Breaking Out Of A Rut

"Breaking Out of a Rut"

Mark 10:46-52

Mark 10:46-52 46) And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. 47) And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. 48) And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. 49) And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. 50) And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. 51) And Jesus answered and said unto him, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight. 52) And Jesus said unto him, go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.

Have you ever been stuck in a rut?

I grew up on a farm where ruts were a regular part of life. When it rained all the dirt roads turned to mud. The first person to go down one of those roads created ruts to wherever they were going. If you happen to turn onto the road with ruts, you went where the ruts went. Many times as a young boy I found myself stuck in the ruts going somewhere that I didn’t want to go. Many times the only way to get out of the ruts was for someone to come and pull me out. If you had to drive down the road with ruts you had to make sure that you never let your wheels slip into the ruts.

There are times in all of our lives that we get into the ruts. When we say someone is "in a rut" or that they are "stuck in a rut," we mean that the person is locked into a behavior that, like that road, they’re stuck in the ruts aren’t easily escaped.

A rut can be certain pattern of behavior that we are locked into that we don’t like. Some ruts are bad because they keep us locked into a lifestyle that is destructive. Some ruts keep us from making progress in our lives. They keep us from growing and becoming all that God wants us to be. There are some ruts that we all need to avoid. The rut of a prayer-less life, the rut of missing church, the rut of not reading God’s Word and the rut of not paying tithes:

Some ruts are good, habitual behavior that captivates us and helps us grow and develop.

But more often than not, when we say we’re stuck in a rut, we mean that we’re having difficulty escaping a wrong behavior.

Someone has said that "A rut is nothing but a grave with the ends kicked out."

Probably all of us get the wheels of our lives stuck in ruts from time to time, so I think that it is a valid question for me to ask. "How does one go about breaking out of a rut?"

Bartimaeus was a blind beggar who lived in the ancient city of Jericho. It would be safe to say that he was stuck in the ruts. Blind Bartimaeus made his living by begging. But Bartimaeus was tired of living in the ruts and he was going to break out of the ruts that keep him from becoming all that he could be.

Let me take a moment to sketch out for you the kind of rut this man was in.

1. HE WAS BLIND.

A blind man couldn’t work. He couldn’t read or write. There was no brail writing. He couldn’t even get around. I know there were no "seeing eye dogs" in that day because dogs were unclean animals to the Jews.

2. HE WAS REDUCED TO BEGGING.

A man in his condition, unless he had relatives to support him, could do little else but sit near a popular road and cry, "Alms, alms for the poor!"

3I. HE WAS AN OBJECT OF PITY

I say that because that was what was behind making a living for him. It was only by soliciting the sympathy of others that he could survive. He probably got pretty good at what he did. Finally, for the most part, his life was reduced to those last four words of verse 46: "sitting by the road." THAT WAS HIS RUT---HE WAS BLIND-BEGGING-PITTIED--SITTING BY THE ROAD

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But Bartimaeus got out! The purpose of this message is to show you how he did it and how you and I can get out of our rut as well.