He is Good | Persecution, Prayer, Faith | Mark 10:46-52 | Coleton Segars

The teaching text comes from Mark chapter 10 verses 46 through 52.

Mark 10:46–52

Mark chapter 10 verses 46 through 52.

Mark 10:46–52

It says, And then they came to Jericho, as Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city.

A blind man, Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging.

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And many rebuked him and told him to be quiet.

But he shouted all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stopped and said, Call him.

And so they called to the blind man, Cheer up, on your feet, he's calling you.

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus asked him.

And the blind man said, Rabbi, I want to see.

Go, said Jesus.

Your faith has healed you.

And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

This is the word of the Lord.

It's good to see all of you.

We are in a series, and we have been for a little over a year in the Gospel of Mark titled He is Good, because Mark begins his gospel by saying this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus.

And so we've just been looking at Jesus' life and his words and the way that he interacts with people.

And today we have this interaction between Jesus and Bartimaeus.

And what I want to do today is really just look at three parts of Bartimaeus' life.

Three things that you can just look into this interaction between he and Jesus and go like, we're going to learn something from this part, this part, and this part.

And so we're going to learn something from the persecution part of Bartimaeus' life.

We'll learn something from the prayer part of Bartimaeus' life, and then we'll learn something for the last bit, which is the faith part of Bartimaeus' life.

And so we're just really just going to go part by part through those things.

And so if you think of like maybe the way a story is told or the way that a movie is, it's like this is part one, part two, part three.

We're going to move at it like that and just look at some of these things and then see what the Lord has for us.

But the first is the persecution part.

I want to look at this particular part first.

For us as Christians, your faith in Jesus will be persecuted.

It will be shouted down.

If you're a follower of Jesus, this is just a part of it.

We talked last week about suffering and how suffering is just a part of the normal there.

You have to experience many hardships and sufferings in order to enter into the kingdom of God.

And in the same way, persecution is a part of that.

Your faith in Jesus will be annoying to someone.

It will be.

And it's just going to be that way.

You in particular might actually have a more annoying faith than others, and we don't know that until we spend time together.

But your faith will be annoying to other people.

That's what happens here in verses 47 and 48.

Bartimaeus has this belief in Jesus.

He begins expressing that belief.

He begins expressing his faith.

And the expression of his faith is found to be annoying to other people.

And he's rebuked, he's persecuted because he's expressing his faith in Jesus.

It says this.

It says, when he heard that it was Jesus, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And they rebuked him and told him to be quiet.

But then he shouted all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me.

It was his expression of faith that they found to be annoying.

It was like, leave us alone, shut up.

Whatever you're doing is annoying us.

We don't want you to express your faith that way.

And to me, what we need to notice is that if Bartimaeus responds to this persecution by doing what they tell him to do, if he just becomes quiet, if he they say shut up, and he's like, heard, I will do that.

If he does that, the story stops, and then there's no miracle.

And so there's nothing that takes place.

I'm being persecuted for my faith.

I will then stop.

The persecution stops, which a little bit of relief feels pretty good.

No one's shouting at me to be quiet anymore.

But if he stops the persecution and wants to avoid it, then the story stops as well.

Jesus keeps walking by, and then he never experiences the miracle.

But he doesn't do that.

He actually experiences the persecution.

He doesn't let him, he doesn't let it stop him.

And actually what he ends up doing, um, he's persecuted and told to please be quiet, say nothing.

And he's like, I'm actually gonna double down.

I'm gonna get a little louder.

And so he gets a little louder, and the thing that was supposed to stop his faith actually is the thing that elevates his faith to where now Jesus is able to hear it.

And so this persecution that could have like ended the story actually elevates the story and keeps the story going.

And so the thing that was supposed to stop it actually leads it to actually take place and happen.

And so you see that he gets louder and is experiencing something that ultimately was, if he would have just responded to the persecution, it would have stopped.

But he doesn't, he continues moving forward.

And so my point is that if you are uh and you will, if you are being belittled for your faith, um, if your way of following Jesus is annoying to people, I think we should always do some introspection and go like maybe it's just maybe I'm annoying, Jesus isn't, but maybe I am.

We should always do a little bit of that.

But if it if it genuinely is, like your faith is annoying other people in your family, or your your expression of faith is annoying uh your friends or your coworkers, or you talk about that or something like, and it's just uh it's belittled or it's frustrating to them or it's annoying to them.

My point is that you can stop that persecution by not being weird, by responding to their criticism, you can stop that.

The issue is like the story stops as well.

And then I think we miss out on what actually could take place because if Bartamaeus would have stopped, the persecution would have stopped, no one would be yelling at him, but then the story would have stopped.

But if you'll continue moving forward, if you will just continue stepping into it and going, look, even though they're gonna belittle me, even though they're gonna criticize me, I'm gonna get a little louder, I'm gonna double down, I'm gonna continue moving forward.

And we don't allow the persecution to actually stop us, but we allow it to bolster our faith.

I think it leads us into a space where Jesus does a lot more in the story, not just in our lives, but in the lives of the persecutors as well.

I think that's available to us.

And you see that again in this story.

If you notice what happens, not only does Bartimaeus' defiance against the persecution and the rebuking, not only does it lead him to experience something, but it actually changes something in the persecuted as as well.

In verse 49, Jesus uses the persecutors to get them in to him.

And so in verse 49, it says Jesus stopped and said, not to not to Bartimaeus, come over here.

He's like, Hey, you who were trying to stop him, now I want you to be the people that leads him to me.

And so he turns a persecutor from being someone that's trying to keep somebody from Jesus to now using that person to lead somebody to Jesus.

And he turns persecutors actually into friends, and they're all thrilled.

Now they're like, cheer up on your feet, he's calling you.

And it just completely changes what their words were before.

And I think Jesus loves to do this.

If you read the scriptures and you just look at the people who are persecuted, he loves taking people who are angrily or just annoyingly against Jesus, and some of them vehemently and um deadly against Jesus.

He loves taking people who are that way and turning them from being murderers into people who are like now championing the faith.

And so he does this just a couple, uh, the thief on the cross that we'll look at in a number of weeks.

But the thief on the cross is crucified next to Jesus, he's mocking Jesus, and then Jesus speaks and he watches Jesus die, and the thief on the cross goes from mocking Jesus to actually defending Jesus, worshiping Jesus, calling Jesus the Christ.

And he changes his heart completely.

Someone who started mocking ends up actually worshiping.

He does this with the centurion that helped crucify Jesus.

The centurion, the Roman soldier, killed and helped crucify Jesus, stabbed him in the side and all the rest of it.

And then at the end it says he watches Jesus die and he says, Surely this was the Son of God.

And so this man that puts someone to death is now saying that that this man is the son of God.

He did this with the Apostle Paul.

Acts 9, Paul goes from he's murdering Christians and breathing out threats against them and persecuting them, to now he becomes someone who is going to be persecuted for the faith.

And in Galatians 1, it says, the man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

And it's like, what does Jesus want to do with his persecutors?

Well, he doesn't want to crush them, he actually wants to convert them into something else.

He did this with his uh his brother James.

Uh I don't know what you would do if your brother said to you, Hey, son of God, incarnate, no big deal.

I'm heaven on earth for you.

Um I don't know what, you know, my brother and I've fought each other with socks and stuff like that.

So I don't know what you do with your brother when he says that kind of stuff.

But James, his brother, like persecuted him and belittled him and made fun of him and said all this stuff and all these different passages.

And then James writes his own letter and James introduces himself.

He says, James, I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He doesn't include, he's also my bro.

Like we grew up together.

I watched him use the restroom.

You know, like he doesn't say any of that, but it is this thing that's like something has drastically changed in front in James's life of like he was someone who was very connected to him, but called him crazy and was like jealous and also trying to hurt him a little bit.

And now all of a sudden he's like, I'm a servant of not just Jesus, my brother, I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah.

And if you know uh Jim Elliott's story, if you've seen that movie, uh, I think it's called The End of the Spear, Jesus does this.

I mean, he's still doing this, he's turning persecutors into friends.

And so he does this with Jim Elliott.

Jim Jim Elliott, they uh he and a group go to Ecuador to share the gospel with people that have never heard it before.

And while they're there, the tribe that they were trying to share the gospel with ends up killing Jim Elliott and the other missionaries.

But then what happens is those men who killed the missionaries end up coming to faith and end up, many of them, some of them become pastors, and the murderers who were who murdered the missionaries then begin carrying on the work that the missionaries were actually trying to do in the first place.

And so consistently you see this idea that Jesus loves to use persecution.

He loves to he's he doesn't always stop it, but he will he does love to use it to actually advance his work in the world.

The early church understood this so deeply, they really got this idea, and that the church in China still understands this really, really well.

That Jesus loves to use persecution not to hinder his work, but actually to advance it.

Uh the author Tertullian uh wrote to the Roman Empire and he said this.

He's writing to the empire that's that's persecuting and killing Christians.

He says, We Christians are not a new philosophy, but a divine revelation.

That's why you can't exterminate us.

That's pretty strong.

The more you kill, the more we are.

I love that.

That's good.

And he says, the blood of the martyrs, it's the seed of the church.

The more you kill us, spill the blood of the martyrs, and it will just advance the church in our time, just consistently.

And so they understood this happening in their time.

And so they didn't fear persecution, they just understood this is a part of it, and Jesus wants to work through it.

It's not against God's will, it's actually something that he's going to bend to his will that ultimately advances his kingdom.

I heard uh a pastor I really like, John Tyson, talk about this recently.

Uh, this pastor in China, uh currently in the underground church in communist China that has like 10 million people in that church, pretty strong church, 10 million people.

Um, and um he's interrogated by the government, and um the government basically is like, like, hey, what are you doing to grow the church in China?

Like, what are you doing?

And the guy responds and he's like, I'm not growing the church in China, and they're like, What?

He's like, I'm not growing it, you are.

And this is the interrogators, and they're like, We're not growing the church.

We hate the church, like we oppose the church, we don't want anything to do with the church, we are in direct opposition to the church, and this is what he says.

He said to them, Exactly.

And your opposition forces us to be dependent on Jesus.

Your opposition makes us love our enemies.

Your opposition makes us hungry for an authentic faith.

And that beautiful, white hot faith is spreading everywhere and delivering people.

If you really wanted this right here, if you really wanted to get rid of the church, you should let us do whatever we want, and then we would compromise and become weak like the American church.

Dang.

Just let us do, just don't persecute us, just let us get comfortable, and then they'll dissipate.

It'll go away.

It'll become a hobby on Sundays instead of being something that's like, actually, we need his presence in our time, in our day.

Jesus loves to use persecution to advance his plans and not end them.

And that's what happens in this story, and I think that's what's happen happening, and I think that's what's possible in our lives.

You will be persecuted for your faith in some uh capacity.

It will probably probably be a softer persecution than what people experience in China, but it is still real.

You will experience that among your family, your friends, and Jesus said that.

Like you will be in a space where your family and friends, your coworkers, of the people around you, and the culture around you shift so much that it's like it's harder to follow Jesus than what it used to be.

And he's like, Yeah, that's coming.

If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.

That's a part of it.

But if we allow persecution to stop us, I believe the story stops right there as well.

You shut the book on persecution, and they don't talk to you and they're not mean to you anymore.

But also what Jesus was going to do in that time is shut as well, versus just allowing that to take place, not getting quiet, but doubling down like Bartimaeus and getting louder, and allowing Jesus to do work in your life, in the midst of persecution, and in the lives of those who are actually persecuting you.

The pastor from China, again, I'm not even going to try and say his name, but um Pastor Shin, he says this.

He said, The church should not fear persecution, it should fear worldliness and comfort.

Suffering doesn't just strengthen your faith, it helps you experience the presence of God, to experience his power.

Persecution hasn't destroyed our church, it's refined it.

It's what's caused us to grow.

And so for us, that's the persecution part.

If you are and you will experience some form or fashion of persecution, don't let it stop you.

Allow it to be a space that bolsters your faith and leads you to depend on Jesus because he actually wants to do something through it.

He doesn't want to do something after it's done, although maybe that's true as well.

He wants to do something in the midst of it.

And he wants to do something in the midst of it in the midst of your life and in the life of those who are saying that your faith is stupid and weird and you need to shut up.

He wants to do something in their life as well.

He loves to take angry, just militant people against Christianity and turn them into the most aggressively dependent followers of Jesus.

Like they they hated it so much and wanted to crush it out, and now they love it so much they're willing to be crushed for it.

That's what he likes to do.

And so if you have people in your life that are vehemently against Christianity, they are a prime marker for someone that Jesus is looking at and be like, one day, it's gonna be me and you.

It's gonna be real good.

And so.

And if you're that person, welcome to church.

We're so thrilled that you're here.

All right, next, the prayer part.

This is my favorite part.

The prayer part, verse 50 through 51.

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

What do you want me to do for you?

And Jesus asked him.

And the blind man said, Rabbi, I want to see.

I get that like this is not in my notes.

This thing, like that that question has like drastically changed the way that I view prayer.

Um just because of how simple it is.

Like, what do you want?

And it's like, well, dummy, I can't see, obviously.

They're calling me the blind man.

Like, um, but it's also like this just really rich space where just you get to ask for whatever you want.

Like, I uh well, who are you?

Who's asking?

Like, oh, the guy that runs the universe.

Uh what do you want me to do for you?

Like, that's a big ask.

Okay, I can ask for anything.

And what I love is like he prays selfishly.

He prays very selfishly.

He prays for exactly what he wants.

What do you want me to do for you?

The Romans are currently oppressing all of your people.

You want me to snuff them out?

You mean to do anything?

No, no, no.

My eyes don't work.

I'd like for those to work.

Like, well, people are dying of starvation and other things.

Like, do you want me to like do some you know, world peace, some starvation stuff, some thirst ground?

Like, there's some desert out there that needs water.

No, no, no, I don't want any of that.

I just want to be able to see.

And I love that.

He prays for himself, he prays selfishly.

And even in the midst of praying for something that's just for himself that really benefits nobody else, he does not pray for the benefit of somebody else.

He prays for the benefit of himself.

Even in the midst of that, Jesus does not condemn his prayer.

He doesn't look at him and go, You selfish jerk.

Like, how like look around.

We're all oppressed by the Romans.

He doesn't do any of that.

He doesn't say that he should aim higher.

Like, you just want to see.

You know, there's other blind people.

Why don't we heal all the blind people?

Like, why don't you aim a little bigger?

He doesn't do any of that.

He just says, What do you want?

The man is very honest, he's childlike.

And he doesn't care what it sounds like.

He doesn't care if other people around him are like that's a selfish jerk.

Like, he doesn't care.

I want to see.

And Jesus responds with compassion and blessing and blesses the man with what he wants.

And in my experience with Christians, we struggle with how to pray, and I used to and still go back and forth on that.

But we struggle with how to pray.

Am I saying the right words?

Am I supposed to pray like this?

How do I make it work?

Sometimes I pray, it feels weird.

I feel like I'm not doing anything right, I don't actually know.

And we struggle with all of that.

And I think it's supposed to be, prayer is supposed to be the most simple thing that you do.

It's supposed to be very, very simple.

Um many of you know this, but when Teddy was um small, he was speech delayed until he was three or a little beyond three.

So he did not, he could say gh.

He he could, that was the that was the only thing that he could say.

He'd tell you a whole story, but it was ga.

And he was he's pointing at people and like gah.

And we're like, you know, and we'd we'd figure it out.

Um but that's all he had.

It was just there was something about he just could not do it.

And I remember just sitting, um, you know, just praying for him to talk.

Um, because like I wanted to, I was like, I want to hear your voice.

Like, I want to hear him say dad.

I want to be called dad.

Um, I want him to say he loves me.

Like I want to hear those words.

I want to I want to hear a sweet little voice.

And uh praying that one night, just thinking like, I just I just want to hear my son's voice so badly.

I don't care what he says.

And it really was like the Lord was like, I feel the exact same way about you.

Like you struggle in prayer so much.

You struggle with what to say.

Am I praying at the right time?

Am I praying the right thing?

He's like, I made your vocal cords.

Like I love your voice.

I don't care what you talk to me about.

I don't care if you're angry, you're sad, you're happy.

I just I want to hear your voice.

And it's like, but you know everything that I'm gonna say, anyways.

You know my my mind, my thoughts, my heart, like you know everything.

He's like, but I still, you know what Teddy's saying, and he's saying, You know all that, but you still want to hear the voice.

You want to hear the thing.

And it was so helpful just to hear that.

I was like, oh, so I can just say anything.

Like, you just want to hear my voice.

You're a father who wants to hear the voice of his sons and his daughters.

And I think that's really sweet.

And now Teddy obviously he talks and he sings and he sits here in worship when he's here, and he sings so loud, it's awesome.

I cry every time.

I cry a lot, but that was, I mean, it's just beautiful.

And uh now he calls me pop pop.

He doesn't call me dad, he calls me pop pop, which is like, come on, that's pop pop.

That's gonna be my grandfather name too, Lord willing.

Oh my goodness, sweetest thing to my ears.

The father is the same way.

He made you, he fashioned your vocal cords, he loves to hear your voice, he does not care.

This is why the psalmists get to say whatever they want to say.

They say beautiful psalms of praise, and then some of the psalms are like, God, where'd you go?

You're the worst.

Like you're a failing in every capacity.

Darkness is a better friend than you, God.

And it's like, why did God leave that in the scriptures?

And it's like, the reason is because his kids said it and he said it to him.

And so the psalmists get to say whatever they want to say because it's like, they're my kids, and I love to hear their voice, and so prayer should be that way.

I hear people say sometimes that when you pray, you need to consider would what you're praying, whatever you're praying, would what you're praying change the world or just your world?

And then they encourage you to pray for bigger things than just your world, which I get, I think we should aim high.

He can do far more abundantly all that we ask or imagine.

I believe in all that.

I get the idea that they're coming across.

Would your prayers change your world or or just or the world around you?

But again, God wants to be a father to us.

And when Teddy, my son, talks to me as his father, I never piece through his words and what he's saying and go, hey, does this matter worldwide?

Like, is this politically gonna have a big impact?

Our conversation today about Legos.

Like, what are we actually accomplishing through this thing?

Is this a productive conversation?

Are we actually someone gonna benefit from this, from what you're telling me right now?

Like, I would never, one, he'd never talk to me again if I ever did that.

And I think that's happened in the church.

It's like, I don't want to talk to him.

Honestly, he's a little judgmental about the things that I want to say.

And it's like, man, Harry, Teddy talks to me about Harry Potter, Minecraft, and Legos.

That's about it, okay?

Those are that's that's where we're at.

And I love, I don't mind.

I mean, some, you know, I'd every now and then I'm like, anything else, you know.

Um, but for the most part, I'm like, this is my kid.

I want to hear his thoughts on these things because I love him.

And so the idea that someone walks up to you and hears your prayer and is like, hey, that wasn't big enough.

You need to aim higher.

I do understand the idea, but at the same time, I'm like, there's gotta be a space where we really believe that, like, actually, I don't.

Maybe I should pray for big things every now and then, but right now, what's on my heart is what I'm dealing with, what's going on in my family, what's going on in my life, my stress, my worries.

And we should just be able to say those things like a flood coming out because we know the person on the other end is not piecing through, judging them, and wondering is this a selfish prayer or an unselfish prayer?

He's not doing that.

He's just receiving them with gladness and going, Thank God, my kid is talking to me.

I love it.

What he wants.

He wants us to hear him ask, What do you want me to do for you?

And I would just I would begin praying like that.

Just can consider, just imagine that he's asking, What do you want me to do for you today?

And then just unfiltered, give him everything you got.

Here's all my wants, here's all my fears, here's all my worries, here's all my cares, here's everything I got.

And when you're done with that, then be done.

And sit in silence and just enjoy the fact that he enjoys sitting there with you.

Richard Foster gives this beautiful vision of what prayer is, and every time I read it, I cry.

And so my hand ever goes to my pocket, I'm not bored.

I'm pinching myself to stop crying.

Okay?

So this is what he but he gives this beautiful vision.

That was way maybe too much information.

Now they're gonna be, sorry.

Just trying to keep you interested.

Okay.

Richard Foster gives this beautiful vision of prayer that I love, and I've read it before.

Uh I read it at prayer room a lot, but uh he says, this is what prayer is supposed to be like.

He says, one day a friend of mine was walking through a mall with his two-year-old son.

The child was fussing, and the father tried everything to quiet his son, but nothing helped.

The child simply would not obey.

And then under some special inspiration, the father scooped up his son and holding him close to his chest, he began singing an impromptu love song.

None of the words rhymed, and he sang off-key, and yet, as best he could, this father began sharing his heart.

I love you, he sang.

I'm so glad you're my boy.

You make you make me happy, and I like the way that you laugh.

And on they went from one store to the next.

Quietly the father continued singing, making up the words as he went.

And the child relaxed and became still, listening to this strange but wonderful song.

Finally, they finished shopping.

And as the father lifted his son into the car seat, the child lifted his head and said, Sing it to me again, Dad.

Sing it to me again.

Prayer is like that, he says.

In prayer, we allow ourselves to be gathered into the arms of the Father.

And you can read the rest.

And allow him to sing his love song over.

It's like, bro, what's your vision of prayer?

Like, it's gotta be that.

It has to be this space where you enter into this thing and it's like, what am I, who am I about to meet with?

And it's like the person that loves you more than I mean, just anything.

And so if you live, as many Christians do, we live in this space where it's like, there's no way he wants me to talk to him.

I know my sin.

There's no way he wants me to spend time with him.

I know what I've done.

I know who I am, I know my thoughts, I know that there's why would he ever want to spend time with me?

And it's like, this is what he wants with you.

This is who he is.

And so prayer for us, we have to see it like that.

You have to see it as the safest place that you can possibly go.

David understood that.

He's like, where can I hide?

Like, it's like, oh, the Lord is my refuge.

He is my rock, he's my fortress.

Like he's the one, he's the the one, regardless of my sin or whatever, like he's the one that will never oppress me.

And so for us, we need to pray like that.

We gotta have that as our vision of prayer.

Good Lord, what's happening?

I read that quote all the time.

I do love it.

I think he's wonderful.

All right.

Also, that's that's one side of the prayer part.

The second side of the prayer part is Bartimaeus doesn't just ask for what he wants, but he prays what he's been promised.

He prays a promise that God has given him.

When he says, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me, he is referencing an Old Testament prophecy that said that like one day the Messiah will come from David's line, a root of David will arise.

And when that person comes, a bunch of things are gonna take place and it's gonna be awesome.

And so one of the one of the prophecies about this person, the son of David that's coming, says this.

It says, Be strong and do not fear, because your God will come to you and he will come to save you.

And then notice, then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.

And so, for Bartimaeus, he's praying in line with that promise.

He's like, I know that our God has come and has come to save us in the form of Jesus.

Jesus is God who has come to save us.

He is Emmanuel, God with us, and he has come to save us.

And I know that when he comes, that eyes are supposed to be opened.

And so he's rolling in there going, like, eyes need to be opened.

Like, do the thing that you promised.

I know this is fulfilled in you, and I know that you are the person that it was promised that when you show up, a bunch of things are gonna start happening.

And one of those things is blind people would see, I'm a blind person that I'd like to see.

And so he's not just asking specifically, like just what he wants, he's also claiming a promise that God has given him.

And for us, I think sometimes we just live in the world believing that life is just gonna go a certain way, that it's supposed to go.

Um, and we just like, well, it's just left to fate or the chances or something like that.

And it's like, but there's a space in here where we're supposed to see that we can pray for God's kingdom to come, we can pray for his will to be done, and Jesus actually tells us to do that.

Pray the things that are promised to you to happen.

Pray that my kingdom happened more in your life than the dominion of darkness happened in your life.

Pray that my will and what I want to see happen, what I promised will happen.

Pray that those things will come to bear on your life and in the world because I want to see those things happen too, but you do need to pray for those things.

Spurgeon says this, he says, it glorifies God for us to use his promises.

God sent his promises on purpose to be used.

Nothing pleases God better than to see his children or his promises put in circulation.

He loves to see his children bring them up to him and say, Lord, do as you have said.

Plead the promises of God.

Open your Bible, put your finger on the passage and say, Lord, this is your word, fulfill it to me.

This is the kind of praying that has never yet been met with repulse.

I love that.

That kind of praying.

It sounds bold and it sounds a little arrogant, but it's not.

It's like you have promised and you're faithful, and I don't think you're a liar.

And so do the thing that you said, because you're not a liar, you're faithful.

And so for us, the prayer part, pray what you have unfiltered, pray what you got.

But then also pray the things that have been promised to you, because God is faithful to do those things.

All right, last.

The faith part.

The faith part.

Jesus says, go, verse 52.

Go, your faith has healed you.

And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Jesus says in this passage that it was his faith that made the difference.

Your faith has healed you.

We've talked about faith before a number of weeks ago, weeks ago, we talked about it, but I want to talk about it again and show it to you again.

Faith, faith according to the scriptures, always makes a difference.

It always changes things.

Faith always makes a difference.

But faith is not just believing something, which is what most people think.

I have faith in that, I just believe a thing.

No, that's not what it is.

Faith always changes things in the scriptures, but it's not just believing in something.

Faith is always in the scriptures seen as this it is belief plus action.

That's what faith is.

Belief plus action.

And so you see this uh in Mark V with the uh woman um with the issue of blood that she was dealing with for 12 years.

She had this belief that if I just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed.

But that belief didn't heal her.

She still was unhealed.

She still had the issue, she was still dealing with it.

She believed all I gotta do is do this crazy thing and touch the hem of his garment, but that belief did not heal her.

It wasn't until she took her belief and then put action and paired it with action and actually went and did the thing that she experienced faith making a difference in her life.

Faith is not simply a belief, it is a belief that it's then paired into an action and done.

And so you see that happening in Bartimaeus' life.

He believed, this is why he's shouting, he believes.

I believe Jesus is a son of David.

I believe that my eyes can be, can be opened, but they're not yet.

Still hasn't happened.

Then uh he cries out, they tell him to be quiet, he shouts all the louder.

His belief is pretty strong.

I'll I'll I believe this so much, I'm willing to endure people yelling at me and telling me to be quiet.

But that belief still, he still can't see.

Jesus calls him, he gets up and goes to Jesus, still unable to see.

And then eventually, finally, he gets to the point where his belief is expressed in action by asking for what he wants.

And then that belief paired with that action equals faith, and faith makes a difference.

And I'm not trying to do math, I'm just trying to really show you that those two things really, really matter.

It's great to believe things, it's important to believe things, but belief doesn't make the difference.

It's faith that makes that difference.

It's belief paired with action, or as James says, your faith without doing, your faith or your belief without doing is dead.

It is dead.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.

And so it doesn't do those, it's great to believe those things.

And he says the demons believe that there is one God.

They also believe that, but it's not shifting things, it's not doing what's doing is making them tremble, they're terrified.

But that belief isn't shaping their hearts and shaping their lives.

And the same for us, if you believe something, that's great.

However, belief in action is what faith is, and faith always makes a difference according to the scriptures.

And it's important for us to see that.

Jesus, when he he calls this man to him, and if he had said, No, I'm not acting, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put my belief into action, I'm not gonna get up and come to you.

If he doesn't do that, then he misses out.

I believe you can heal me, but I'm not gonna get up and come to you.

Then the story closes in a no miracle.

If he gets to, Jesus says, What do you want me to do for you?

And if he goes, Look, man, aren't you God?

Or do you have eyes to see?

Because I don't, like, can you not, like, I'm not asking for this?

Like, I'm not, why are you making me ask?

I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna ask.

Then again, it seems likely that it's like, okay, you don't have to, I'm not gonna force it on you.

But if you will take your belief and you will put it into an ask question, if you will ask for it, something different will happen for you, and something different does happen for him.

But if he had refused to act, his story would have been very, very different.

Believing things about Jesus is great, but it is belief paired with action that makes a difference.

This version again says this.

It says, whether we like it or not, asking in prayer is the rule of the kingdom.

Ask and you shall receive.

It is a rule that will never be altered in anybody's case.

Even for our Lord Jesus, this rule has not been relaxed.

Remember this text.

God says to his own son, Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.

And he says, if the royal divine son cannot be exempted from the rule of asking that he may have, then you and I cannot either.

Therefore, if you may have everything by asking in his name and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital asking in prayer actually is.

Belief without action is dead, faith without works is dead, but faith actually really does always make a difference.

And so there's this space in his life where we're encouraged to see that like, take your belief and place it with action and allow that thing to actually lead to something because it will make a difference.

I don't know exactly what it's going to do every time, and I'm definitely not prosperity gospeling you and saying, if you just believe that he can heal whatever, then he will.

I don't know that he will do that.

He didn't, he Jesus prayed something and God said no.

Paul prayed something and God said no.

And so I know that's a possibility in there, and that's that's a part of it.

And I also believe that he can do those things.

And so I don't know exactly what the faith will do all the time, but I do know that consistently in the scriptures, belief paired with action always makes a difference.

Something always shifts, something always changes.

He responds to our faith.

But belief not paired with action is just something that you think.

But belief paired with action is faith, and it always does something.

Jesus is not going to force his goodness upon us.

He waits.

Randy said this last week and I really liked it.

He waits for consent.

He waits to be wanted and he waits to be asked.

And so we need to practice, we need to practice faith by acting on our beliefs, the things that we believe, putting those things into action.

And so today I actually want to do that.

So, worship team, y'all can come on up.

Um, I want us to practice faith by actually taking some of the things that we believe and putting them into action.

And so, for you, uh, instead of going directly into communion like we normally do after the sermon, um, the way the service normally goes is we go into communion and then we have a time of a song and response and prayer.

And I just want to flip that.

And I want us to have a space where we're going to stand and sing together and then respond to what God is hopefully doing in your life or saying to you or wanting things from you, or you're wanting things from him that he's stirred in you from this.

And we'll have our prayer team on the left and the right, our elders and our pastors on the left and the right, where we'd love for you to stand up and respond.

And so, for you, if you are someone who's experiencing persecution, if you have friends or co-workers or people in your life, um in your family, that they just look at your faith and they find it annoying.

And you're just like, I honestly, it would, life would be easier if they just believed the way that I believe.

Life would be so much easier if they actually believed the same way.

If they believed the same stuff.

If they didn't find it annoying, but actually believed it.

He loves to do that.

He loves to take people who are who persecute Christians and find them annoying and actually turn them from people who are finding it annoying to people who find it beautiful.

And so if that's you, I encourage you to go find someone.

Actually, prayer team and everybody, elders and pastors, go ahead and do that.

Just go to the sides here, that'd be great.

Um, but I'd love for you to go and ask for someone to pray for you and say, Would you like, yeah, I'm experiencing that just with my coworkers or my family.

I'm experiencing that with my friends.

Or maybe like your faith, you're being persecuted, and what it's doing is it's making you like hide your faith.

And you're like, I honestly, I'm I'm not Bartimaeus.

I didn't get louder.

I responded to persecution the other way, and I got quieter.

And so if that's you, like you just need the fear of man broken over your life.

And so just go and ask somebody to pray that for you.

Like, would you just replace the fear that I have of living my faith out?

Would you, would you ask him to help me have a spirit of strength and courage and not one of fear?

Ask for that.

And then if you're somebody who just like might maybe just needs prayer, like if Jesus were literally standing next to you, saying right now, and he's like, hey, what do you want me to do for you?

And for you, it's like right, it's immediate.

You know exactly what that thing is.

I know I want him to do this.

I'm dealing with this in my family, I'm dealing with this with my son, my child, I'm dealing with this in my work, my business, my whatever, in my life, my mental health, what, whatever.

On the top of your brain, it's like, it's like if he were to ask, ask for whatever you want.

What do you want?

And you know what that is, then I would just encourage you to go to go to someone and ask them to pray that for you and just to carry that burden with you.

We want to do that.

We want to pray with you, we want to pray for you.

And I believe he is asking, what do you want me to do for you?

And I would just encourage you.

One, it can be awkward to express your faith by standing up and going to get somebody to pray for you.

It's also awkward to shout out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And people might look at that and be like, oh my gosh, they're going over there.

I wonder what's going on with them.

Maybe.

But it ain't gonna kill you.

And the truth is, the person who's saying that probably has more going on in their life than to what's going on in yours.

No judgment.

But my point is, is like it can be awkward, and it was awkward for him.

And if he would have just let the awkwardness leave him on his butt sitting in the ground, then he would have missed out on what Jesus actually wanted to do in his life.

And so my encouragement to you is to like, if you believe he can, then allow what you believe he can do, be something that you place in action and go receive prayer and ask him to do that thing.

You can also do it from your seat.

But I believe he rewards those who earnestly seek him because he says he does in his word.

And so my encouragement to you during this song is that you would.

Just everybody's gonna be standing up singing.

But go and find someone and ask them, would you pray for this person in my family or in my life that's persecuting my faith that thinks it's stupid?

Would you pray that he changes their heart like he did Paul?

Would you do this thing?

Would you ask him to do this thing in my family?

Put your faith into action.

So let's stand together.

I'm gonna pray for us, and then I would just encourage you to respond.

But let me pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for the example of Bartimaeus.

Thank you that there's this space where people yelled at him to be quiet.

Do not express your faith.

Do not cry out to Jesus.

Like the enemy is just using people to keep us silent.

And there are needs that we have and needs that you want to heal, and things that you want to do.

But even in our hearts and in our minds right now, there's things saying, do not go.

Do not express that faith.

Do not cry out to Him.

God, I pray that you would just move by your Spirit in their hearts just to one step, just to move towards asking you to do the things that you do want to do, these things that you promise to do.

You want to be near to the brokenhearted, you want to bless us abundantly.

There are things you have for us, but we just need to ask.

Ask and you will receive.

And so, God, I pray that we would see this time as what Richard Foster said, just this vision of prayer is being scooped into the arms of your father and allowing him to sing his song of love over you.

God, will we experience that today?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.