Don’t Just Survive…Thrive
Mark 10:46-52
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Illustration
A young man who had worked for years on the railroad, wanted a job as a signalman for the railroad. For his interview, he was told to meet the inspector at the signal box. The inspector asked him, “What would you do if you realized that two trains were heading toward each other on the same track?” The young man replied, “That’s easy. I would change the track that one of the trains were traveling on.” The inspector said, “What if the lever was broke?” The young man said “Then I would jump down out of the signal box and I would use the manuel lever over there.” Next the Inspector said, “What if the lever had been struck by lightening?” The young man replied “Then, I would run down to the public emergency phone and call the next signal box and tell them what was happening.” The inspector continued “What if the public phone had been vandalized and could not be used?” The young man replied, “Then I would run into town and get my uncle.” That answered puzzled the inspector. So, he asked “Why would you go get your uncle?” To which the young man replied “That’s simple. Because he has never seen a train crash before.”
Too many people today feel that their life is headed toward a crash.
The crash may be a personality crash in a marriage or work place.
The crash may be a financial crash or an employment crash.
What ever it is, for them, life seems to have come unglued and untracked.
Maybe you feel that something is missing in your life and you just don’t know what it is. Maybe you feel you are about to crash.
There is hope
Did you hear me there is hope.
There is an answer, a way out. A crash does not have to happen in your life.
We will not discover an answer by reading a horoscope that so many read.
We will not find an answer by calling a physic hotline that so many call. I always though that if those people were really physic wouldn’t they know who was having problems and needed their help and call them instead of being called.
We will not find an answer by consulting a fortune cookie or by picking up a self help book at a store as so many people.
The answer to all of life’s problems and questions is found in Christ Jesus.
The Bible tells us that Jesus came to earth, sent by God our heavenly Father, so that we might experience true life. Jesus came so that we could know true happiness, true peace, true joy, and true fulfillment. Jesus came so that we could genuinely know God and have a personal relationship with Him.
Now unfortunately, rather than turning to God, too many people find themselves wondering helplessly through life.
Let us take a look at someone who went from just surviving in life to thriving.
Mark 10:46
I. Here Jesus gives us an example of a man who must have felt the same way that many of us feel today.
a. His life was going nowhere. He was a beggar. How many of us feel that we are begging our way through life.
b. He probably had very few friends.
c. His life was coming apart every day was worse than the day before.
d. He had a physical disability. He was blind. In that day that would have been seen as a punishment for some sin of his or his parents.
e. He had little hope of every having a better life. His main concern from one day to the next was just survival. To survive one more day.
f. What about you today are you just trying to survive one more day? Are life’s problems bearing down on you? Do you feel that the world is closing in around you? Do you feel that no one else has ever had your problems? Then you need to do what Bartimeaus did.
II. IN a life that Bartimeaus saw little hope suddenly he realized that there was hope.
a. We must take advantage of every opportunity that God gives us.
b. Bartimeaus did. He heard that Jesus was pesent.
c. His reaction to this news was to call out for Jesus. He said Jesus thou son of David have mercy on me.
d. In his despair, in his hopelessness he had found hope. He called out to the one who could heal him and make him whole.
e. No longer was he desiring to just survive he now wanted to thrive.
f. Many people around him told him to be quite that he was not good enough to see Jesus.
a. We must in our life minimize or not pay attention to the negative people around us.
b. Have you been told the same thing? That your problems were not big enough to bother God with?
g. Bartimeaus refused to be quite. Instead he called the more loudly for Jesus. He knew that there was a better life and he knew that Jesus was the one who could give it to him.
h. What about you? Do you have something in your life that is causing you to just survive and not thrive. Have you cried out to Jesus and asked for his mercy?
i. Why are we just surviving when Jesus wants us to thrive.
III. Verses 49-52 What Jesus’ response to Bartimeaus a beggars plea.
a. First he stopped when he heard Bartimeaus plea.
b. He commanded that Bartimeaus be brought to Him.
c. How should we react when Jesus calls
1. we should come to Jesus’ call.
d. What will Jesus do if we ask for mercy.
e. He will heal us and cause us to thrive.
1. we must follow Jesus’ call
2. we must exercise the faith available to us.
f. Jeremiah 33:3 “’Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
g. Phillipians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God
IV. Conclusion
A. Requesting something of Jesus or speaking to Jesus is not enough. You see, the Rich young ruler did that, yet he remained unchanged.
B. We must understand complete faith is obedient faith.
i. Mark tells us that when Bartimeaus received his sight, he followed Jesus along the road. Can you imagine the testimony that his eyesight must have been as he told others the impact that Jesus had in his life.
A missionary in a very isolated area of Africa performed surgery on a poor blind man. The surgery was a success and his sight was restored. Several days after the operation the man disappeared from the hospital. Everyone was quite concerned for his well-being. Then a few day later, the missionary opened his door and there stood the man who have been blind. He was holding a rope and on the other end were ten more blind people.
Genuine faith is a contagious faith.
Genuine faith can not wait to tell others, to point other to God, to follow Jesus.
Don’t just survive in life but thrive through Jesus Christ.
