The King of New Sight

Good morning, my name is Eric and it's my honor to open the

Word of God. Today will be reading Matthew

927 through 31. If you don't have a Bible,

there's a Bible under your chair, and that's page 764.

And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed

him, crying aloud. Have mercy on a son of David.

When he entered the house, the blind man came to him, and Jesus

said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this?

They said to him, yes, Lord, that he touched their eyes,

saying, according to your faith, let it be done to you.

And their eyes were open, and Jesus sternly warned them, See

that no one knows about it. But they went away and spread

his fame through all the district.

This is the word of God. What's going on Port City family

and friends. How we doing Good.

My name is Tanner lead pastor here.

Good to be with you and happy Thanksgiving week.

Who's ready to eat some food? You know y'all.

In all seriousness, family time can be hard for some of us.

Maybe you've recently come to faith in Christ or you come from

a family that's not in Christ, where there's just just hardship

there. And you go back home.

And what your body begins to believe is that the old stuff is

more true than the Bible stuff, the Christ stuff.

And I just want you to hear that Christ reigns in the hallways of

your house. Whether you grew up in a home

with two parents who taught you the Bible or you don't have a

family to go home to this Thanksgiving, Christ reigns over

your story. You are not alone.

You are not forgotten. And God is good.

And I believe him to say those people you've written off, I'm

still just like, Lord, please just save one of these jokers.

You know? So just know you're loved and

God sees you and eat some food in Jesus name.

And if you ain't got nowhere to go, just come holla at me.

We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see where we can find a spot for

you. OK, Let's, let's go to God in

prayer for today's meal from his word.

And then we'll dive in. OK.

Our father, we're so grateful. We are grateful for food.

And every time we eat God, it's a reminder that our bodies need

you. We were made to need and God,

but also we want it. We want food.

We need food. There's just such a parable

there, an image, God, that you satisfy our needs and our

desires. So we pray as we gather around

tables this week in pain and in Thanksgiving and hopefulness and

all the mixture. God that you would, you would

reign and God, we would believe you that you are able to change

things. You are able to resurrect the

dead. You are able to make things new.

So, Father, now as we turn to your word, what we know not,

would You teach us, What we have not, would you give us, and what

we are not, would You make us. Let the words of my mouth, the

meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Your sight?

Everybody who agree with that said, Amen, y'all, there is a

phrase by the man by the name of Dave Ramsey.

OK. And some of you are like, I

remember my financial peace phase.

And if you haven't gone through it yet, hopefully you will one

day soon. OK.

Now, here's the thing about Dave.

You got to check out his podcast every once in a while.

If you ask Dave how he's doing, he says the same phrase every

time, better than I deserve. How can I help?

And now just think about the phrase better than I deserve.

Remember the first few times I heard it because Dave was

saying, yeah, I was like just a phrase.

You know, here's the thing about phrases.

They they mean something deep. And at some point they just

become cliches when people say it that don't mean it.

You know what I'm saying? And I'm not saying that's Dave.

I'm just saying that was my reaction to hearing him say it.

OK, but think about the phrase better than I deserve.

And if you said that every single time somebody asks you

how you were doing, what if you believe that?

Do you believe right now you are doing better than you deserve?

I don't know about you, but my default can be all the ways that

things should be better. If I was loved, if God loved me,

X would happen and I can focus on what hasn't happened and I

could be filled with bitterness, resentment, a little bit of

whininess, frustration instead of radical gratitude, humility.

And all of this is sort of rooted in what you think you

deserve. You know what the Bible teaches

is that we don't deserve good things, OK?

And that is our own doing. We, we, we need help, OK?

We are in great need of the word.

We're going to focus on today, which is mercy.

Somebody say mercy, y'all, we need mercy.

And y'all, Jesus is the King of mercy.

So my hope for us today, though we are not 2 blind men walking

the streets 2000 years ago, is that through them we will see a

window into a king who we need just as much mercy from.

OK, so we're going to take a journey through the streets

verse by verse and just just walk through this passage and I

got 2 application points. If you are ready, let me hear

you say I'm ready. All right, let's dive in.

Verse 27, verse 27 says. And as Jesus passed on from

there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud.

Have mercy on US, son of David, that first phrase.

And as Jesus passed, just just keep in mind that every story

we're reading is on top one of another.

He's getting interrupted over and over and over.

Yeah. What if the truest you is the

you when you're interrupted? That is a scary thought.

Interrupted on the street, you know, by another car,

interrupted by a kid interrupt. And once you do something like

you're like, I've done my good deed of the day, or you, you

know, I've been patient with my kid that one time when they get

you one more time, you know what I mean?

The one after you've hit your limit.

What if that's more the real you than the one where you're gassed

up, ready. You know, you can't find Jesus.

Not ready to be interrupted. And we know he spends time with

the Father. He lives within his limits, He's

Sabbaths, He rests all the things right?

He's in prayer. But at the end of the day, you

interrupt Him and what you get is kindness.

What you get, Well, some people don't get kindness, but they get

the harshness that they need based on why they're approaching

Him. But what this shows us, y'all,

when you're interrupted, it reveals your true agenda, right?

So when I'm interrupted and annoyed, you are not my agenda.

You're in the way of my agenda, right?

For Jesus, the reason he's not irritated is because people are

His agenda. Some of y'all just need to hear

today that you are not an annoyance to the King of Mercy.

Your interruption isn't an interruption to his agenda.

You getting in front of him is his agenda.

Let's keep reading. As Jesus passed on from there,

two blind men followed him, crying aloud. 2 blind men. 2

blind men. OK, I don't know what image you

would use to describe your phase of life.

OK, just just if you could just take a snapshot of 1 moment and

describe to people, your job, your family, whatever it is.

Y'all, I just entered in a life phase with four kids.

It reminds me of what the comedian Jim Gaffigan once said

about having four kids. People ask me all the time,

what's it like to have 4 kids? He goes, well, imagine you have

three kids and you're drowning and you are barely surviving.

You're scrapping. Then somebody hands you a kid,

you know? And he does it in a very Jim

Gaffigan way. And I'm like, he nailed it.

That's the image. OK.

There's another friend here in the Port City world who growing

up, she said her dad was in the Parks and rec tourism world.

She said the show Parks and Rec kind of captures her dad's life.

And I was like, that's an image like it.

It grabs what it was like, yeah. I wonder if you could pick one

ailment that describes life apart from Jesus according to

the Bible. What you would pick, The

theologians among us would say a dead person because apart from

Jesus you need resurrection. And you would not be wrong.

OK. But I think in terms of the way

people's felt experiences, they feel alive.

Before, you know, Jesus, you were living.

You were doing something. So if you had to pick one

ailment that describes what life apart from Jesus is, I think you

would pick blindness because you're alive, but not fully.

You're you're, you're operating in a human reality, but one that

isn't the way it's designed to be fully.

And it becomes a picture for us. It's such a gift to us if we

will let the blind teach us because many of us who weren't

born blind think we see and we don't, right?

The basic point of the text is if you don't know Jesus, you

don't see. You might think you do, but you

don't. So let the blind teach us what

it means to see. Write that down.

OK, so I want to give you a little background in the Bible

of what the people of this time would view a blind person as.

OK, Leviticus 19 is very clear that you should love blind

people in the fear of the Lord. OK, so there was no issues in

the law. They weren't like marked in a

certain way. I was like, they're your

neighbor. Love them.

Like in fact, there was X the the verse in Leviticus 19 is to

point out, don't not love them like in the fear of the Lord,

love them. It's pointing out love them.

OK, but there are instances in the Old Testament where the

Lords punishment in a situation was to cause blindness.

OK think Genesis 19 with the sodomites.

Think Samson gets his eyes gouged out.

Think when Elisha is in trouble, he says Lord blind my enemies.

So there's this sense in which being struck with blindness, you

could get to where you thought, oh, that means this purse,

something has happened to lead to their blindness, which is how

you get in a scenario like in John Chapter 9, Jesus's own

John 9 · chapter mention

disciples asked Jesus who sent this blind man or his parents

that he was born blind. That's not like a crazy person

in the crowd asking Jesus that. That was his own disciples after

walking with him for a while. So in the cultural air blindness

probably was viewed a little like stigma ish.

They were probably very alone. People avoided them even though

that's not what the the law intended.

It just was the cultural moment. So you got 2 blind men that

people probably keep their distance from screaming out to

Jesus, which we see in the next phrase they're crying aloud.

The Greek there gets that shrieking, intriguing begging,

like just just shouting, screaming following it and

they're shouting out have mercy on us.

This phrase have mercy on a son of David.

It's sort of like a a layered cake.

Some of y'all are into those bacon shows right now.

Amen. Somebody it's like, you know

what the show's going to be. I can't cook any of it, but it's

so fun. The British bacon show and their

accents. I'm like, this is amazing.

You just want to put a fire on and watch it and don't get it

twisted. The cake looks good, but when

you cut it, there's layers of flavor in there, you know.

And so Matthew is, is layering a cake of who Jesus is through

these blind men shouting out this phrase.

Have mercy on a son of David. So I just want to give you a few

of the layers. OK, First layer is mercy.

Somebody say mercy. The biblical view of mercy is

very practical. You might have heard the

illustration that mercy is withholding the bad you deserve.

Grace is giving you the good you don't deserve.

I think that's great. So mercy just becomes only

withholding bad from people. But I actually think the the

biblical picture of mercy is more practical than that.

Think Luke 10 in the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus.

The last thing he asks is which of them show the man mercy or

which of them proved to be a neighbor to the man.

My bad. And the the guy says, well, the

one who showed him mercy, good. You go and do likewise.

The idea of mercy is it's very practical.

It does something. Mercy moves towards people.

So it's not just withholding bad, it's actually kindness.

It's like help. Practical aid is the idea of

mercy. If you don't have Exodus 34, six

and seven memorized, consider this your invitation.

You could turn there on page 69 in your Bibles under your seat.

I'm going to read that over us. Exodus 34, six and seven.

When Moses is with the Lord up on the mountain, he asks him to

reveal himself to him and and the Lord comes down in the cloud

and stands there and proclaims the name of the Lord to Moses.

And this is what the name of the Lord is.

Exodus 34, six and seven. The Lord passed before him and

proclaimed the Lord. The Lord, a God merciful and

gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and

faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving

iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means

clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the

children and the children's children to the third and 4th

generation. So layer one with mercy is that

kind of taps into Yahweh's name like his name means merciful.

His name like this is what he oozes his practical kindness in

mercy towards his people. So they're shouting out,

shrieking, have mercy on us. And then they say son of David.

OK. They are the first ones to say

that phrase out loud in this book.

Hopefully you know where you should have saw that first.

It's in Matthew chapter one, verse one.

OK, So I invite you to turn there.

I just want you to see it for yourself.

Matthew 11. This is what Matthew said, the

book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the

son of Abraham, OK. So part of the goal of Matthew's

book is to show you that Jesus is the son of David, OK, the son

of Abraham. But the first people to

articulate that that isn't Matthew's kind of like letting

us know narrator style, are these two blind men.

OK, now, son of David, you're you're not going to turn there

on this one, but right down. Second, Samuel 7 taps into the

Davidic covenant. OK, now the covenant with David

happens at the height of David's kingly career.

He's just like, Lord, you've been so good to me.

I want to build you a house. And the Lord is like, I

appreciate you, but no, I'm a build you a house.

And here's what I mean. I'm going to make for you an

everlasting covenant where you, someone from your house will

always sit on the throne. That's the TSV, the Tanner

standard version. Okay, Now in this covenant, part

of the spirit of it is it means your son Solomon.

And then onward and onward and onward like your people will.

A person from your body will always be on that throne.

But the spirit of the covenant is 1 would come who would reign

eternally. Like it wouldn't just be a

forever, just your people, like the country of England or

something, but somebody is going to come from your lineage and

reign forever. OK, so by saying Son of David,

they're not just saying you come from his lineage, which

Matthew's genealogy shows us. They're saying you're the

eternal king, the promised king. OK, so that's layer 2.

We've got mercy, which taps into Yahweh's character.

We've got this eternal merciful king who was promised Messiah,

and then they're blind. So why do blind men think that

the eternal Son of David would have mercy on them in such a way

that they're kind of implying make us not blind?

Are you with me? So where does the blindness

layer come into the cake? We got mercy layer.

We got eternally merciful. But where does the blindness tap

in? A lot of y'all are familiar with

Isaiah 42. You could turn there 564 in your

Bibles if you're using ours, Isaiah 42.

Here's what this says. It's referring to the Lords

chosen servant, the promised Messiah.

Verse one says this, Behold my servant, whom I uphold my

chosen, and whom my soul delights.

I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to

the nations. Verse 6 I am the Lord I have

called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and

keep you. I will give you as a covenant

for the people a light to the nations to open the eyes that

are blind to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon from

the prison those who sit in darkness.

So the full scope that that the three layers that you're biting

into on the British bacon show of mercy.

OK, as these men are shouting it out, is them saying have mercy

on the Son of David kind of taps into like mercy is who Yahweh is

Son of David is the promised eternal Messiah.

And in some kind of way Isaiah through Isaiah, God is telling

us that Messiah would open blind eyes.

They are saying you're that guy. We believe that we're calling on

that name and y'all, that's who Jesus was on those streets that

day. That's who he is right now.

He is Yahweh in the flesh. He is merciful and gracious,

visiting with kindness for thousands, and he will by no

means clear the guilty. Y'all, He's the eternal king.

He ain't just king for a little while, He's king forever.

He defeated death. And y'all, he is the the

promised servant of Isaiah who came to set prisoners free.

That's who he is. So they're just shouting it out.

But what's interesting, Jesus doesn't respond right away.

He isn't like, good job. You pass the theological quiz,

He goes up into the house. Look at verse 28 with me.

So they're shouting this out, following him.

When he entered the house, the blind men came to him.

You might be thinking, where's the house?

What's the house? Most scholars in the gospel,

when they say the house, it's probably Simon Peter's house.

OK, in the previous chapter, you remember where he healed Simon's

mother-in-law. You remember that where he

touched her, she had a fever, she got up, probably that house

OK. And he rolls up in there and

sits down. And they came to him.

So this is such a good image for us of persistence in our faith,

isn't it? Like they're shouting out a

phrase nobody has ever shouted. They saw something nobody else

saw, and they were willing to scream it publicly, be kind of

embarrassingly outward with their faith.

And Jesus wasn't like good job, he just kept going and then they

kept going. What a what a good picture for

us. Here's my question.

Why, why does Jesus make them keep coming to him?

I wonder if in your mind, which my mind is tempted to do as

well, I wonder if we think he's only merciful to them when he

takes the blindness away. The moment of mercy is when the

blindness goes away. You know Jesus is merciful to

make you keep going to Him. Jesus is merciful to allow you

to keep pressing into Him. He's not only merciful at the

moment where your problem is alleviated.

Does that make sense? It's your proximity to His

presence is a part of the mercy. But if we think it's just the

removal of the problem, we miss Messiah altogether.

OK. And he asked them a question.

Do you believe that I'm able to do this?

Jesus is hilarious. These men are shouting this,

screaming this, following you. He knows the answer, right?

Jesus is the God man. He knows what they're going to

say. There's something about Jesus

where he can commend your faith and then he can test your faith.

Why he tests some and commends others and how he tests them

when he tests them, commends them, I don't know.

He's trying to pull it out of them.

There's something about saying the words.

Yes, he wants to hear that. Y'all, there's, there's

something we can do that's really weird about Jesus being

all knowing. I don't know if you've done this

and I'm going to try to articulate it, so just bear with

me for a second. We think that Jesus being all

knowing, God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit being all

knowing means that like stuff doesn't count, is not real

because he knew it was going to happen.

It's not authentic. I'm like, I know the stuff's

going to happen all the time. I still enjoy the process.

How does your knowledge is going to go down mean that it's not a

real thing? Does that make sense?

Like it's a story. God is a person, you know what I

mean? We take his, we take theological

truths like sovereignty and all knowing which are true.

And you should know and teach and learn, but that doesn't

erase the authenticity of how it's life, right?

Like I know that when I get home, I got to feed kids.

Guys, I'm not going to feed you because I knew that I was going

to have to feed you. What?

That doesn't even make sense. To keep with the comedian theme,

there's this little bit by Nate Bargatze where he he told some

friends that he had just gotten back from a trip to Disney.

OK. And they were like, well, you

know, they're not going to remember that, right?

And he was like, what do you mean?

Well, they're toddlers. They'll have no memory of that.

So why would you waste the money?

And I was a little bit like good friends.

Good question. I kind of Eileen agreeing with

them. And Nate was like, you know

what, man, you're right. Until they have working

knowledge of everything that's happening, full consciousness, I

should just lock them in a room like Harry Potter.

Just who? Nothing counts until you have

full acknowledgement that's going to happen.

There's something about both sides of that coin that clicked

for me where I'm like, we confuse what knowledge means.

Like you don't not relate to a kid because they ain't going to

remember it. Hey, man, you just sit right

there until you're about 9:00, OK?

And then at the same time, when we know something's going to go

down, we don't be like, let's just stop because this isn't

authentic. Like, I know when you play a

game, you're going to throw the ball.

So do I not Are y'all tracking with me?

But with Jesus, because he knows what's going to happen.

We're like, then why does it even matter?

Is this like a game? No, I think it's life.

I think it's a story. I think he's a person.

Does that make sense? So don't allow truths about God

to mean he's not a person. Life is not a game.

You know what I mean? Like, it's it's real.

It's he's a person. He's asking real people in front

of them. Do you believe?

And he knows the answer. But that doesn't mean he doesn't

want to hear them say yes. Are y'all with me?

They say back, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.

Yes, we believe you can do this. And their words express their

faith. Yeah.

We live in a cultural moment where I just feel the need to

say they're not creating their reality through their words.

They're not manifesting their sight.

They're about to get OK. They're receiving from the Lord

Jesus who can give it to them. Have a little jar in your house.

Every time you hear the word manifesting universe or karma,

just put a dollar in it. You have about $100 if you watch

TV at all in about a week. OK, but what you need to hear is

that the center of the story is a person, Not an energy, not a

vibe. It's a person.

They're saying back to him, we believe you can do this.

They're not creating their reality, OK?

They're receiving from a person. They're not performing something

that gets them something because they won some sweepstakes, OK?

And in verse 29, he touched them.

He touched their eyes. Y'all, you know, this Jesus

could have healed them by just could have snapped his fingers.

He could have said Alakazam, He could have done whatever he

wanted, but he touched their eyes and you'll remember people

probably kept them at arm's length.

What we're seeing over and over in these stories is our like

sore spots are kind of Jesus's sweet spots.

You notice that like where people like whatever the stigma

around you is, Jesus is not running from it like I I think

about for me y'all, my anger has got me in some problems in my

life, my insecurities, my little man's syndrome, my back in the

cornered Ness. But if I relate to the Lord

Jesus like he doesn't want a piece of that, how will I ever

be healed? Does that make sense?

Like if you begin to think because others keep a distance

from me over this, this thing, this sin, this whatever, and you

keep a distance from the Lord, you're missing the point.

Are you with me like he wants to move in where there's the sore

spot. Not that doesn't mean he's Co

signing that that my anger. It means he cares about me

right. He touches the blinds eyes.

He's looking at the woman last week.

These are very intimate, intentional ways.

He's demonstrating his authority, right?

And he's transforming that which he touches.

His touch is not a affirmation. Stay the way you are.

It's a transformation. He'll meet you where you are,

and then he won't leave you there.

OK. And he says according to your

faith, be it done to you, according to your faith, he's

responding to their faith. It's not in proportion to their

faith. It's not like, well, y'all

believe like 80 out of 100. So I would have given you 2020

vision. But now let me give you whatever

some other, I don't know what the other numbers are, 1520, I

don't know if that's the thing with vision.

But the point is, thank you. That's what I needed, 100

vision. But the point is in response to

y'all, remember your faith is more about the object of it than

your quantity of it. OK?

Your faith grows as you understand the object in which

you're putting your faith, not in focusing on having it.

Does that make sense? It grows when you see that he is

the eternal Son of God. He is Yahweh, He is, He is the

son of David, therefore I trust him.

Does that make sense? It's not focusing on I'm a good

truster, I'm a good truster, I'm a good truster.

They saw him, so in response to that, he opened their eyes,

verse 30, and their eyes were opened.

You know, the Bible and miracles.

We've got to understand this. We've got to understand this.

It is both not OK, just a set of stories that only applies to

those people forever has nothing to do with your life.

So it's not a book of lottery hitting, miracle receiving from

Jesus. Nice for them.

Let me just read it. And it's also not a prescribed

path for you to get that if you just do it right.

Does that make sense? It's not your path to get the

life you want. So it's not random lottery and

it's not a path for you to get the life you always wanted.

So what is happening y'all? The point of the Bible, the

point of the Gospels that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John wrote,

is to be a window that we see through and see Jesus.

That's the main purpose they were written.

It's a window, and we're up against the window just watching

who Jesus is, OK? And as we watch him and who

approaches him, it is also a mirror, OK?

It's a mirror into the type of need we have.

We're not just like, look at all these people.

This is really nice to them. If you continue to stare at the

window and not think, I wonder if I have anything in common

with him. If you just look at it and it's

like a cool movie that is not touching your life, you're

missing something. It's a window.

It's a mirror. OK, So what is the point of the

window mirror relationship is to show you that you need Jesus.

We need cleansing, we need eyes open, we need resurrection, we

need fevers taken, we need demons driven out.

We need the we need Jesus. We are in the position of need.

He is willing. We are needy.

That's the point of the whole thing.

So we're not just looking at a one time thing that's cool for

them and we don't 1:00 to 1:00 if that's my exact situation,

but there's ingredients under the surface that all humanity

shares, which is need and he is willing.

OK, Now how do we see Jesus? It's not physical, right?

Like we don't this, that's not the type of sight we do in this

era that we're in. You know, the Bible teaches that

how our eyes are open is through hearing with faith.

Y'all, the way that you see Jesus is notice y'all, they

heard him before they saw him. Hello.

The blind people could hear him. They could not see him because

they heard him and trusted him. They got to see him.

Y'all with me? If you want to see Jesus, you

got to listen to him. The path through your heart is

through your ears, and then you see.

You see by hearing. You hear by seeing the book.

If you want to use seeing like you see words on a page, you

hear with faith you trust and then your eyes are open to who

Christ is and you can't Unsee him.

You see Him through agreeing with His word.

Y'all with me? You see Christ by agreeing with

His word. It's statement about reality,

about who He says you are, about who it says He is.

You have to agree with Him. Faith is not some crazy concept.

It's something you do all day, every day.

You trust in things. You trust light switches will

turn on. You agree with the reality that

says that's got to be plugged in.

So you plug it in, yo, you have to agree with reality as God

sees it. And you do that through hearing,

with faith, through trust. And then he sternly warns them

not to say anything to anyone about it.

OK, we're not going to spend a ton of time here.

But y'all, this is just really practical.

He's just trying to do ministry up in here.

He's not trying to be on a healing tour where every day at

9:00 AM he's got people and he's on a podcast and appearing on

late night talk shows. He's just trying to.

We read Isaiah 42, it said in that text, one of the verses I

skipped over says he's not going to raise his voice loud in the

streets. There's the idea of the Messiah,

which we will tap into more in our Christmas sermon here in a

few weeks, that he, the way Jesus did things was by not

drawing attention to himself. OK, That's just sort of part and

parcel to how he operates. He warned them and in verse 31,

they disregarded what he said, OK, They did not listen, which I

actually think is genuine disobedience.

I do like, I think they that's counterintuitive, but I think he

wanted them to listen and they didn't.

And it also just points out the the the nature of like, I can't

keep it to myself. So it's both like it's like a

playful disobedience that Matthew wrote down for all time

where I genuinely think they should have listened to what he

said. But by not doing it, it's a

parable to us of y'all should not be able to keep this to

yourself either. And we don't live in an era

where Jesus is saying don't tell nobody.

We live in the era where he's saying tell everybody, OK, and

for some people sometimes he would heal you and say tell

everybody. So I genuinely think he just

meant please just keep it on the low.

It's not like other people would see them seeing now and they'd

be like, I don't see you don't see what you think you see.

Think he just meant don't overdraw attention to yourself.

And they disregarded it. OK, now I've got 2 application

points and we are done. All right.

First one, non Christian, come to Jesus, the King of mercy.

Come to Jesus, the King of mercy.

I got 2 points for you. If you don't follow Jesus here

today, here's the first one. You need mercy.

Wanna know why? Because you are blind y'all.

This is the most offensive thing you could tell somebody.

You can't see nothing if you all know Jesus.

That's tough. Tough, but it's the truth.

You're not struggling to see blind people aren't like telling

you. Hey, I just need a little help.

I'm struggling to see that I'm blind.

OK, There is a self-assessment that you have to agree with.

You are not struggling to see. You can't see, OK, And what the

Bible views you as is that you can't see reality you don't

like. Jesus is the light of the world.

Apart from him you can't see. You are made in God's image and

there's still, you know, that's why humanity is capable of great

things and art and all the stuff we could do.

But y'all, by and large it's darkness left to yourself in

your sin, when you're interrupted, the true you is

coming out. That's who you are.

Apart from the light of the world, Jesus Christ giving you

eyes to see, you cannot see. And apart from intervention,

your situation is hopeless. That's hard.

It's the truth. And for many of us who follow

Christ now we know that clear as ever.

We know in our previous life I could not see.

On the other side, you'd be like, this is what life is.

Yes, the idea is once you can see, you know what you couldn't

see. But if you keep thinking you

seeing, you won't know what you could see.

But you ain't. And here's the crazy thing, Who

gets to say you're blind? Jesus does.

OK, that ain't my idea. Jesus does.

God is the authority. You have to agree with him that

you need radical intervention and help.

You don't need a little coaching.

You don't need a little bit better vision.

You need total overhaul. Your life is unmanageable.

Your sin is a problem. You can't stop it no matter how

hard you try. Your New Year's resolution

approach to fixing yourself has not worked.

You need mercy. You need salvation.

You need to be born again. You need the Spirit of God to

awaken you. That's the bad news.

The good news is Jesus is the King of mercy.

So he is. He opens blinds eyes.

He wants to open your eyes, He wants you to agree with Him.

He wants to live with you. Why you think He wants you to

see? So you can see Him.

The first thing they see when they open their eyes is Jesus.

Once you can see, we're not talking about just being able to

see. Like reality is God at the core

of reality. As Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you

are awakened to life as you are designed to live it, but in your

sin you want to be ignorant to that truth.

The reality is, y'all, the reason we're blind is because

we're doing this right here. We don't want to see.

That's kind of what the New Testament teaches is that we're

blind and we have hands over our ears and our eyes because we

know if we hear, we might have to listen.

We know if we see, we might have to deal with what we see in.

And I'm just begging you to recognize that the King of Mercy

is just trying to pull them hands off your eyes and pull the

hands off your ears so you'll hear the truth and agree with

him. This is bigger than nobody's

perfect. This is bigger than I need a

little help. I need to process my story with

somebody. Y'all, All those things are

good. You need radical salvation.

You need help, and Jesus wants to give it to you.

That's what the cross is, y'all. That's why it's so bloody.

That's why it's so total. It's so final in human history.

That's why Jesus took the cross. He can give you mercy because at

the cross he got wrath. He absorbed the wrath of God so

that what he can give you is mercy.

That's what he wants to give you.

Will you go to Jesus the Christ, the King of mercy, for mercy

today? You just go to him in faith and

say, God save me. God help me.

God open my eyes, show me where I'm blind.

Help me Christian keep coming in faith to Jesus the King of

mercy. How could we miss their

persistence here? He does not solve their problems

in an instant. Isn't this how life feels?

Doesn't it feel like Jesus is there but not answering your

prayer? Doesn't it feel like he's in the

room with you and doesn't his presence?

Sometimes we can't comprehend how he'd be with us and not

alleviate it. But y'all, this, this is life.

It feels like a no even when he's with you.

But we have such an opportunity here to learn the life of faith,

don't we? Now, one of the books we've been

recommending throughout the series is called A Praying Life.

I recommend you get it. Paul Miller talks about the

effect that this can have on us. When you're continually in God's

presence and not feeling like you're getting a yes, you begin

to do one of two things. Two ditches on either side of

the road. OK?

One of them is denial and one of them is determination.

OK, denial says I'll be blind. You give up.

I'm blind. I'm done.

I'm out, it's over. You're a cynic.

You throw rocks at God, you're you're whiny and you're just

man, it's me, I did something wrong or God just don't love me,

I'm out. Game over.

The other side is determination. I'm going to get unblind.

I'm going to show up every day. And you can even involve the

Lord in your determination and you have a prayer schedule and

you have all the ways that you think your determination is the

determining factor. And if you're going to get that.

And eventually what happens for both of those people, for the

determined or the denial is they tend to steal because you, you,

you claim Christ and you're, you're in relationship with him.

You just pray or become something you know you're

supposed to do, but you don't think it's going to work.

And you're 11. Pastor said it like this, like

what was designed to be intercession to impact real

change in life just becomes a token of your devotion.

It becomes a part of your brand. You're good at praying, you like

to pray, You're spiritual. Prayer becomes duty at best.

Intercession becomes devotion. Y'all, prayer was never meant to

be just something you do because it's what Christians do.

It is part of how we commune with the Father.

It is part of how we accept reality as it is.

It is part of how we surrender to God.

But also, y'all, there is a real intercession is a real thing

stepping in before God in belief.

Do we believe and y'all all prayer fits within a relational

story. The idea, like we've talked

about, God is a person. Your life is an adventure.

You're sacrificing, you're confessing sin, you're failing,

you're serving people, you're loving people.

Life is full of pain, it's full of laments, it's full of

Thanksgiving, all kinds of things.

It's within that context that you're asking about this one

thing. But what we do is we shrink our

relationship with God down to that one thing.

Does that make sense? And if it's a no there, then

none of this is real. Does that make sense?

And I just want to call you neither to determination nor to

denial. I want to call you to childlike

desert faith. We don't live in denial.

We don't live in determination. We do live in the desert, Y'all,

this is not heaven. You're not going to get a yes on

everything. And I don't know why.

We live in the desert with the Lord and we have childlike faith

where we fight off cynicism. If you are in a cynical

headspace right now, I've been there and I just invite you

back. Get in your community.

Don't isolate yourself. Cynics tend to get alone.

Come back, be with people, hear the word.

If you're in a determined headspace, get around other

people. Get around people whose lives

are really hard and not changing because you can start to think

everything will just change. If you have crazy faith or

something, it's like, well, let's, let's lament.

Let's let's just keep it in proportion, OK?

But yes, in childlike faith, keep asking.

This is not a formula, but it is an image of the answer is to

keep going to Jesus. Like a kid keeps going to their

parent. They just keep going.

They just keep going. Kids are really good at not

being cynics and it's sad the day they start becoming cynics,

isn't it? Just let them keep coming to

you. So I just want to ask some of

y'all, where have you given up on God's goodness in your life?

Something you want to see God breakthrough and do something

that will be true in the new heavens, the new earth that you

were once begging God for that you have quit.

What is your quit list and is it rooted in you went through a

phase of denial, determination. Maybe God is just asking you and

if you're honest, there's some pain there.

You're like, I don't want that hope back because hope is

painful. But y'all where where the Lord

is, is at the intersection of those things of hope and pain.

That's where he is. Hebrews 416 one of the one of

the great verses in the Bible, y'all it talks about how the

Lord I'm going to read it over you.

Let me read this, let me read this, let me read it, let me

read it, let me read it. Almost done.

I promise. This is what it says.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,

that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of

need. Y'all here's the idea.

Even once in Christ, your need for mercy ain't going away.

Probably what's happening is your awareness of your

sinfulness is going up the more you walk with God.

Therefore you feel like you need more mercy.

And So what you can do is now we approach God on I should be this

advance in my Christian walk or whatever as if it's a job and

you think you're performing poorly and so you stop praying

because you feel unworthy. But y'all think about mercy.

You don't deserve it. You get it because God gives it.

Their confidence was not that they did something that should

pull something out of Messiah. They know who he is.

Yo, the book of Hebrews is written.

The New Testament is pushing us to go to God for practical help,

to find help in time of need. Where do you need God?

Do an audit of where you need him and backtrack that to why

you're not going to him and it's probably rooted in you feel

unworthy or you think he is not willing.

And that is the whole point of these stories we're walking

through is neither of those are true.

He is, he is worthy, He is willing and he wants to meet you

in that. Ask him to open your eyes and

y'all praise God. One day blindness is gone.

One day we see dimly now then we will see face to face.

Praise God our faith will be made sight y'all.

So we pray now with the pain of hope.

It hurts to hope y'all. It's easier to just.

Let's just sever that off and become cynics.

Being a cynic is easy, I just pray that we were with courage

even when we have to hold one another up.

We could just say hey I got none in me right now can you be my

hope? Yes but we need one another to

hold each other up in childlike faith and keep going to the Lord

for grace and help in time of need.

God wants to help you in your actual life.

This is not a cool theology lesson that doesn't apply to

your life y'all. If God is getting bigger, we

should be asking him to help us more and more practical.

So just do a prayer audit. Where's it getting general

Where's it getting vague? Where are we not asking specific

and where you're not do an audit of that of why you're not and

you'll get somewhere with the Lord and then bring him into

that Lord. I don't think you're good.

Now we're getting an actual biblical prayer.

Now we're getting close to like some real stuff like you do with

real people in a real relationship, because that's

what God died to bring you into was a real relationship with

him. Y'all Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like me.

I once was lost but now I'm found.

I was blind but now I'm see. I I blew that I was blind but

now I see. I hope you could say that's true

of you today. Let's pray.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you for grace, thank you

for mercy. Thank you that you're the King

of mercy who just oozes kindness to us.

God, I pray for my friends who don't know you.

God, I pray they would agree with you that they're blind.

I pray that they would agree with you that they need help,

they need your touch, they need sight of you.

God, would you just speak into the echo Chamber of their soul

and wake them up by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God help them to agree with you that they need resurrection.

May they see you on the cross. God, may your resurrection power

wake them up. And got to pray for my friends

in Christ where we've just given up.

We've grown cold and stale. Or maybe we're in the the the

throes of just self determined beliefism in the flesh.

God, would you bring us back to childlike hope, childlike faith

that that mixes sorrowful rejoicing so well.

God, give us faith, Give this church faith and answer our

prayers. God, we ask you to heal, we ask

you to say, we ask you to breakthrough, we ask you to give

us endurance and patience with joy.

God, fill us with the knowledge of your will.

Open our eyes that we may see you.

We love you. We pray this in Christ's name,

Amen.