Speaker 1: 0:13

It is a gift. Yes, thank you. Yeah, thank you, jim too. Yeah, well, it's good to be with you. My name's Larry. I'm one of the pastors here.

Speaker 1: 0:22

We are walking through the book of Matthew. Today we're going to finish Matthew, chapter 20. This is a big deal. Congratulations to all of us. Years in the making, chapter 21 is next week and it does speed up. We're finishing up today, actually, this road trip that Jesus has been on, and so if you're new with us, you haven't missed a lot, but you just get to hop right in where we're at.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Any of you can go and watch these on our YouTube channel and I know some people find that kind of enjoyable to go back and just kind of catch up all in one big chunk and section. So the story that we are going through today is, or ending this chapter with, is found in three of the Gospels. The Gospels are Matthew, mark, luke and John. They're in the New Testament and these are all disciples of Jesus and their story about Jesus, their interactions with Jesus and following him and understanding him and his life, and a lot of this is, you know, connecting with what was going on then, these first century followers, and then we have been methodically slowly going through this, trying to understand this, what this looks like as 21st century followers and disciples of Jesus, like as 21st century followers and disciples of Jesus. So this story today is found in the book of Matthew, which I'm going to read from. It's also found in the book of Mark and in Luke and there's some like variances to this. Sometimes you run into those and you're like there's, you know, somebody experiences something just a little bit different, just like we all are having an experience right now and we get a different angle we experience it from, or something is more meaningful or there's a word. So in one of these we're going to see today that there's two blind guys. In another version there's one person. In another one the disciples are coming into Jericho, into a city. In another one, they're leaving on their way out, and so it's them kind of encapsulating this experience and interaction that they had. So I'm going to today be reading from Matthew. I'm going to grab a little bit more out of Mark today. So you're like, hey, where are we going and what's going on? But then it's also found, like I said, in Luke, and so that's kind of fun throughout your week to kind of read and understand and get a little more breath to this. So, after that long setup, let me go and read the whole story and then we'll chop it up. So Matthew, chapter 20, starting in verse 29,.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho and a large crowd followed him. Two blind men were sitting by the roadside and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted Lord, son of David, have mercy on us. And the crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet. But they shouted all the louder Lord, son of David, have mercy on us. And Jesus stopped and called them what do you want me to do for you, he asked, lord. They answered we want our sight. Jesus had compassion on them and he touched their eyes and immediately they received their sight and then followed him.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Okay, so that's what we're gonna go through today? I'm actually gonna ask this I don't know, is it really dark out there for you guys? Can you see what you're doing? I usually feel like it's lighter. I can't see anyone. Today, maybe that's normal. Okay, you guys are good. Okay, good.

Speaker 1: 3:50

So right off the bat, we see they are desperate. This word desperate is interesting. I don't know how often you look at the definition of desperate. Desperate is feeling showing or involving a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with. So here's the thing about desperation is that it's typically something you want to avoid, like we all want to avoid this. You don't want it in your life, but if you have to have it, you want to get through it as quickly as possible.

Speaker 1: 4:20

And yet we're finding constantly in scripture that there's this theme that it's only when we are desperate, we come to the end of ourselves, that we can actually truly experience God's deliverance. And a lot of you could testify to this and talk about this. You could tell your story and we just heard a little bit of Jim's and what it looked like to actually surrender, just done about how, in your desperate moment, you experienced some gifts and you experienced God's power in the presence of him in some profound ways and some unexpected ways that you most likely wouldn't have otherwise. It's oftentimes the common denominator in scriptures. You look all throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament and the people who experience God's power and presence in significant ways are people who are desperate. It says in verse 29,.

Speaker 1: 5:11

As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. I wanted to first just draw attention here to the word crowd. It's kind of a basic word, right, but it shows up quite a few times in this story and the word crowd literally is translated as a large group of unidentified people, meaning like it's a big enough group that you might recognize some people, but there's also people you don't recognize, much like a group of unidentified people, much like this room. There's people in here that you're looking around and you're like, oh, there's some people in there I recognize or I know them, but then there's other people that I don't. And yet there is one person in this large group of unidentified people that everybody knew, and we read about him in the book of Mark. Let me read you a part of that version. It says Then they came to Jericho and as Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging.

Speaker 1: 6:21

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, and he shouted all the more son of David, have mercy on me. So here's the picture that we get from this. This is desperate man in the midst of this crowd. Everyone's watching and he calls out to Jesus and he pleads for help. Now don't skip over this too quickly, because you have to appreciate what this man is risking at this moment. I mean, like, what's the crowd gonna think? This is usually what we kind of go through. They're trying to shush him. But here's the thing you need to know about Bartimaeus he doesn't care. He doesn't care what other people think, because he's desperate. He needs help from Jesus and it's a good place to be.

Speaker 1: 7:09

But it's a hard place to get to and I know for some of you, you're fighting that war right now. I know that there's some of you who, in the last weeks or months, you have felt this strong call from God to repent of your sins and to call on the name of Jesus to be saved, become a follower of him. And yet there's something within you that makes it really hard, like really hard, to humble yourself and you're kind of worried about what the crowd, about what the crowd and what some people in your life will think. Maybe it's a family member who has kind of expressed their thoughts pretty clearly on people who call themselves Christians or followers of Jesus. And so you're just fighting a war and maybe you want to become part of this church family, like you're ready to do that, be a part of this community, and you sense God actually leading you in this direction. But the problem is you used to make fun of people who came to this church and now it's just like kind of awkward right, like because you're one of us now and you don't really want to step over that line, make that commitment, because what will the crowd think? Or maybe you've been coming to church for a long time and you've put off being baptized and you meant to you should have and you wish you would have. But now it just feels like it's been years and everybody just assumes you did, and so it's like a humbling thing and like what will the crowd think?

Speaker 1: 8:36

And it can be hard for us to fall at the feet and call out the name of Jesus when we're worried about what other people are going to think. It's easier just to pretend like everything's okay, right. It's easier to keep things in the dark. It's humbling to bring things into the light. It's easier to keep your addiction secret. It's humbling to say I need some help, I need some accountability in my life.

Speaker 1: 9:01

It's easier to pretend like everything is okay at home. You know like, how are you? How are things at home? Like, they're great. Like, how are things with your kids? Kids are great, right. How's your wife, your husband? Oh, my spouse, they're so good, they're great, right. I married way over my head. They're great, it's great, everything's great, right. It's much easier to do that. It's much easier just to say everything's so good, yeah, it's great, right. It's humble, though it's humbling to say you know, honestly, I could use some prayer. It's easier to just be a face in the crowd.

Speaker 1: 9:39

It's humbling to fall at the feet of Jesus, to call out the name of Jesus. And so here's the question that I think we've got to wrestle with when will your level of desperation override your pride? When's that going to happen? When will your level of desperation override your pride? And what I'm sad to say is that sometimes, for some people, it just never seems to Like. There are some people who would rather drown than let anyone know they can't swim, and there are some people who'd rather be crushed underneath like the weight of life than call out for a spotter and ask for some help. And there's some of you who literally will drive in the wrong direction, knowing that we're lost not for minutes, not for hours, but for decades, opposed to stopping and saying I don't really know what I'm doing, I don't really know where I'm going. I need some direction in my life, and so the question is will your desperation override your pride? And if you don't feel desperate for Jesus, then when is that going to change? When are you going to stop believing that there's a plan B and you can handle it yourself?

Speaker 1: 10:55

See for Bartimaeus. He doesn't care. He doesn't care what other people think. There is too much at stake, and it's his desperation that he cries out for help. And then Jesus actually then sees his faith. Now look what was his issue? I mean, this is a little more obvious for us he was blind, and this is creating all kinds of issues for him. There's a long list social outcast, disabled the long list that could continue on.

Speaker 1: 11:24

But you know, it's one thing to have some issues that come up in your life. It's another thing to have one issue like the same actual issue, like some of you I mean like you always have an issue. That's not really the problem. You always, we always have an issue. But when it's the same issue, that's when things can become really discouraging. I mean, like you did fine for a while, but like the same issue can make things really hard. Like you expect issues in your marriage, but when it's the same issue over and over and over, you expect some issues with your kids or your co-workers, your in-laws. You expect that you can deal with that and manage that. For a little while you can work through it and then you can kind of hang on. But when it's the same thing year after year after year, that's a different level of desperation. Despite all of the efforts that you made, despite spending money to look for an answer, despite asking others for help, it's still. You can find it's just going in the wrong direction.

Speaker 1: 12:32

That's why I think so many of us can actually relate in our desperate moments of like what does that look like? We can relate to it during like heartbreak. I think that's one thing we can collectively all say that many of us have experienced that desperate moment when you realize like I can't buy love, I can't make some, I can't force someone else to say yes to me. That desperation, are you with me? So a question for us to kind of think through in those desperate moments is what do I tell myself in desperate moments? What am I telling myself in these desperate moments? What do you tell yourself about God and his power? What do you believe about Jesus in that moment? Because what you believe has something to do with what you're going to receive from him. See, he believes that Jesus has the power to heal him, so he puts himself in this position to receive this gift that he has for him.

Speaker 1: 13:34

In this desperate moment Remember again, desperate is this feeling or showing, or involving a hopeless sense that the situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with. So what do you tell yourself in that moment? And there's this sense in which our desperate moments can bring about fear. And so we say things. We'll say things to ourselves, like you know, like it's just too late for me. I've just struggled with this for too long. My addiction is too strong, my marriage is too broken, my child's heart is too hard, my finances are too wrecked, my health is too far gone, my sin is too significant, too great. And we can find ourselves actually telling ourselves that story. And if he had listened to the crowd rebuking him if he had listened to the unidentified voices.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Look, I know where some of you are at Like. You just need some faith spoken into your heart, not just like a pep talk like you got this, you can do this, you're talented enough, you got this. That's not it. It's telling yourself the truth. It's telling yourself the truth about what Jesus can do, not because of you, but in spite of you. This is telling yourself the truth about who God is and his power in your life and some of you. You need to hear that because it's been a long time years, maybe a lifetime and you just need to know that just because you couldn't fix it doesn't mean that he can't fix it. Just because you haven't been able to heal your marriage doesn't mean he can't heal your marriage. Just because you haven't been able to overcome your marriage doesn't mean he can't heal your marriage. Just because you haven't been able to overcome that addiction doesn't mean that he can't overcome that addiction. Just because you haven't been able to pull yourself up off of the ground doesn't mean he can't. He can. Just because you haven't gotten married doesn't mean you won't get married. Or just because you haven't had a child doesn't mean you won't have a child. And just because you haven't been healed doesn't mean you won't get healed.

Speaker 1: 15:53

What story are you telling yourself about God's faithfulness and God's power in your life? And whatever brokenness or loss you feel, through Jesus can begin amending. Work today and your issue, whatever your issue is, however long you've been struggling with it, your issue is not your identity. It is not what defines you. It is that you are a son, is that you are a daughter of God, is that you are a daughter of God. I love this.

Speaker 1: 16:34

And what the crowd said to him? They said like, hey, cheer up. Jesus stopped after he was calling and said call him. So they called to the blind man cheer up on your feet. He's calling you. Like you win, you get it. Look at it. He's stopped to recognize you, throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked him. I don't want to actually move past that part real quick. We've heard this before. What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked him and the blind man said Rabbi, I want to see Jesus stops for people who have nothing to offer. Did you notice he doesn't have anything to offer. He wasn't offering to give him something.

Speaker 1: 17:23

I do, though, think that there is a tendency sometimes for us to think that God responds to our desperation based on who we are and what we're doing and what we've done for him, but in that moment, bartimaeus had to raise his voice above the others that were begging for alms, other people, the conversations that are going on through this thoroughfare, the wagons that are being pulled by donkeys and the commerce that was happening all around him and, if you think about this scene for a moment, his shouting would have likely been loud and shrill and persistent, like it was obviously abrasive enough that the people, the crowds, are trying to get him to stop. And then Jesus stopped and called him, and then you have his cloak this is what he would have used then and held in front of him to collect items that he was begging for, because he couldn't see it. So there was this image now of him throwing this aside, throwing everything aside that provides security and comfort and the things that we like to control and to hang on to, and then he says what do you want me to do for you here, jesus' question is thoughtful and it's really meaningful. The beggar has been calling out for him to have mercy on him. It should be fairly obvious that Bartimaeus what Bartimaeus wants Jesus to do for him. But Jesus makes this man communicate what he wants, like pushing him to actually verbalize his expectation.

Speaker 1: 18:52

We talked about this just a few weeks ago with a mom and her son, and that God loves you and loves and wants to know what it is you want, what your desire is. I mean, just think about that again. How intimate our relationship with the creator of everything is. That he would say what do you want me to do for you? Back into Matthew, lord. They answered we want our sight. And then he says Jesus had compassion. He then has compassion. Go, said Jesus. Your faith has healed you. Immediately.

Speaker 1: 19:31

He received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. He didn't go somewhere else, he followed him. Jesus even said go, you're free to go. But he stayed and he followed along the road. But he stayed and he followed along the road. His desperate faith helped him. I love thinking of it this way. He refused a blind man to go unnoticed, and I believe that Jesus has called us to do as followers. What he's called us to do as followers is to actually look for desperate people and make sure that they don't go unnoticed. I love the crowds but we have to love them one at a time and I want to do my best to make sure that there's some desperate people that don't go unnoticed, because I know that following Jesus means that desperate people don't go unnoticed.

Speaker 1: 20:33

We have some prayer walls in the back of the room and I read them, I pray for them. I mean thousands of them. We've got drawers full of them and it gives me great perspective because it's us, it's the people in the crowd who sometimes can feel unnoticed. There was one I read that said will you pray for healing in my broken marriage? Pray to forgive myself and the hurt from loved ones. Pray that my happily ever after isn't what I had planned. I don't know who you are out here, but if you're out here, I don't want you to go unnoticed. Another one I found a lump in my breast and I am full of fear and in need of hope. I don't know who this is. If you know who this is, can you speak some courage into them, because she needs somebody to speak some courage into her heart and to not go unnoticed.

Speaker 1: 21:50

Another person writes please pray that God would heal me from my addiction to heroin. I'm actually high right now. I know there must be a special place in hell for people who come to church high and ask for prayer. I don't know what's wrong with me. I am so tired of feeling like a failure. Would you keep an eye out for him or her? I don't want this person to go unnoticed and if you happen to notice them, would you tell them for me that they're in the right place Like? This is a church of desperate people, despite our best attempts to appear otherwise.

Speaker 1: 22:33

Another person writes I'm so overwhelmed with guilt and shame but I don't know what to do. I don't know who to talk to. I need to get my life right before I start coming back to church. She says please pray for me and you know what I want to say. I know that you want to say hidden in the crowd right now, but can I just tell you, if we're all waiting to get our lives right, that nobody would be here right now.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Another person writes God, I just pray for me. I'm in a really hard place right now and I don't feel like myself. God, please help me, love myself and not harm myself. Whoever you are, you are so loved. You are so loved. Keep calling out to Jesus and even call on some of us to carry you when you're feeling weak.

Speaker 1: 23:20

One thing I can tell you, friends, for certain is that you are surrounded by desperate people, and my prayer is that this would be a place where no one goes unnoticed. You know, we might impress people with our strength, but we connect to others through our weakness, and it's not until we get to the edge that we can experience the beauty of surrender. And it's here that we come to the end, the end of struggle, the end of self-help, the end of trying to fix everything around us and relying on our own strength. And it's here we have nowhere else to turn that we look to our Father, the one who hears us when we cry out, the one who sees us when we fall at his feet. And it's here that we draw closer to God than ever before, because we are desperate and we should live our lives as desperate people and notice those around us.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Would you pray with me as we prepare to respond in worship God? Thank you that, through your spirit that you left with us, you allow us to be noticed, to be comforted, to be cared for. And I ask that, even today, in this place, as we respond and worship to you, and gratitude to you and desperation for you that you would hear us, that you would see us, and that you would give us the gift of eyes and ears to see those who are around us, those desperate souls, beloved family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, teachers, leaders, servants. We love you so much and thank you for loving us so much more. In your son's precious name, we pray Amen. Would you respond as we stand up, as we respond in worship?