Luke 18:31-43 & 19:28 - Thy Kingdom Come

Church, what if I told you that you were blind?

You're blind.

What would you say to that?

You'd probably use your senses of logic and information, and you would have to refute that.

I see you, and the fact that I see is meaning that I'm not blind.

Because blindness is the inability to see.

So I can see, therefore, I'm not blind.

It's a pretty easy thing to refute.

But what if someone were to tell you that you were spiritually blind?

Spiritually you could not see.

What logic and information would you use to refute that?

Would you make an appeal to your own character or an appeal to somehow the way you were raised?

I said to you, or someone said to you, how do you know that you're not spiritually blind?

How would you answer that?

See, this is why scripture is so important.

General revelation, right?

Just looking out into creation, we see the stars and trees and God's creation, the human body.

It reveals to us that there is something wrong.

We don't need God's word to tell us there's something in man's heart, in mankind's heart, that isn't right.

Something there.

Think about a parent who gets so frustrated with their little child over a pointless thing.

What's going on there?

Innocent child.

Parents get full of rage.

Somehow you feel no one's given you a mandate for life, but somehow you feel behind or you feel less than.

Or there's people in your life that you just don't like.

If for some reason, somehow, the attitude of your heart toward them could be revealed, you would be so ashamed.

You would never go to see people you know again.

You would run and hide.

So we know there's something broken about us.

We know there's something not right.

This is what general revelation tells us.

But it's through God's words, special revelation.

God's word tells us what is actually going on.

And what it tells us is that there is a blindness.

And it tells us what that is.

See, there are people who are spiritually blind and they are aware of this.

I think sometimes that catches us by surprise.

But this is extremely dangerous.

But you probably met people like this who they would say, no, I believe there's a God.

Probably the God of the Bible or something like the God of the Bible.

And they would even say, I believe there will be a judgment one day.

But to be honest, they just don't really care.

They're not moved enough to do anything about that.

And then there are those who are unaware of their blindness.

They do not know that they are blind.

They assume themselves to have sight.

They think they know what's good and right and beautiful.

And anyone who were to tell anyone who came to tell them that they were blind, they would be offended by that and accuse them of being the blind ones.

What Jesus does in these verses of Luke is he reveals the blindness and he offers sight to those who desire it.

And in this, he again is establishing the kingdom of God.

That his kingdom is one of sight, one of illumination.

You can see.

You see the truth and you follow it.

It's given by God and it requires faithfulness to God.

And in this passage, we have these bookends that connect this narrative that Jesus is moving closer to Jerusalem.

He's heading to Jerusalem, for which will be his crucifixion.

And we also see this theme that the overall point of Scripture is pointing to Christ's crucifixion and then his return and his final judgment that is yet to come.

So you see first that Jesus is the king.

That the king is coming to endure the cross.

He makes this very clear beginning in verse 31.

As he's pulled away and he's speaking to his disciples, the twelve particularly, see, we are going up to Jerusalem.

Why?

Everything that is written about the Son of Man may be by the prophets will be accomplished.

So Jesus is saying, This is where we're going and this is why we're going.

And he says, What's going to happen?

Excuse me.

He, the Son of Man, Jesus, will be delivered to the Gentiles.

He will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.

And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.

So Jesus has just revealed to him what he's going to endure in the coming weeks.

Just a few days from now, he will be into uh he'll enter into Jerusalem and be crucified.

And he's giving them a heads up.

It's easy to move past this, but just for a moment, remember the humanity of Jesus.

Fully God, fully man.

He is going to endure more suffering than anyone can comprehend.

More suffering than the language he has to communicate to his disciples can even communicate.

The language cannot begin to cover this, to accurately communicate what he is going to endure.

And what do his friends do?

They don't understand.

They don't understand, they don't see this, hidden from them in a sense.

They could not comprehend or grasp this idea.

This is the Messiah.

We finally believe this is the Son of David, this is Jesus, the Messiah, and we're heading to Jerusalem.

Like this is awesome.

This is it.

Scripture has been talking about this.

But this way of suffering and flogging and mockery and shamefully treated and killed, for them, they cannot comprehend that.

But Jesus knows that he's going to endure the cross.

He came as a baby to endure the cross.

He, this is always part of his plan, was to come to endure the cross.

So it's not God's plan B.

He was not making this up as he went.

For Scripture has been saying throughout all the Old Testament that the Messiah would come and he would suffer.

Yes, it said he would conquer and he would crush the head of the serpent, but also that atonement must be made.

Atonement, sacrifice, a perfect atonement.

And if they thought that just another lamb had to be sacrificed, just get the one out of the field that's clean and pure with no spots or defects.

If they thought they just had to get some other animal just to sacrifice and lay on the altar, and somehow that would be the atonement.

They did not know the character of God.

They did not know their sin.

Because the character of God is saying, You've violated my laws, you've really sinned against me.

Therefore, not just a lamb, but a perfect sacrifice must be given.

They did not understand their own sin.

And it was their sin that was so costly.

This wasn't a minor offense.

This wasn't a small kind of whoops.

Hey, I'm sorry, I know you didn't appreciate that, God.

Apologies.

Like, are we good?

No, they violated his law.

And so a king must come.

A perfect lamb must endure the wrath to come.

And Jesus is telling them the Son of Man is coming.

All the prophets were speaking to this, scripture pointing to this.

The hint we even see in Genesis 3 of the Son of Man again coming, this one who would conquer evil, the one who would restore the garden, the one who would bring back into relationship fallen man with the Creator God.

He's coming.

And he's heading to Jerusalem.

But they did not understand.

But even as they're making their way, Jesus again is revealing and teaching them.

So he is the king who is coming to endure the cross, and he is the king who is coming to give sight.

This story of Jesus healing this blind beggar.

This wonderful, famous story.

This beggar could very well be Bartimaeus, as we're told in the other gospels.

And he hears of Jesus' coming and he cries out Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.

What was he told?

He was rebuked.

He was not allowed to come and make his petition before Jesus.

He was rather rebuked.

But all the louder he cried out, Son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought.

When he came near, he asked, What do you want me to do for you?

Lord, have mercy.

Let me recover my sight.

What's interesting about this blind man is that one, he was fully aware of his blindness.

Which that might sound silly, like he's physically blind, of course.

But he knew when he was crying out to Jesus, he was crying out for mercy.

And he was crying out to Jesus using the covenant name, Son of David.

This wasn't miracle worker, have mercy on me, just give me my sight.

Just give me physical sight.

This wasn't, hey, I've heard you can do some things.

I've heard healing blind people is a thing you do.

Can you come over here and try this on me?

So Jesus is the son of David.

He was the one foretold and promised that would come from David's line.

And so this blind beggar, looked down upon by almost everyone, he knew who Jesus was.

He knew what he needed.

He needed mercy.

Jesus gives him this wonderful question.

It's a brilliant question.

What do you want me to do for you?

What do you want me to do for you?

And I know we're all like leery of taking ourselves and just wedging ourselves into Bible stories and making them about us.

Right?

That's a good impulse to not do that.

But I do want to linger on this question here, and I want you to apply it to your life for a moment.

Have you thought about this?

What do you want Jesus to do for you?

You could ask him for all kinds of things.

And we know the church answer is forgive us of our sins and let us come to heaven.

But really, deep down, what is it that you want Jesus to do for you?

Do you want him just heal you of a physical thing like physical blindness?

Do you want him to give you just peace and comfort as you traverse through a tumultuous world?

Do you want Jesus to give you a good spouse and a loving family and healthy children?

Do you want Jesus to give to you recognition?

You want your life to matter, and Jesus, can you can you give that to me?

I want to really do something with my life.

Or maybe it's smaller than that.

Maybe you have this sense of I just want to not be miserable.

Or I just want to get through the day.

I just want to stop this sin habit in my life.

See, Jesus with his question is getting right down to the core.

Right down to what it is that you believe about him.

But he's saying, what is it that you want?

Do you want a Messiah?

Do you want a Savior who can change you and give you all the life that you need, can forgive you, can truly give you sight?

Do you want one who can give you mercy?

There is no one else in the world who can give you true mercy.

What is it that you want Jesus to do for you?

No doubt that even in our sin and our brokenness, we don't have an excellent answer to this question.

I would imagine for all of us, there's multiple answers.

And I just want to encourage you as you reflect on that, or as you have reflected, and you continue to reflect, get down to the core.

Get down to the true answer.

And then be honest with it.

Just be like, Lord, I know this isn't right, but I just want a good life.

I want to go to heaven.

I know my answer should be, I want to be saved, I want to be transformed so I can serve Jesus and have my life poured out for God's glory and share the gospel and all these things.

But Lord, that's not what's in my heart.

If that's nothing like that going on for you, be honest.

That's why he asked the question.

Jesus is never about kind of fake Christian answers.

He doesn't really care as much about what comes out of your mouth as he cares about what's in your heart.

So this question, what do you want me to do for you, is powerful.

Of course, the blind man responds, recover your sight.

And this is what Jesus says: recover your sight.

Your faith has made you well.

And what the blind man does immediately is sight has been given, and he follows Jesus, glorifying God.

This is what he does.

He responds with obedience and praise.

He does what the lepers a couple of chapters ago did not do.

Almost all of them left and not returned to praise God or give thanks.

And what does the crowd do?

All the people, when they saw it, they gave praise to God.

This is the one.

Remember when John the Baptist came and he sent his disciples, is Jesus the Messiah?

And Jesus' like, listen, we're healing people, we're restoring sight.

This is what the Messiah does.

He brings sight to those who know themselves to be blind.

They know they are blind.

They know that they need Christ.

This is what he does.

A very different setting here, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 19.

He entered Jericho.

Outside Jericho, blind beggar, impoverished, looked down upon by everyone, has now been given true sight.

Physical sight, but spiritual sight.

Verse chapter 19.

He entered Jericho.

You know the story of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector.

Some people try to not exactly sure what that meant, but it means he ran the show essentially, and he was rich.

And he the way he got this is by turning on his own people.

So he would have been a Jew who sold himself out to the Romans.

Because what the tax collectors were doing was exploiting everyone.

So it wasn't just that he was a foreigner, or it wasn't like he was a foreigner, he was a native.

He was a Jew.

He was by blood a son of Abraham.

And here he was exploiting his people.

And Jesus is coming, and he can't see because he's short, apparently.

So he ran on ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus passing by.

He just came, he looked up, and Zacchaeus, hurry, come down, for I must stay at your house today.

What's everyone do with this?

Well, they grumble, right?

All the religious elite.

Everyone who was probably also telling the blind man to be quiet.

Jesus is heading to Jerusalem.

He's through Jericho in Jericho.

And they're grumbling.

He's gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.

What do we hear that language?

Well, we hear earlier in chapter 18, right?

The Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisees are prideful people.

How dare Jesus! We thought he was the Messiah.

He just healed this blind man.

We were praising the Lord for that.

And now what's he doing?

He's heading in to dine with a sinner.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.

And I have and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

So this very different story.

But nonetheless, Zacchaeus knew at some point he was blind.

Not physically, like the man just outside the city walls, but he was spiritually blind.

He was blind when he took the occupation of tax collector and was using his authority for bad.

He was blind when he's exploiting people, taking their money, defrauding people.

When he was not using his money to help the poor.

And yet he is repentant.

He humiliates himself so that he can even just see Jesus.

You know, this is something that you'll notice about people when they're genuinely, when they're serious and they're genuine in their repentance.

When they're serious about repenting for their sin, is they are truly humble.

When people come to you and they're like, well, I did kind of sin, they kind of hem-haul around it and they don't fully kind of get to the point and they're acting like it's a big deal, but you know, it's everyone does it, so we'll just kind of keep this hush hush.

That doesn't seem to be genuine repentance.

Genuine repentance is saying, I don't care who knows that I've sinned, because the creator, God knows that I've sinned, and I'm coming to repent to him.

These people aren't my judges.

They will not, I will not stand before them.

I will stand before him, and I'm repentant to him.

So they're open, honest.

Zacchaeus, before everyone.

He didn't say, you know, I'll have to look at my books and see if maybe we had some bad calculations.

I'll have to kind of talk to my junior tax collectors and see what maybe they did something.

No, he is completely open and honest.

The scales from his eyes have been removed.

He sees his sin.

He sees the Savior, and he's repentant.

He's repentant.

Hear what he's saying in verse 8.

This isn't like, well, if you save me, I'll do these things.

This isn't some kind of negotiation for Zacchaeus.

He's just saying, listen, Lord, half of my goods, I'll give half of everything I own to the poor right now.

And if I've defrauded anyone, which would have probably been, yes, a lot of people, I will restore it fourfold.

What's Zacchaeus doing?

This should sound similar to us, this story.

Well, we see the opposite happening in verse 18 of chapter 18, the rich ruler.

Here, this guy's rich and he's wealthy and he's a ruler and he's kept all the law, apparently.

And he comes to Jesus to justify himself and say, Good teacher, how must I be saved?

How can I have eternal life?

And Jesus says, Well, do these things.

I've done all those.

And Jesus says, Well, then give everything you have to the poor and come and follow me.

So what's he do?

He goes away sad.

He wanted salvation.

He genuinely, really wanted to be saved.

He wanted eternal life.

But not at that cost.

And you'll meet people like this.

And if you're honest, you'll see this in your own life at times.

You want to follow Jesus.

You want to be a faithful Christian.

You want to live a life poured out for eternity, for the kingdom of God.

But not at the price that Jesus is demanding.

You want salvation?

You want to be a Christian.

You want to be a faithful Christian.

There's something else in your life that you're not willing to let go of.

Friend, listen, God is a jealous God.

He will not let you worship him and worship something else.

It cannot be done.

The rich young ruler went away sad because he knew he was unwilling to let go of his riches.

But here Zacchaeus, a rich ruler in a sense, for sure, extremely wealthy, is probably at this point almost dead broke.

But he's given half of everything away to the poor.

And as a chief collector, chief tax collector, he would have defrauded many people.

And now he's out of half of his wealth that's left, restoring that fourfold.

He's given everything.

He's repentant.

He's a man who can see.

This is what true sight looks like.

When you can see, you realize the things of this earth do not matter much.

In clinging on to the wealth or security or praise or your controlling little world that you think you control, none of it matters in light of eternity.

Jesus did not come and die on a cross for your sin so that you can entertain and indulge the things of this world, so that you can worship created things rather than the creator.

That's not what he came for.

Jesus says, Today salvation has come to this house.

Since he also, since Zacchaeus also is what?

A son of Abraham.

He's a son of Abraham.

Not just bloodline son.

The Pharisees were bloodline, genetic sons of Abraham.

What's Jesus saying?

He's saying, He's a true son of Abraham, because he's a follower of a son of David.

He's a follower of Christ.

He's repentant.

He can see.

And he's walking in faithful obedience.

See again the blind or the rich young ruler earlier in chapter 18.

He understood.

He was revealed to him his blindness.

But he chose to stay in his blindness.

Zacchaeus again could the scales were removed, the veil was lifted.

He could see, and he chose to follow Jesus.

The Lord's mercy upon those who have hearts of humility.

And we know that it's not up to us in the sense of our salvation is our doing.

We don't earn it.

We don't maintain it.

We don't preserve it.

That is the work of the Lord in us.

But we do cry out to the Lord.

We are having humble hearts.

So Jesus gives this parable.

It says one thing to look and say, hey, look, he's going to endure the cross, and that's great.

I appreciate that.

And he's a healing God that's wonderful.

He gives sight to the blind and he gives forgiveness to those who are wicked sinners, like Zacchaeus.

But he is the returning king who will make all things right.

Verse 11 says, as they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable.

Because as they're getting near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

So there's some there's some activity, there's some buzz, there's excitement.

You know, they've been waiting a long time for this Messiah to come.

They've been waiting a long time for Jerusalem and the Hebrews and the sons of Abraham to be lifted up and magnified in their rightful place.

So they're feeling pretty good.

And they feel like they've got some confidence.

This is it.

This is it.

The scriptures are being fulfilled.

This is it.

And Jesus tells them a parable.

Sounds similar.

Right?

A noble man went off to a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return.

Well, Jesus is about to go, depart, go to heaven, and then return eventually.

So he gives him this parable about the calling the servants and giving them these minas, this gold worth a lot, and then to engage in business until I return.

And there were some there who hated him.

So they send this delegation.

We don't like him, we don't want him to be our leader to reign over us, as verse 14 says.

And when he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered an account, right?

This is judgment day, it's coming.

And some are reporting, this is what I've done with what you gave me.

This is how I handled this.

To those who were faithful, more was given to them.

And then one came and he said, Lord, you're harsh.

I kept it in the handkerchief.

You're severe.

You're not nice.

He has all these excuses.

Here the nobleman just gave him this great financial wealth and says, I'll return, be faithful with it.

The guy does almost nothing.

He puts it in the handkerchief, like a napkin, just sits there.

And then when the king, who's now the king, returns, and he says, Well, you're this way and you're that way, and you do this, and you and you this and you that, Jesus is teaching them something.

In the heart of man, there's these excuses.

We don't want to give an account for things.

Well, if you didn't make the world this way, or if you didn't make me that way.

And the Pharisees.

This is why they made so many laws is to insulate themselves by just saying, Well, look, look how righteous I am.

I have all these laws and I keep these laws.

I'm righteous, I'm righteous, I'm righteous.

And there's no excuse, I'm a righteous person.

Not caring at all about the condition of the heart.

Were they worshiping?

Did they care to worship?

This is the nature of the heart to respond with these excuses.

And in the parable, the king just says, Well, listen, I'm going to use your logic and your reason against you.

If you knew that to be true of me, why didn't you live in light of that?

If you knew I was those things, essentially, if you knew this was going to happen, then why didn't you change your behavior?

Why didn't you live in light of this day of judgment happening?

This is a tremendous rebuke.

And he says, Take his minors away and give it to the one who has ten.

And everyone's like, Well, Lord, he has ten, he already has some.

He says, To everyone who has, more will be given.

But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

Jesus is saying, Listen, even those who have some kind of semblance of faith and understanding, they assume themselves to be Christians because they have some kind of exterior facade, or even in their mind, they they think a certain way, but they're not acting on it.

They're not living in light of it, they're not genuinely believing those things.

Even what little kind of conviction or Christian culture they have, it's gonna be taken away from them.

For those who have genuine sight, those who are genuine in their humility, genuine in their faith, oh, it's gonna be made all the more.

They will see clearly, they will see perfectly when the kingdom has come.

But as for these, the enemies of the king, they do not want to be to be uh have uh to sit under his reign, they do not want him to be king.

They've rejected him.

What's to be done?

Well, there's they're to be slaughtered before him.

And verse 28 says, And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

And how easy it is for us to just close the service and be done.

Brothers, sisters, friends, there is a judgment coming.

Every one of us will face judgment.

If you are not a Christian, you will stand before God and give an account for your sin.

And you will stand before God literally in your own righteousness.

This will come, this will happen.

You will stand before him in your own righteousness, and you will be condemned, rightfully condemned.

If you are a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, your hope and your faith is in him, that day will come, and you will stand wearing the righteousness of Christ.

You will not stand in your own righteousness.

You will stand in the righteousness of the Son of David, the perfect righteousness of Christ.

And that's the only way that you're forgiven.

And that's the only way you're allowed to then dwell forever for eternity with God.

Your judgment day has come and gone, brother, sister.

Your judgment day was when Christ was on the cross and the wrath of God was poured out on him.

So no more is there judgment for you.

No more is there judgment for your salvation.

The Lord has done this, and Jesus is here telling a parable, knowing what's about to happen, telling a parable about a king who is going to atone for his people, going to endure the wrath of God the Father for His people, a king who is going to receive for himself a kingdom, a bride made pure, made holy, a bride that can see, a bride that can fully worship, that will love and endure throughout all time, throughout all generations.

His bride.

He's going to redeem her.

But for those who've rejected, those who stay in their blindness, they hear the call to repentance and they don't want it.

They hear the call to come and enjoy mercy and life and they refuse it.

For them, there is judgment coming.

There is the condemnation of hell for eternity for them.

If you're not a Christian, I want you to understand this.

Today, Jesus says, is the day of salvation.

You're not promised tomorrow.

And if you are a Christian, rejoice that you are saved.

Rejoice that Christ has done this for you and take the good news to others.

Understand what is coming that Jesus endured and he came and he's coming back again.

So go and take the good news.

And if their hearts are hard, pray for them.

If they're looking down on you and they despise you, that's okay.

If they mock you, that's okay.

Jesus endured all these things for you.

So let's go and be a people who can see and tell a blind world about Jesus.

Let's pray.