuine faith.
Lord, open our eyes to see.
Change our lives so that we're more like Christ when we leave than when we came in, we pray.
And it's in the matchless name of Jesus.
Amen.
Jesus performed countless miracles during his public ministry.
He would go around teaching, he would go around proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand, and along the way, he would heal people, he would perform miracles.
Certainly he did this out of compassion for those who were hurting, but Jesus also performed miracles in order to authenticate who he was and what his message was.
He did miracles so that people would know that he is the Son of God.
He was the Messiah.
He performed many different types of miracles.
In Mark's gospel, he records for us a few select miracles, ones that he uses in order to establish that Jesus is the Son of God who came to give up his life, to be one who serves, not one who is served.
He gives us examples of having authority over creation and calming storms.
He gives us examples of Jesus having authority over demons and casting out demons.
He shows us where Jesus had authority over disease and healing people.
And he also tells us twice in his gospel that Jesus healed people who were blinded.
Now, certainly Jesus healed more than two blind people, but Mark chooses just two blind men that Jesus tells us about.
Mark records for us in chapter 8 that Jesus healed a man in Beth Seda who had been born blind.
And Jesus, if you'll remember that story, put a little spittle on his hand and touched the blind man's eyes, and he said, Can you see now?
And the man said, Yeah, I can see, but I see men, but they look like trees.
They're kind of blurry, they're moving around, I can't really make them out.
And so Jesus touched him again and and he was completely healed.
He could see clearly the second time.
And as we went through chapter eight, we we began to ask the question, what's happening there?
Was Jesus having a bad day?
Was Jesus tired that day?
Was this man's blindness with particularly difficult blindness?
Was there a demon behind this blindness that Jesus had a struggle with?
What in the world was going on that Jesus didn't just heal him immediately?
Because this is the only time we ever see where Jesus didn't just immediately heal somebody.
It was a two-stage process.
And if you'll remember, we said that this man, this blind man in Betheda served as a living parable for Jesus' own disciples.
Who, seeing what Jesus did, still did not come to the right conclusion, time and time again.
They needed to be touched more than once.
They needed to see truth more than once in order to come to faith in who Jesus Christ was.
The second man who is healed of being blind is here in chapter 10, Bartimaeus, who, in the midst of a sentence, that Jesus said, Go, your faith has made you well.
At the beginning of the sentence, the man was blind.
At the end of the sentence, he was staring at Jesus.
He's healed immediately.
Mark tells us these two stories intentionally.
And now, as we come to chapter 10, he's now told us two stories back to back that are intended to be understood together.
The story of James and John that we read last week, Jesus' two disciples coming up to him after Jesus has just told them, hey, we're going to Jerusalem.
The Son of Man is going to be handed over.
He's going to be beaten.
He's going to be crucified.
He's going to die and he's going to resurrect.
You remember what they came up to him and said, We want you to do anything for us.
Whatever we ask of you, do for us.
And then Jesus asked this question.
I believe it's verse.
I'm not even going to guess.
Let me tell you what verse it is.
Verse 36.
Jesus said to them, What do you want me to do for you?
What do you want me to do for you, James?
John, what do you want me to do for you?
And their request was, we want to sit on your right hand and on your left hand.
When you come into your glory, when you come into your kingdom, we want the positions of power, we want the positions of praise, we want the positions of prominence.
This is what we want from you.
I don't think it's coincidence that Mark now tells us the story of blind Bartimaeus.
Who, when given the chance and called before Jesus, Jesus asks him a question.
Do you remember what the question was?
What do you want from me?
Same question, two stories in a row.
Not coincidence.
Mark is trying to teach us something.
God is trying to teach us something in his word as we approach Jesus.
Two different approaches, two different responses.
How should we approach?
You'll remember that Jesus is on his final journey to Jerusalem.
He's concluded his public ministry.
He has now resolutely set his eyes to go to Jerusalem for the Passover.
There he knows he's going to be arrested.
There he knows he's going to be handed over to the Gentiles.
There he knows he's going to be crucified.
There he knows he's going to die.
He knows he's going to take the weight of the sin of the world on his shoulders.
He's going to drink the cup of God's wrath for our sake.
He is headed to Jerusalem to die and to be resurrected.
Within a week of this story, Jesus will be crucified.
He's headed there for the last time.
Along that journey, he comes to the last major city before you get to Jerusalem.
It is the ancient city of Jericho, the longest actively occupied city in the world.
It was an oasis in the midst of a desert.
Just 15 miles away from Jerusalem and 3,500 feet below Jerusalem.
You went from Jericho up to Jerusalem.
It is a famous city.
It was famous even in the time of Christ because it had been there so long.
We remember it from the Old Testament.
We remember that Rahab was a harlot who lived inside this city, and the spies of Israel came, and when they were looking in the promised land, she hid them within her house.
Rahab, who by the way, is listed in the genealogy of our Savior Jesus Christ.
It's the same city where the nation of Israel didn't attack the city.
They just simply marched around the city, time after time after time.
And you sang the song as a kid, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
It's the same city.
And Jesus is making his way through Jericho.
He's making his way through because it's Passover season.
Passover season was one of the three festivals where people were required to go back to Jerusalem in order to celebrate.
And the roads would have been teeming with people.
They would have been crowded with people traveling from whatever direction they were up to Jerusalem.
Jesus was traveling along with his 12 disciples.
He traveled with a larger band of disciples.
And then there would be others who were in that crowd who were curious about who Jesus was, who were just tagging along, perhaps to see him perform a miracle, and there were still others in the crowd who were there to keep an eye on Jesus to make sure he didn't do anything they thought was inappropriate.
Along the way, they would intersperse with other traveling parties, all making their way to Jerusalem, crowding through these streets on their way up.
And as they come into Jericho, the Bible tells us that Jesus meets two people.
Mark records one of them for us, this blind man named Bartimaeus.
But Luke tells us another story about a man that Jesus meets going into the city of Jericho.
It's another song you may have sang when you were young.
It goes something like this Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
When Jesus walked into the city, there is a wealthy man there.
He is the chief tax collector in the city, a man by the name of Zacchaeus, and he has heard word that Jesus is traveling through town, and so he wants to go and see Jesus.
But these crowds that are traveling through on their way to Passover have overwhelmed the city, and Zacchaeus cannot see Jesus, so he climbs up into a tree.
And although Jesus is resolutely headed towards Jerusalem, he stops and he says, Zacchaeus, get down out of that tree.
I'm going to your house today.
And he goes to Zacchaeus's house, and there they have a meal together, and Zacchaeus invites his friends.
And the only friend that a tax collector has is another sinner.
And there are people who begin to criticize Jesus.
I cannot believe that this man is having dinner with this known sinner.
Jesus does not care about his reputation.
Jesus, remember, came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life for many.
Jesus came to die for sinners.
And there he is in the house of Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus that day is saved.
He trusts in Jesus Christ and he says, if I've ever wronged anybody, I'm going to pay them more than I've ever owed them back.
And Jesus said, Today salvation has come to this man's house.
And Jesus gets back off on the road, and as he's heading out of Jericho, he comes across another man.
Mark introduces us to him here in Mark chapter 10, verse 46.
His name is Bartimaeus.
As we talk about Bartimaeus, I've just got four words that are going to keep my thoughts together, and hopefully it'll keep you on track as we move through this text.
The first one is desperation.
The second one is devotion, then restoration, then transformation.
First of all, we see desperation in this one that we are introduced to in verses 46 and 47.
As Jesus is traveling out of town, we're told by Mark that he meets a man by the name of Bartimaeus, and then he explains to us the son of Timaeus.
Mark is actually being redundant because the name Bartimaeus literally means son of Timaeus.
Bar means son Timothy, son of Timaeus.
He's being redundant.
He's being redundant for a reason.
Because he's writing primarily to a Gentile congregation.
He's writing primarily to people who would not have known what Bartimaeus means.
And so he's explaining to them this is what this name means.
Historians believe that Barmaeus quickly became a leader in the church in Jerusalem.
Now we don't have scriptural support for that, but historically we believe that this man went to Jerusalem, followed Jesus there, and became a leader in the church.
And Mark is using his story to encourage others.
He is using his story to tell others about what Jesus might be able to do for them.
Mark tells us three things about Bartimaeus.
Three quick things.
He says he's blind, he's a beggar, and he's sitting by the road.
He says, first of all, here's what you need to know about Bartimaeus.
He could not see.
He doesn't give us any details, doesn't tell us if he was born blind or if he lost his sight sometime during his life.
Don't know when he became blind, we just know that he's blind.
Don't know if it happened through disease, don't know if it happened through an accident.
Here's what we know the man could not see.
As a result of that, we find out the second piece of information about Bartimaeus.
He is a beggar.
In that culture, in that time, about the only thing that a blind person could do in order to survive was to beg and plead and count on the goodness of other people to provide for him.
And so he was a blind beggar, counting on the goodness and mercy of other people.
Which leads to the third piece of information.
He's blind, he's a beggar, and he's sitting by the side of the road.
He's not sitting by the side of the road wasting time.
He's not sitting by the side of the road having conversation.
He's not sitting by the side of the road giving people direction.
He is sitting by the side of the road because he is a blind beggar.
And the best place to sit for a beggar would be on a crowded street where people are passing by, going to a religious festival, in order to offer offerings and sacrifices.
And so bind Bartimaeus is sitting on the side of the road.
He cannot see, but the man can hear.
He can hear the crowds shuffling by.
He can hear the feet as they move along the road.
He can hear the cartwheels as they go along the road.
He can hear the neighing of the burrows and the donkeys as they pass by.
He can hear the conversations of the crowd.
And somewhere in the midst of all of that din, he hears Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.
And so blind Bartimaeus begins to shout out at the top of his lungs, Jesus! Son of David, have mercy on me.
He doesn't stop, he continues to cry out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
There's something in Barnabas that understands that the man who is passing by isn't just a normal man.
Certainly he's heard about Jesus' miracles.
Certainly he's heard about him healing other people.
He might have even heard about him healing Barnamaeus, or excuse me, the man in Beth Seda who was blind.
He's heard stories about Jesus, but he's also heard the Bible.
He was raised in the Hebrew Scriptures.
He was Raised to understand that 2 Samuel says that there is a son of David who is coming along who is greater than David himself.
One who established a kingdom that will never fail.
One who will come and who will have the power to give the blind man's sight.
And in 2 Samuel, you know what his name was?
Son of David.
Now that was fulfilled somewhat in Solomon who came, but it's fulfilled completely in this one who was walking on this road through Jericho, and this blind man knew it.
Jesus.
You're the son of David.
Jesus, you are the Messiah.
Jesus, you are the one who can heal.
Jesus, you are the one who came from God.
Have mercy on me.
Three things that we need to recognize about Barnabaius that will help us.
Number one, he recognized who he was.
He recognized his own need.
He had a full and comprehensive understanding that he was a blind man, that he could not heal himself, that no one else could heal him.
He knew who he was.
He knew he was utterly dependent on somebody else to have mercy on him.
The second thing is he recognized who Jesus was.
Can I tell you?
You will never find mercy if you don't know you need mercy.
You will never find salvation if you don't know you need salvation.
You will never recognize the Savior until you recognize you need a savior.
And Bartimaeus is a picture of this.
He's helping us to see that in order to come to salvation, in order to have freedom from sin, in order to have hope and peace in our lives, we first of all need to recognize that we are separated from a holy God and that we have sinned.
The Bible says we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The first step to being saved is to recognize you're lost.
Many people in our culture struggle with this because we don't want to talk about standards.
We don't want to talk about black and white and what's right and what's wrong.
We don't want to talk about there as an authority who can say, these are the rules.
We don't talk about holiness and sinfulness.
We want our personal autonomy and we want to do whatever we want to do, and you can't tell me what's right, and I can only do what I want to do.
Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth.
And it is so hard to tell people that they need a savior because they don't recognize that there's anything wrong.
Bartimaeus recognized fully that he was a blind man, and he recognized fully that Jesus was the Son of God.
Thirdly, he requested help.
Have mercy on me.
Those are the steps to coming to faith in Christ, by the way.
Recognizing you're a sinner, recognizing Jesus as your Savior, and asking him to forgive you.
Asking for his mercy.
We have the desperation of Bartimaeus, and then we see the devotion of Bartimaeus in verse 48.
The crowds around him begin to tell him, you need to be quiet.
We can see his standing in society because the crowds are like, hey, you're making a scene.
You just need to hush up.
Stop yelling so loud.
You're embarrassing yourself.
You're being a nuisance.
Just be quiet.
The idea that they had of this man was probably the same idea that those that are in John 9 had about a blind man when they came up to Jesus and said, Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born this way?
And Jesus responded in that instance, no, it doesn't work that way.
He didn't sin, his parents didn't sin.
And yet the people in this town thought this man was cursed of God.
They were looking down upon him.
They were saying, Be quiet.
Jesus isn't going to pay attention to you.
You're not important.
Nobody cares about you.
Just hush up.
But does this dissuade Bartimaeus?
No, Mark says he just began crying out all the more.
Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
He cried out loudly.
He cried out repeatedly.
He cried out desperately.
Jesus, help me.
Can I tell you?
Once you come to the realization that you need Jesus, don't let anybody dissuade you.
Don't let the distractors dissuade you.
Don't let your fellow sinners discourage you.
Don't let hypocritical believers in the church stop you.
When you come to recognition that you're a sinner and you need Jesus as your Savior, don't let anything or anyone come between you and him.
I can't move on without noting that what should the crowd have been doing?
Here's a man blind.
They see him every day, but it's probably at to the point where they see him every day where they don't see him anymore.
You know what I mean?
He's just become the lawn furniture.
They just walk by and they just kind of gotten to the point where they're ignoring him.
And here is a man who has been blind, and here is a guy walking through, and people are reporting, this man can give sight to blind people.
What should the crowd have been doing?
It's not a hard question, is it?
They should have been doing everything.
Hey, let's get this guy to Jesus.
Let's get Bartimaeus to Jesus.
Hey, make a way, make sure Bartimaeus meets Jesus.
But the crowd didn't do that, did they?
The crowd stood in front of Bartimaeus.
The crowd wanted a better position in line.
The crowd wanted to have a better view.
So they weren't just passively ignoring him.
They are now actively inhibiting him from coming to Jesus.
Church, do we make it easier or harder for people to meet Jesus?
Do we make it easier?
Do we go out of our way to say, here's somebody that doesn't need, doesn't know Jesus.
They need them.
I want to introduce them.
I'm going to do everything I can to introduce them.
Are we so busy living our little religious life that we get in the way of that sometimes?
Are we more like the crowd in Jericho?
Or are we more like the crowd, the four friends who picked up their friend who was lame and took him to where Jesus was, and seeing the crowd crowding around Jesus, went up on the roof, cut a hole in the roof, and lowered him down.
Nothing was going to get in their way to bringing their lame friend to Jesus.
Are we more like that crowd, or are we more like the crowd in Jericho?
There is desperation, there is devotion.
He was going to do whatever it took to get him there.
And then in verses 49 through 51, we see there's restoration.
Verse 49, the story turns.
It's been a desperate story of a blind beggar sitting on the side of the road, large crowds going through, Jesus passing through, him crying out, everybody telling him to be quiet.
Verse 49, everything turns because Jesus stopped walking.
Resolutely heading towards Jerusalem, walking in front of his disciples, leading them there, knowing where he was going, knowing he was on a mission, people shouting out, people everywhere, one voice in the crowd.
Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me, stopped Jesus in his tracks.
One voice.
He didn't stop for everyone in that crowd.
Surely there were other people reaching for Jesus.
Surely there are other people clamoring for his attention.
But Jesus stops.
And Mark tells us that he threw aside his cloak and Bartimaeus jumped up, and surely he had to be guided towards Jesus, but somebody took him to Jesus.
He left everything behind and he went to where Jesus was.
Now we we we can make metaphorical hay out of this section right here.
But the question I have for you is when Jesus calls, how do we respond?
When Jesus stops and hears our cry for mercy, how will we respond?
Bartimaeus left everything and just went.
He dropped everything, every encumbrance, everything he had, and he just went.
Many times we call out for mercy from Jesus and we hear from Jesus and then we think, well, you know what?
Maybe I'll respond another day.
Maybe Jesus will be by this way another time and I'll have another chance.
He'll wait till I get out of college.
He'll wait till I get married.
He'll wait until I establish my career.
Then I'll start following him.
He'll wait till the end of my life.
At the end of my life, there's some things I want to get done before I respond to when Jesus says, come here.
Bartimaeus recognized this was probably going to be his one and only shot.
The odds of Jesus the Nazarene passing through his town again were small.
The opportunity for him to meet face to face with Jesus were very slim.
There was one shot and he was not going to miss it.
I don't know your future.
I don't know what tomorrow holds.
I don't even know if there will be a tomorrow.
The Bible doesn't promise us tomorrow.
But here's what I know: when Jesus calls out, when you hear him tugging, when you feel him tugging at your heart, and you hear him calling your name, you ought to respond like Barnamaeus and jump up, leave everything, and run, because it might be your one chance.
Might be the only one you get.
I don't know.
But it might be the only one you get.
He gets to Jesus.
And Jesus says to him, What do you want from me?
What do you want from me?
And it's a simple request.
Rabbi teacher, I just want to regain my sight.
He doesn't ask for power like James and John.
He doesn't ask for prestige like James and John.
He doesn't ask for prominence like James and John.
He just says, Jesus, I've got one great need.
I need you to meet the greatest need that I have.
I need to have my sight.
I need you to have mercy on me.
Mercy is help for those who are undeserving.
Mercy is what you ask for when you can't ask for anything else because you don't deserve anything else.
He did not come to Jesus and he did not say, you know, Jesus, it's unfair that I've been born this way.
Jesus, I'm a good person.
Jesus, I deserve more than what I've got.
He doesn't come with a resume.
He just comes with empty handedness saying, God, have mercy on me.
Do you see the contrast between James and John coming to Jesus?
What do you want from me?
Oh, Jesus.