HoHum:
Read Mark 10:46-52
Bob Hostetler encourages us to think of it this way: Bartimaeus heard the sounds of the crowd approaching from his spot on the roadside near Jericho. He couldn’t see them, however. He was blind. He was a familiar sight to others on their way in and out of Jericho, though there were no familiar sights to him. Nonetheless he knew his post by the number of steps he counted from his hovel nearby and the cool shade of the palm tree under which he would sit while he begged for alms from all who passed. Though his eyes were dark, his hearing and sense of smell were sharp; he could distinguish- with great accuracy- a child from an adult, a man from a woman, a Jew from a Gentile, and even a priest from a tax collector. So as he heard the crowd approaching that day, he saw nothing but discerned much. He knew that Yeshua, the healer from Galilee, had come to the bustling oasis town near the river Jordan. He heard people excitedly mentioning him as they passed Bartimaeus on the road. So the approach of the crowd- the smell of dust kicked up by many feet and the murmurs of many people talking and traveling in a cluster- told him all he needed to know. He sat quietly until he judged the group to be just the right distance away. Then he banged his walking stick on the underside of his begging bowl. “Yeshua! Son of David! Have mercy on me!” He paused. Listened. The shuffle of the crowd stopped and nearby voices cursed him and told him to be quiet. He ignored them. He banged the bowl again, “Son of David! Have mercy on me!” He lifted his face skyward and listened. He heard several voices, but one spoke with a different quality, “Call him over,” he said. Someone stepped closer to him. He heard several people telling him to get up. A strong hand took him by the arm, and a man spoke: “He’s calling you.” He shrugged off his dirty cloak and scrambled to his feet. He leet himself be led away from his palm tree, still clutching his stick and bowl. He could tell by the sounds around him- shuffling and muttering- that he was being guided into the center of the crowd. His guides stopped, so he stopped, too. The crowd fell silent. He waited. A single voice, then. A man’s voice. “What do you want me to do for you?” It was the voice of the healer, Yeshua. The man some said was the Messiah, the Sun of Righteousness. Bartimaeus suddenly realized that he stood before YEshua, his walking stick in one hand and his bowl, as always, upturned in the other. He lowered the hand with the bowl and placed it behind his back. Then he answered, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” Yeshua said. “Your faith has healed you.” Immediately the darkness fled. And the first thing he saw was his healer’s smiling face.
WBTU:
Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Strange question. Isn’t it obvious? After all, the man was blind. What else could he want? Of course, maybe Jesus saw the man’s begging bowl. It is possible that other beggars had previously asked the healer for money or food rather than healing. I think there is more to Jesus’ question. When Jesus taught his followers to pray, He could have told us to pray something generic like, “Bless us.” He could have used the words, “Provide our needs whatever those may be.” He could have said, “Oh Father, take care of us.” But he wants us to be more specific. Last time looked at Luke 11:3: Give us each day our daily bread.” With that word- bread…
Thesis: Jesus urges us to be specific in prayer
For instances:
A. Present our specific needs
Jesus tells us to pray for bread. Now last week talked about this being literal. To his disciples in the 1st century this was central to life. Bread was a staple, a necessity. Like Otto, need bread.
N.T. Wright put it this way: “This clause reminds us that God intends us to pray for specific needs. It may seem more ‘spiritual’ to pray for the conversion of the world than for a parking space near to the meeting for which I am about to be late. Now of course we would trivialize Christian prayer if we thought it was only about praying for parking spaces, for our team to win the game, or for great weather for the church picnic. But, once we put the prayer for daily bread within the whole kingdom prayer where it belongs, to turn then to the specific things we honestly need right now I not trivial. It is precisely what children do when they love and trust the one they call ‘Father.’” Father, I need bread, I need something to eat.
1. Praying for specific needs clarifies our minds. I can easily imagine Jesus responding to the prayers of Bartimaeus and wanting him to get more specific: “Have mercy on me, Son of David!” Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Please bless me.” Jesus asks again, “Ok, but what do you want me to do for you?” “Help me.” Jesus asks again, “Ok, but what do you want me to do for you?” Jesus would keep asking until Bartimaeus finally says, “I want to see.” “Yes, that is what you really need, your faith has saved you.” Getting beyond the Bible here but imagine Jesus responding to your prayers, “What do you want me to do for you?” Maybe have a hard time relating to God this way, but I believe this is at least part of what Jesus is urging on us when he teaches us to pray specifically. Jesus’ instruction to pray specifically for our needs prompts us to spell out and spill out what we really want.
2. Praying for specific needs defines our needs. Andrew Murray wrote: “Our prayers must be a distinct expression of definite needs, not a vague appeal to His mercy or an indefinite cry for blessing. Jesus desires specific prayer for our own sakes because it teaches us to know our own needs better. Time, thought, and self scrutiny are required to find out what our greatest need really is.” Often in prayer I have asked God for something and soon I have changed my request. For example, “Lord, bless me” won’t lead me to recognize that I don’t need a raise as much as I need to say no to buying more stuff. “Lord, I need different coworkers,” “No, what I need is wisdom, love and humility to resolve my conflicts with the coworkers I have now.”
3. Praying for specific needs emphasizes our dependence on and intimacy with God. If I don’t really pray for God to provide the bread I need today, I may be tempted to forget that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). If I pray for the things I need, I am not only reminded of that fact but also drawn closer to my Father.
4. Praying for specific needs makes us more alert to answers. “Lord bless me”- if the Lord answers how would we know? I prayed for a part time hospice chaplaincy position and when the Lord answered, I knew it exactly. Write in a journal specific answers to prayers
5. Praying for specific needs increases our faith. Luke 17:5-6: “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Results!
B. Confess our specific wants
Praying specifically helps us to clarify our needs from our wants. Good to pray for holy wants.
The psalmist David prayed in Psalm 38:9: “All my longings lie open before you, Lord;
my sighing is not hidden from you” (NIV). The King James here says: “Lord, all my desire (all my wants) is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.” Charles Spurgeon says of this verse: “Blessed be God, he reads the longings of our hearts; nothing can be hidden from him.” God knows our longings, our desires so let’s be honest in confessing these to God, anything less is being dishonest. Andrew Murray says this: “So much of our prayer is vague and pointless. Some cry for mercy but do not take the trouble to know exactly why they want it. Others ask to be delivered from sin, but do not name any sin from which a deliverance can be claimed. Still others pray for God’s blessing on those around them and yet have no idea what they want to see happen. To these requests God asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”” Yes, “my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19) but God never said to stop at our needs. Might not grant our desires but God might if they are in accordance to His will. God can “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). God already know everything we want, so confessing our specific desires to Him accomplishes many of the same things as presenting our specific needs to Him. So tell Him. What’s the worst that can happen? Tell us no. Emphasis here is to tell him what we want: “Jesus on the mainline, tell Him what you want, Just call Him up and tell Him what you want.” Health and wealth gospel- to combat this remember what God wants (1 Timothy 2:3-4) God… wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. God doesn’t need people to be saved but wants them to be. Need to make this our prayer as well.
C. Share our specific feelings
Notice that several in the Bible expressed their feelings. Abraham complained to God in prayer, lamenting his lack of a son (Genesis 15:2). Elijah moaned a prayer in depression after an exhausting victory on Mt. Carmel, telling God he wanted to die (1 Kings 19:4). King Hezekiah cried bitterly from his sickbed, telling God he didn’t want to die (2 Kings 20:3). King David and the other psalmists poured their hearts out before the Lord again and again and some of the things they said cause us concern but they definitely expressed their feelings. Habakkuk grumbled about God’s inaction (Habakkuk 1:2-4). Hannah grieved because she was childless (1 Samuel 1:10). The Bible depicts people whining, singing, cursing, and grumbling to God. The Bible is filled with prayers that exhibit fear, doubt, joy, anger, hurt, gratitude, confidence and confusion. By contrast, most if not all the prayers we hear are less than emotional and always positive. Might be okay in public but often we follow suit in our private prayers and they are unemotional and downright dishonest. Sharing our feelings with God is certainly included in Jesus’ instruction to pray specifically. After all, on the night He was betrayed, He prayed with gut wrenching, blood sweating emotion, unloading His anguish without reservation, until an angel had to come to comfort Him (Luke 22:43). We are talking to a friend so we can be honest and share our feelings. Pour it out. He knows it anyway, but as C.S Lewis said, we must learn to “lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.”
D. Voice our specific dreams
Peter, quoting from Joel, on the day of Pentecost says this (Acts 2:17): In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. What dreams do we have for our work, our family, our church, our community, our nation? Before Jesus told Bartimaeus “Go, your faith has saved you,” he invited him to dream: “What do you want me to do for you?” He called him out of his beggarly posture and into a more active stance. He opened the eyes of his heart and mind before He opened his eyes. He invited Bartimaeus to exercise spiritual vision before He granted him physical vision. What would we like to see? Where do we want to be? What are our hopes and dreams? Ever told them to Jesus? Ever voiced them to Him? Big Hairy Audacious Goals, how about Big Hairy Audacious Prayers. When we pray, Jesus said, pray for bread. But I have no bread, I have no means of getting bread, there is a bread shortage, the wheat fields are all ruined, but don’t let any of that stop us. Ask. Dream. Envision. Expect
