Joe stopped by one day in the middle of the week because his son wanted to see what church was like so he was checking out churches in the area.
The pastor said “I showed him around and answered his many questions.
His family started coming, got semi involved and one day Joe wanted to have lunch.
At lunch he told me he wanted to commit his life to Jesus, but knew his wife would have none of it.
They were hurt by a church years ago and Joe asked if he gave his life over to Jesus Christ – would his marriage be ok?
I wanted to say – yes but I had to say, if it is true that your wife was hurt by church in the past,
And will have none of this the life, most likely will be very difficult and there is a possibility your marriage will fall apart.
That was that and I didn’t hear or see him for a few of weeks.
He showed up one Sunday and when I asked how it was going, Joe said he gave his life to Jesus.
I asked him about his family and Joe said that he realized that faith without a risk was useless.
If faith does not carry with it the risk to lose everything, then it’s not faith at all.
Because Joe had something to lose – he realized his faith was real; that Christ was real.
In this message we are going to examine an encounter with a blind man who felt he actually had nothing to lose when He met Jesus. I wonder if you and I can see, today, “What the Blind Man Saw.”
We know from Mark 10 the blind man’s name was Bartimaeus, which means “Son of Timaeus.” He can teach us a great deal about how we can relate to God.
Your problem may not be physical blindness, but you and I need the same thing Bartimaeus asked for; when he begged for–mercy. Let’s look at his story. There are several important things about the Christian life that I want us to see. Today we’ll look at just two.
1. We Must Believe Even When We Can’t See:
Most blind people today lead productive lives, but in Jesus’ time, blind people couldn’t work. There was no Americans with Disabilities Act. To be blind, in those days, was a terrible handicap which forced Bartimaeus, and others like him, to beg for his daily needs. Everyday Bartimaeus sat beside the road holding out his hand asking for money.
There are people, today in every major city around America, standing at an intersection holding signs reading, “Will Work for Food.”
Here are some the more creative signs that some in America have been seen holding: “Why lie? I need some wine.” “Will work for 40K, take my résumé.” “Tell me off. One dollar” This was a bit scary…“Help me hire a hit man to kill my husband.”
In Jesus time, beggars were just barely more important than dogs on the social ladder. Bartimaeus couldn’t see, but as with many blind people, he probably had a keen sense of hearing. On the day described in our text, he could tell from the sounds of the crowd something unusual was happening. He turned and asked someone, “What’s going on?” Over the mumble of the crowd, he heard, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”
I would imagine that Bartimaeus had heard of Jesus. Maybe he heard the stories of how Jesus healed people, even restored sight to the blind! Bartimaeus couldn’t see Jesus so his faith was simply based on what he had heard, from others. Because of the testimonies of others, concerning Jesus, he believed.
How about your testimony? Does it lead people to faith in Jesus?
Bartimaeus believed Jesus had the power to change his life and that’s why, in verse 38 he cried out, “Jesus! Son of David, have mercy on me!” The term “Son of David” was one reserved for the coming Messiah, the King. It was a title of Divine power. Bartimaeus was confessing Jesus as more than a mere teacher–He was the King!
Faith is the first step necessary to receiving mercy from God. Faith is not merely believing that God exists…faith is acting on that belief. It is banking your entire eternity on God’s offer for you to have a personal relationship with Him.
Like Bartimaeus, none of us has ever seen Jesus with our physical eyes. But I’ve heard about Jesus, and I believe in Him. Faith is not just believing facts about Jesus, it is trusting Him with your life. I don’t just believe He was born in Bethlehem and died on a cross 33 years later, I believe He has changed my life. I don’t just believe in the fact of the resurrection, I believe Jesus is alive and living in me!
I love the words to the News Boys song, “We Believe.” “We believe in God the Father
We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in the Holy Spirit And He's given us new life
We believe in the crucifixion We believe that He conquered death We believe in the resurrection
And He's comin' back again, we believe
So, let our faith be more than anthems Greater than the songs we sing
And in our weakness and temptations We believe!”
Like Blind Bartimaeus, we are blind until we come to Jesus and believe.
There is a serious problem facing believer, in that there is someone who wants to keep you blind to the truth about God. The Bible calls him the god of this age, which is another title for the devil. [II Corinthians 4:4] says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
There’s a saying, “There is none as blind as he who will not see.” Or maybe a better way to say it would be, “he who REFUSES to see. Satan wants to keep you from seeing the truth about Jesus. It’s not easy to believe without seeing, but that’s what faith is. Maybe you are like millions of other people who would believe if they could see some reliable proof. Their motto is, “I’ll believe it when I see it!”
Here’s a little something for all the skeptics in the crowd. I’m going to give you visual proof God exists. I am going to ask God to raise the roof here at EBC. “God, I want everyone to see, for themselves, that you are real, so could You lift the roof off this building and spin it around a few times and then gently place it back on top of the building as if it never moved. Okay, please God, do it now!”
Let’s just imagine for a moment God did it. [I really wasn’t expecting it to move] But I suspect there would be people confessing some real sin in this room and others would surrender to Christ. We couldn’t hold the crowd that would show up as word would spread around the county. Can you imagine how many people would be crowded in this building next Sunday? We would have to borrow some property from the church across the road to solve our parking problems!
But to believe in God because you saw something like that is not faith–it’s simply sight. The Bible says; “We walk by faith, not by sight.” (II Corinthians 5:7)
By faith, Bartimaeus called out to Jesus for help. Even though you’ve never seen Him, when you hear and believe, you too can call out for mercy.
2. Avoid those who try to slow your spiritual progress:
We have a lady in our church that will leave early most Sundays, saying she doesn’t feel well. Her husband didn’t realize this until I asked how she was. It turns out that her adult children, who go to another church and don’t even live with their parents, would call her to get home and get lunch cooked so they could get back to their church. They are not concerned about the spiritual growth of their mother as much as they are their own selfish desires. However, she is allowing them to hinder her spiritual growth by catering to their selfish demands.
When Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus, the people surrounding him didn’t say, “Good for you, Bart! Jesus can help you. Call out louder.” Instead of helping him, they rebuked him and told him to shut up! You’ll find when you are bold enough to cry out to Jesus, not everyone is going to be excited for you. In fact, there will be some people who will rebuke you and discourage you.
Our culture wants you to become just like everyone else. You nobody unless you wear the right labels, listen to the right music, and speak the filthy language everyone else uses. Most won’t mind if you are a little religious, but if you become a radical follower of Jesus, you won’t fit in our society anymore and they will ridicule you and call you a weird religious fanatic.
When you have that bulldog tenacity to follow Jesus, you’ll face opposition and criticism. Paul wrote, “A great door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.” (I Corinthians 16:9) Sometimes those who oppose your spiritual progress are members of your family–or even other professing Christians.
Mike Yaconelli wrote: “Threaten others with a loud and boisterous faith, and you will be politely (at first) asked to quiet down; dance your faith instead of sitting still in a pew, and you will be asked to leave; talk about your faith with passion and you will get expressions of concern about the inappropriateness of your emotions.”
When these people try to hinder you, do what Bartimaeus did–resist them. Don’t let them intimidate you into silence. When they told Blind Bartimaeus to be quiet, he wouldn’t be silenced. Verse 39 tells us, “he shouted all the more.” Those are interesting words in the original Greek language. In verse 38 when he first called out, Luke used the word boao which means “to call out in a loud voice.” But when everyone told him to be quiet, Bartimaeus turned up the volume. In verse 39, the word translated “shouted all the more” is krazo, meaning “to scream.”
One Greek scholar describes it as, “the instinctive shout of ungoverned emotion, a scream, an almost animal cry. The word well shows the utter desperation of the man.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, p. 242)
When the crowd told him to be silent, he yelled so loud that everyone got quiet.
In the 1800s Methodists were often called “Shouting Methodists” because they were a lot more emotional in their worship services than the Baptists. Then later, the Baptists got fired up and some were called “Shouting Baptists.” In fact, there is still a group of Baptists in Virginia who are known as “the Shouting Baptists.”
I think part of our problem today is we’ve gotten too dignified to shout. These days, the only shouting Baptists are the angry folks in the parking lot after church!
Oh, we sing, “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be; When we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory.”
But if you aren’t shouting down here what makes you think you’re going to shout up there? Some of you want to shout “amen” or “glory” sometime, but you are afraid of what the crowd may think. Bartimaeus didn’t listen to the crowd, he just shouted to the Lord!
