Don't Miss Jesus

There's opportunities that will come that we don't want to miss, and today I want to talk about not missing out on an opportunity.

Imagine, if you will, as you turn in your Bibles to Mark, chapter 10, that the opportunity to be healed by the healer of the world, the God of the universe, is coming by you and you hesitate.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Imagine that.

Imagine that you've been blind and you are incapable, because of this blindness, to do what normal people your age can do with that health.

And the opportunity arrives and you miss it.

That's a terrible thing to happen and that is what could have happened to a man named Bartimaeus, whose story is told three times in the New Testament.

And I'm choosing to read Mark's depiction of the story because Mark tends to give the subjective components of a story how it impacts the subject of the story more than the others of a story.

How it impacts the subject of the story more than the others.

Matthew tends to depict the theology that's implicated in the story and Luke is more philosophical Mark is going to talk about, he's going to tell the story in such a way that you can almost feel this experience as it happens to him.

Now I'm operating my own slides and I'm a little confused about what's happening here, so let me get this all the way back to where we're supposed to him.

Now I'm operating my own slides and I'm a little confused about what's happening here, so let me get this all the way back to where we're supposed to be.

Is it changing for you or is it just changing for me there?

Okay, good, you can follow along as I read this text.

And they came to Jericho.

That's speaking about Jesus and the disciples.

They came to Jericho that's speaking about Jesus and the disciples and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a great crowd, bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out saying.

He began to cry out saying Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And I should probably say it loudly, because that word cry is an obnoxious shout Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And they rebuked him, telling him to be silent.

That's why I know he was loud, but he cried out all the more son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stopped and said call him.

And they called the blind man, saying to him take heart.

Get up, he is calling you and throwing off his cloak.

He sprang up and came to Jesus.

Mark had a thing about cloaks, by the way.

He mentions throwing off cloaks several times in his short gospel of 16 chapters, but it is interesting that a blind man would and we'll address that a little bit later but it shows an intensity in his response.

He sprang up and came to Jesus and Jesus said to him what do you want me to do for you?

And the blind man said to him Rabbi, let me recover my sight.

And Jesus said to him Go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

This is the word of the Lord Imagine missing Jesus.

One of my heart concerns, for every person in this room, whether you have known Jesus for a long time or whether you know him at all, is that in 2025, you miss your opportunity to encounter him.

If you've known him for a long time, it's still a wonderful opportunity to enjoy Jesus Christ in a personal, impactful way.

So I think that one of the reasons we're given this story is so that we can analyze it and understand what's going on and dissect the acts of faith, as is demonstrated by Bartimaeus in his response to the opportunity of Jesus, because Jesus is an opportunity for us still.

You may have been saved for 25 years or more, but Jesus is still the opportunity that's available to you today.

I think it's interesting that most of the New Testament is given to us in the form of stories.

Annette Simmons, in her great book the Story Factor, says this stories are quote more true than facts because stories are multidimensional.

What she's trying to say by that is that you can get so much more through a story than you can just by a string of facts.

And so we have the story of Jesus physically on the earth and some of his encounters given to us not merely to teach us theological truth but to help us feel the impact of theological truth.

And that's why some stories are told from multiple dimensions Mark tells it his way, matthew tells it his way and Luke tells it his way.

She says also stories are a form of mental imprint, because you can remember a story more than you can remember a theological treatise.

You can remember.

You may not have all the exact words in the right order, but you get the story.

You can feel the story in a way that you cannot just a list of theological truths.

So the stories that are given for us are meant to teach us something, be repeated by us, imprinted on our minds, and help us understand reality.

In a way that we could not understand if theological data was just spewed out in a long line and we had to memorize a boring catechism, even though those things can be helpful.

But we all live our own stories.

We are all having a different experience today, in the long course of our story, whatever it may be.

We find ourselves together in this moment, in this hour, but every one of us has a different story that has been written and will be written, and we want to be impacted by the story of Jesus in a way that really makes sense to our story and that helps us understand our reality.

She says in the land of complex reality, story is king, and that is true for the Bible.

The Bible is filled with story after story after story to teach us something about the truth of God.

What's amazing is that the gospel stories are not just stories that are fictional, that teach a truth, but they are true stories that actually happen.

They're historical truth, but they are true stories that actually happen, they're historical and they're intended as truth-tellers.

So when we dissect the actions of Bartimaeus and the words that he said, I think we can discern four components of soul-enriching faith that are in the experience of every human being that believes in Jesus Christ.

I think we see desperation born out of an awareness of Jesus.

We understand, we have a self-awareness of our need as a sinner and our needs as a human being, and we see that, in contrast to the supply that Jesus is as a person for us.

That is something that's taught in the whole of the New Testament.

We see responsiveness born out of attention from Jesus.

Jesus stopped, called Bartimaeus and they said hey, take heart, he's actually calling you and those of us that know Christ know that he loved us first.

We love him because he loved us first, and there's a responsiveness that comes from our heart to the tender mercies of God that reached down to us when we weren't even looking for him.

That's something that's taught throughout the whole of the Bible.

We see vulnerability born out of compassion from Jesus.

It is before Jesus that we feel safe to be who we are.

It's in front of Jesus that we feel safe to be naked.

The scriptures say in Hebrews that everything is naked and transparent before God.

The Word of God exposes us and we don't like that feeling in front of other human beings.

We don't feel that safe in front of other people, but we do feel safe in the presence of Jesus to be completely vulnerable and say what we need and what is our felt need and what is heaviest on our heart, so that when Jesus says to us, what can I do for you?

We don't have to look around in embarrassment but in all transparency say to Jesus here's what you can do for me.

One person has said that the expression of our need is the ultimate level of intimacy.

That's when we really make ourself and when we really expose ourselves, when we go to the deepest part of us and expose the deepest need that we have a hard time sharing with anybody maybe because it's even hard for us to express and identify for ourselves.

And we also see devotion born out of salvation from Jesus, because when Bartimaeus was healed, it says that he followed Jesus on the way and this was the last entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.

He was on the way to the cross.

All of these aspects are part of the Christian faith and what I'd like to do is dive deeper into this story because, transparently, this story has been a huge blessing to me.

For the last six weeks I've mulled on this question, jesus asking me Bob, what would you like me to do for you?

It's thrilling to think that Jesus would say that to anybody, that the Son of God would stop in the hullabaloo of activity and in the chaos of the crowd, look at you as an individual and say, my friend, what would you like me to do for you?

I'm here to say that that is what Jesus says to you.

And wouldn't it be a terrible thing that when all of that crowd had stopped and Bartimaeus runs over, he's surprised by the question and he's tongue-tied and doesn't know what to say.

And he's tongue-tied and doesn't know what to say.

How can this story instruct us to respond to Jesus Christ with an answer that shows true faith in who he is?

I'm going to give you four points that I think are a dissection of the act of faith, and I use the word dissection on purpose.

We're kind of taking a surgeon's knife and we're cutting this into four different pieces, because we're going to see physical actions and hear verbal expressions that come from Bartimaeus.

But we live in the time Jesus said, where we worship God in spirit and in truth, and so these verbal and physical actions are going to be a storyline, if you will, a reflection, a verbal and physical expression of what spiritually can happen in you, and it would be helpful, I think it is, for me to identify these four parts that I'm going to give you.

I'm sure that there are more, but I'm'm going to give you and I'm sure that there are more, but I'm just going to give you four for sake of time, and think about your own interaction with Jesus and the opportunity that you have to engage with Jesus as a friend who wants to do something for you.

First of all, my first word of counsel is this Shout to Jesus through conventional stereotypes, even when you're stuck in status quo, shout to him.

The blind man, Bartimaeus, was led there by hand to the place where he would sit.

That's what beggars, blind people, did.

They couldn't just roam about at will, they were dependent on somebody to take them to a place where they would sit.

Now, the Jericho road was generally a pretty dangerous road, but not at this time, because at this time of year it was the Passover, and so people from Jericho by great numbers were going to Jerusalem for the Passover.

Jericho was a generally more wealthy place than Jerusalem, and so it was strategic to go outside the city on the road, get placed in a place where you could be seen, perhaps by a benevolent passerby, and cry out for alms, have mercy the word alms in the Greek is actually derivative from the verb to have mercy and so somebody led Bartimaeus there and as he's sitting there, he evidently hears word that Jesus is passing by and there's a great crowd around Jesus.

There seems to have been an expectation of people around that Jesus was going to do something in the week of Passover that would demonstrate himself as a king.

Whether they believed it or not, there were people in this crowd following him.

One of the gospels makes a distinction between Jesus, the disciples and the crowd.

There were three different kinds of people in that road going toward Jerusalem.

And Bartimaeus.

We know that he believes already who Jesus is.

He's heard, perhaps having been in Jericho, he's seen what Jesus has done earlier, but he's heard about the ministry of Jesus and he knows that Jesus is the son of David, the Messiah.

He believes this fact, this theological truth already about Jesus when he calls him out by name.

It was a little bit politically bold and dangerous even, because to declare someone as a king son of David which was what he was doing when he said king son of David to declare that was to actually announce and put up to the forefront of everybody's attention that there was perhaps a threat to the Roman rule there.

That was something that would be a little bit presumptuous and even dangerous to do.

Bartimaeus believed the truth about Jesus.

We talk about the people that were healed in the gospel, but do you know that there were many people who were not healed?

There were many people who were not.

There were many blind people who did not receive sight.

There were many lepers who were never cleansed from their leprosy.

There were many lame people who remained lame the entire time of Jesus.

In fact, we are told that Jesus could not do miracles in certain towns because they didn't believe.

So what we need to remember here is that Jesus just didn't indiscriminately heal people, wave a wand and just heal all kinds of people who weren't looking for it or asking for it.

There were many people who did not get the healing treatment of Jesus Christ.

There were many people who did not get Jesus to stop and say what can I do for you?

There were many people perhaps on that road that day who were blind, that did not dare shout through.

The conventional stereotypes of their limitations appear obnoxious to everybody out and cry in desperation.

I know who you are.

I know who you are.

You are the Son of God.

You are the Son of David, the Messiah.

You are the King that is the long-awaited for one.

I know who you are and crying out with a loud voice because I can't bear to see you pass by and not get your attention.

Listen.

When the Spirit of God works in your heart, there's a certain light that goes on.

We read in John chapter 1 today that Jesus is the light of the world.

John 1 · chapter mention

He enlightens all men, and there's a certain light that goes on.

It's like a light bulb moment sometimes, and sometimes it's like a dawning.

It's a slow turning on, but that light comes on and at that moment you know the Spirit of God is speaking to you.

You know it is Jesus who is speaking to you and you have to think through the conventions of your limitations.

During Christmas break I've seen several.

I've caught up on some of the movies like Wicked and even Moana with my granddaughter and some others, and it's fun to watch these movies and enjoy them for their artistry, their music and the skill that's put into them.

But there's something that's a little in the story that is repeated over and over again in the message of the world, and that is that you can overcome your own limitations by defining who you are to yourself.

You can overcome any limitation and be what you want to be.

And if you decide, whatever it is, then the family may be restricting you or some obstacles may be restricting you, and you can decide on that and overcome it by just with grit and determination and a strong belief in your own identity and the limitations that limit everybody else and are so conventional, you can burst through if you believe in yourself.

That is the good news that the world gives people.

Those are the feel-good truths that the world wants people to understand, and it is a false good news, it's a false gospel, but it's partially true.

Those stories do say something, partially true.

The truth of the matter is that we do all have limitations.

The truth of the matter is that we are less than what we could be with certain limitations.

The truth of the matter is that the conventional limitation of blindness says that I can't do a lot of things with blindness.

I can't even be happy, I can't even give glory to God.

Convention says that being sick means that I need to be in despair.

Convention says that being poor means that I need to be bitter.

Whatever it may be, the limitations of convention come upon us and we do need to break through them.

But it's not in ourselves that we need to believe in.

We need to believe in Jesus and cry out to him.

And so they said don't cry out to him because that's not conventional.

Keep your cool, be proper.

And he cried out all the more.

Why?

I think it's because true worship sees an encounter with Jesus as an opportunity of a lifetime, day after day after day.

See that sentence I added there.

True worship sees an encounter with Jesus as an opportunity of a lifetime, day after day after day.

And you get to a point where you don't care what people think about you.

You don't care about the limitations of the status quo, you don't care about the standards and expectations that are there for you.

You don't care about the limitations of the status quo, you don't care about the standards and expectations that are there for you.

You realize that you need Jesus.

You need him now and it's an opportunity of a lifetime.

And here he is again.

Like Lamentations 3 says, his mercies are renewed day after day after day and every day.

You can be like Bartimaeus and say have mercy on me.

It's an opportunity of a lifetime you will not let go.

You may break the convention and get up an hour earlier so you can encounter Jesus once again.

True worship sees Jesus and encounter with Jesus as an opportunity.

Now we know about the value of opportunity.

It's in all kinds of literature and art.

I love this from Julius Caesar.

Shakespeare's words there's a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.

That's a Shakespearean way of saying don't miss out on opportunity.

The tide is in.

Catch the wave, then, because if you don't, you're going to be stuck in the shallows.

Opportunity is an incredibly stuck in the shallows.

Opportunity is an incredibly valuable thing.

I was going to say opportunity is a valuable opportunity.

That would be called a redundance.

Opportunity is incredibly precious and the blind man, bartimaeus, saw Jesus as that precious opportunity and said hey, the tide in the affairs of man, my story is in and I'm going to take the flood now because it's going to lead to fortune.

And he sprung to it.

So that's the second point.

Spring up to the call of Jesus, even when you might stumble.

William Vanderbloom in his book on the intangibles that make good candidates for different jobs and so forth.

It gives 12 different intangibles, but the first one is speed.

They're quick to respond to an opportunity.

They see an opportunity and jump at it when the Spirit of God moves in you.

You ought to hear what one psalmist says today is the day.

You ought to hear what the writer of Hebrews says today is the day.

Don't hesitate and be chill about it.

This is not the opportunity to be cool about.

This is the opportunity to be hot about it.

It's to be passionate about it.

It's to move on it.

It's to take action.

It's to respond immediately.

When God's Spirit convicts you of a sin, respond immediately, don't postpone it.

When God tells you to pray for somebody, respond immediately, don't delay it or doubt it.

When the Spirit of God moves you to say this is where I need to be, this is who I belong to, this is how I want to serve.

When God does those kind of things, don't hyperanalyze it and debate it or look around and say, boy, I might look weird to other people and I don't want to look overenthusiastic.

No, spring up.

That's what Bartimaeus did when he cried out.

If you've got the attention of Jesus, they said listen, take heart, he's actually calling for you.

He didn't say all right, okay, cool, he's calling for me.

Now let me gather my things together and let me get somebody to lead me there.

I love the fact that Mark says he sprang up, ran toward Jesus and threw off his cloak.

Imagine you were making a movie of this story.

If I were making a movie of this story, I might put myself in the camera, in the background and in the forefront, right in front of me, jesus looking beyond me, him to Bartimaeus, who's running wildly with these open, wide eyes that don't see anything, running like crazily toward Jesus, ripping off his cloak so that he can have more freedom to get there.

Isn't that a great scene?

By the way, that's why stories are told.

Stories are told.

It's to help us imagine that he sprang up and went to Jesus, not afraid of stumbling, even though I think it's quite realistic to imagine that he did stumble.

Maybe that's why he threw off his cloak.

He tripped up in it.

People laughed as he started running toward him.

He tripped it, maybe, and he throws it off to be less encumbered so he can get to Jesus.

There's an enthusiasm and a response when he responded to Jesus.

Here's my counsel for you about that Don't let the constraints of convention stop you from desperately seeking Jesus.

The atheist George Bernard Shaw said this the reasonable man adapts himself to the world.

The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

End quote.

It's sad that he was an atheist, because that is true about faith.

You know you love somebody when you do stupid things for them, isn't that true?

You know you love somebody when you are a little unreasonable in your defense of them, in your eagerness to get to them, to be close to them.

You know you are filled with a heart of passion.

You are unreasonable in responding to Jesus.

In responding to Jesus, let me tell you, young people, please, you need to know that for every call of Jesus to you and when the light of faith goes on, there will be a little voice in you saying that's unreasonable.

Be cool, be chill.

But Bartimaeus wasn't.

He sprang up and threw off his cloak.

Thirdly, I love this.

You see what I did here.

State the obvious to Jesus even when you can't see.

State the obvious to Jesus even when you can't see.

State the obvious to Jesus even when you can't see.

Here's a blind man running to Jesus and he gets to Jesus and Jesus says what can I do for you?

It seems obvious what Jesus can do for Bartimaeus, does it not?

But imagine if Bartimaeus, having run up to Jesus, falls down before him.

Jesus says what can I do for you?

And Jesus says can you give me a drachma, a dollar?

Can you give me maybe even a thousand dollars?

Can you give me maybe even $1,000?

What if Bartimaeus had said something reasonable?

What if Bartimaeus had said I'm blind and I've adjusted to blindness.

I've been blind my whole life?

Here's the tragedy.

I'm convinced that many people, even Christians, would be surprised by the question what can I do for you?

And not know immediately how to answer it.

It wouldn't be at the top of their lips because we have acclimated ourselves to limitations that we were meant to be freed of by the power of Jesus Christ.

We have acclimated ourselves to dysfunction.

We've acclimated ourselves to sin.

We've acclimated ourselves to a brokenness that we've gotten completely used to.

We think that's how life is for us and we don't even dare to say what is obviously a need for us.

And I'm encouraging you, my friends, in 2025, when you have Jesus speaking in your heart and you feel the response be totally human and vulnerable, when Jesus says to you what do you want me to do for you?

Now, certainly there's a branch of the Christian world that have abused the reality of our humanity in what we would call a prosperity gospel.

But we go too far the other way when we don't just want to blurt out all our needs to Jesus physical, financial, emotional, spiritual Just blurt it all out.

Here's what I need, and I'm ready to tell you.

I'm totally human and I'm not a good human blind.

I'm totally human and I can't function with this stress on me.

I'm totally human and I can't function with this stress on me.

I'm totally human and I've got this difficulty in my relationships.

I'm totally human.

Pour it all out to God.

Your need.

It's obvious to you.

It's obvious to you.

State it even though you're blind.

And fourthly, start following Jesus in the way that he's made known to you, even when it leads to the cross.

I love the fact that after he said, rabbi, let me recover my sight, jesus said to him go your way, your faith has made you well.

One of the Gospels actually uses the word salvation.

This was a spiritual event right here, in this act of faith, from the time that he heard that Jesus was there, believing who Jesus was, understanding his need as a blind man, sinner, understanding that Jesus was the king of the world.

Coming by, the opportunity was going by, he was not going to let it go and he ran toward Jesus with all of his energy, despite the risk of stumbling, and he fell to Jesus and said here's what I need as a human being.

He laid it all out to Jesus.

Jesus said your faith has saved you.

I love the Psalm 116.

It says what shall I render to the Lord for his gifts to me, his salvation to me?

And the answer is said I will take the cup of his salvations.

Plural, because if you walk with Jesus, it's true you got saved a long time ago, but you are getting saved every time you take the cup of salvation.

The best way to say thank you to Jesus is to take more.

The best way to say I love you, jesus, is to take more from him.

The very words of the table are take and we can say I'll receive.

The best way you can show faith is not to tough it out now on yourself, but today.

Do like George Whitefield who, after leading thousands and thousands of people to Christ, on his 64th birthday, even though God had used him in the great awakening like no other person except perhaps, john Wesley, george Whitefield wrote down in his journal on his 64th birthday today I will begin to begin to be a Christian, and there's a sense where we have the opportunity, brothers and sisters, every single day, to say that, where we have the opportunity, brothers and sisters, every single day, to say that we have the opportunity to open up our Bible and encounter Jesus there.

And we have the opportunity to respond to the Spirit of God that indwells us when he convicts us of sin and righteousness and judgment and when he prompts us to go a different direction or lead us or gives us a sense of assurance.

We have the opportunity to respond immediately and not let it pass by.

That's saving faith, and we're willing to then follow Jesus wherever it may lead, even if it leads to the cross, because that's exactly what Bartimaeus did.

So I think this story, I think this story gives us four practical for those of us that are in Christ.

If you're not in Christ, if the Spirit is whispering in your heart right now, then don't be reasonable about it.

Run with haste to Jesus.

And for those of us who want more of Jesus, because we've been perhaps disappointed by the coldness of our relationship with him and the lack of this experience, I'm here to tell you shout to Jesus through the conventional stereotypes, even when you're stuck.

Spring up to the call of Jesus, even when you might stumble.

Just respond.

Go 100% after him.

State the obvious to Jesus, even when you can't see.

Just tell him everything and then start following Jesus in the way that he's made known to you, even when it leads to the cross.

He's made known to you even when it leads to the cross.

We're going to sing in just a moment the faithfulness of God.

I love you, lord.

I've heard His voice and God has always been faithful to me.

That knowledge in itself makes you like someone sitting on the road, already knowing who Jesus is and the next opportunity to encounter him, you're going to shout out Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me, father.

Add your blessing to this counsel from the Word of God and from the example of Bartimaeus, in Jesus' name, amen.