I Want to See

It's the start of a new decade.

It's 2020.

And so we're starting a series that's gonna last about a month called 2020 Vision.

And I want to say this on the forefront.

I know it's so cheesy.

I get it.

It's not lost on me.

I bet there's 5,000 churches in America doing a series called 2020 Vision.

It's just that sometimes you have to go with what's obvious.

You know, and I can't think of another year in my life that will be like an obvious thing.

You know, like 2030, what's that?

That's nothing.

2040, 2050.

I can't think of anything else.

If it was 1999, we'd be doing a series called Let's Party Like It's 1999, and we talk about celebration and joy.

If it was 2001, clearly, 2001, a faith odyssey, that would be great.

But that's not the year we're in.

We're in 2020, and so we're gonna go with what's obvious for a few weeks and talk about this concept of 2020 vision.

If you're unfamiliar, which I don't really any of us are, 2020 vision means clear vision.

If you have 2020 vision, you see things clearly.

And so we're gonna talk for the next few weeks about what it can mean for us to have 2020 vision in our lives, to see what God would want us to see.

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where your vision was taken away from you, it was impaired in some way.

That can be a really scary situation.

Growing up, I lived in a lot of different places.

I had the unique experience of living in the South, but also living in the North.

And so I spent some years living in Wisconsin.

And uh I went to college and spent my early out-of-college days in Kansas City, Missouri, which is pretty far north.

Any people have lived in the north, like up there?

I'm not talking Kentucky, okay?

I'm talking like not north of Georgia, the north.

So if if you raised your hand, that means you probably know how to deal with snow.

And I mean like snow.

I don't mean Georgia, one-inch dusting that shuts a city down for a week, type snow.

You know, like even just the news that it might snow in Georgia, it's all it's if you've lived up north, it's funny.

It's like, really?

And everyone runs to the store and they get bread and milk.

Two foods that expire very quickly.

And so if your power goes out, you you need like tuna cans.

That's what you need.

But everyone shows, hey, it might snow, and and I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about real, legit snow.

How many of us have dealt with that in our lives?

Yes.

Driving in real snow is a challenging experience.

Like you have to learn how to do it.

And you can find yourselves in some really difficult circumstances really fast.

In 2004, Megan and I were driving from Kansas City, Missouri to visit my parents about four hours south, and we got caught up in basically a blizzard.

And we experienced something that some of you may have been in before called whiteout conditions.

And if you've never been in a whiteout, this is what it looks like.

You're driving, and it's just everything's white.

Like everything.

You can't see where the road ends because its snow has covered the ground so fast and it's snowing so hard, and the wind is blowing that you really can't even discern with your eyes where like the air begins and the ground ends.

It's very disorienting, okay?

And so we were in that.

And we were in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, on a highway.

We were in a place going through a town called Humansville, Missouri, which, by the way, ironically, very few humans live there, right?

Um, and it was it was terrifying because I was pretty young and I hadn't, I'd driven in some snow, but I hadn't been in something quite like that.

And it was a two-lane road, and and I'm like, what are we gonna do?

Thankfully, there was a car in front of us, and the car had an Iowa license plate.

And I was like, this person has probably been in this situation before.

And I just I just hung on to that person because my visibility was about 10 feet.

So we're going about five miles an hour, and I'm right behind this person from Iowa who was probably like, get off, but I'm like, you're the only hope I have.

You're it, you know?

And and and if that if that car from Iowa had driven off a cliff, I'd be dead.

Like we would have just been like, oh, we're going with you, we're there together.

We'd be standing in heaven.

I'm like, I thought from Iowa, you'd know what you're doing, but you didn't.

Now I'm dead.

It was scary.

It's it's actually a terrifying thing when you can't see.

One of the toughest realizations in life is the realization that we don't really see straight.

You know, we we don't have 20-20 vision.

Sometimes that's circumstantial, sometimes that's because life throws us surprises, and we find ourselves in scenarios that we really didn't expect to be in.

We don't have a category for, and we're going, what do I do?

I don't I don't know what to do.

I'm flying blind.

And so we're just trying our best to make whatever decision we think is right in that moment.

We don't know what to do.

We don't see straight.

And here's the thing: even when we we have a life that's going really well, even when the circumstances are great, we have to realize and be humble enough to go, even in those situations, we don't have 20-20 vision.

We don't have perfect foresight, we don't have the ability to really understand what's happening.

Paul said as much in 1 Corinthians 13.

And this is Paul, he wrote like most of the New Testament.

He said, Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror.

In those days, mirrors weren't like they are today.

It wasn't, you didn't get a clear reflection.

Mirrors were almost like funhouse mirrors.

Think of that.

They were they were polished metals, and you would see very dark but very distorted images back.

That's what he's talking about.

That's how we see.

But then talking about the life to come, we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely just as God knows me.

This is Paul saying, Look, none of us have 2020 vision.

But here's the problem with that vision's kind of important.

There's a very famous proverb in the King James Version.

We don't use a lot of King James, but uh, but in the King James Version, it's Proverbs 29.18, it says, Without vision, the people perish.

And God does not want you to perish.

God does not want your 2020, he doesn't want the next decade of your life to be a decade spent where you don't see straight.

But we have to understand that we we don't.

None of us have 2020 vision, but the beauty is God does.

So while we might not have that, we have Him.

And we have the ability to live connected to Him.

And if we live connected to our God, who sees everything as it is and as it will be, He sees you as you are and as you could be.

When we live connected to Him, we have the ability to see in ways that we couldn't see without Him.

In fact, Jesus, the one we follow, has this pretty awesome reputation for giving people sight when they can't see.

So what we're gonna do for the next few weeks is explore what it what it looks like to live so connected to Him that we grow in our ability to have vision.

His vision.

That means his wisdom, his understanding, his discernment, his ability to navigate whatever situation you're in.

There's an interesting story in Luke chapter 7.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus, and he's a prophet who's kind of like a precursor to Jesus.

He went around telling people that the Messiah, the one that the Jewish people were expecting had been promised in Scripture, was going to come from the line of David, who was a king in ancient Israel, that the Messiah was about to show up.

Everyone better get ready for the Messiah.

And then Jesus arrives on the scene, and John said, There he is.

In fact, a few of Jesus' first disciples were originally disciples of John.

And then John pointed to Jesus and he's like, That's the Lamb of God.

And they went, Cool, bye, John.

And they went and they hung out with Jesus, which was the right thing to do.

John the Baptist was all about Jesus.

But like a lot of us, and I can't speak to this with perfect certainty at all because I'm not God, I don't know what was in John's mind, you get the impression that when Jesus arrived and stepped onto the scene, John thought things were gonna go really smoothly from that point on.

There's this idea that a lot of us have that whenever God's really with you, things go smoothly.

And I don't know where anyone gets that idea.

It's definitely not from the Bible.

I'll tell you that.

Like if someone's like, yeah, you commit your life to God and everything just goes smoothly, no problems.

I'm like, what stories have you read?

Because that is not, that's not what God ever promises us, but what he does promise is the strength to endure.

Jesus says, in this life you will have many troubles, but take heart, I've overcome the world.

And so that's what we have.

But yet we still get this idea that, like, no, no, no, when God's with us, everything's gonna go great.

And that isn't what happened for John once Jesus stepped onto the scene.

He ends up getting arrested, he's in prison, and he's he's kind of like in a whiteout condition.

He's in a snowstorm, and he's like, I don't know what's going on.

And so he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask a question.

We see this in Luke chapter 7, starting in verse 20.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

It says, John's two disciples found Jesus and said to him, John the Baptist sent us to ask, are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?

It's like, woo.

I love that question, by the way.

Are you the Messiah we've been expecting?

One of the things that we've got to do, if look, if we're gonna be followers of God, we have to understand that God is not subject to our expectations.

And that is a very good thing, by the way.

Because if God was subject to our expectations, we would we would see him do far less than he does.

Because most of the time we expect too little of God.

But but God is not like we expect him to be most times.

So I love that question.

Are you the one we've been expecting?

And it's almost like Jesus is like, yeah, probably not, but I'm the one.

If you'll follow me, if you'll trust me, you'll see.

Jesus responds in just a moment.

At first it says in verse 21, at that very time, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, their illnesses, evil spirits.

He restored sight to many who were blind.

And then he told John's disciples, go back to John and tell them what you've seen and heard.

The blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life, and the good news is preached to the poor.

And he added, God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.

In other words, he's saying, John, stick it through, man.

Like, don't quit.

But I find it interesting that the very first thing Jesus says as a defense or proof positive that he is the Messiah is that the blind see.

That's the first thing he leads with.

By the way, in that description of the things that Jesus does is raising dead people to life.

Now, giving sight to the blind, that's impressive.

Taking dead people and making them alive again, more impressive, less impressive.

Like, what do you guys think?

More or less?

I'd lead with that.

If I'm Jesus, I'm like, that guy was dead, he's alive.

Do you need to see anything else?

All right, fine.

Here's a blind person.

Now they see.

You know?

Leprosy?

What?

What else do you need to see?

Like, that's what I go with.

But Jesus leads with the blind see.

So the first thing he says is evidence that yeah, he is the one that John suspected he was.

Jesus is always giving sight to the blind.

If you read the stories of Jesus, it's like a common thing that happens.

In fact, there's a story of a blind man named Bartimaeus in Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

And this man he teaches us a really key idea that all of us need to grab a hold of.

That is so huge for the rest of our year, for the rest of our lives.

He's a blind man.

We see a story in Mark 10, verse 46, is where it begins.

Mark 10:46

It says, They reached Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples left town, a large crowd followed him.

A blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting beside the road.

And when Jesus heard, when Bartimaeus rather heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

Be quiet.

Many of the people yelled at him, but he only shouted louder.

And when Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, Tell him to come here.

So they called the blind man.

Cheer up, they said.

Come on, he's calling you.

Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus asked.

My rabbi, the blind man said, I want to see.

And Jesus said to him, Go, for your faith has healed you, and instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.

It's a really, really cool story.

And there's some beautiful moments in this story.

So important when we read scripture to like, man, picture it.

Put yourself in that situation.

Like if you're a Jesus follower, if you're someone who's like, no, no, Jesus is awesome.

He's He's it for me.

Imagine the idea of you standing in front of Jesus and hearing Jesus say to you, What would you like me to do for you?

Church, can can I just suggest that that's the situation that you are in right now?

That our God is more willing to give than we are to ask.

And we don't we don't typically picture ourselves as being in front of our king and our king looking at us and saying, What do you need?

How can I help you?

How can I serve you?

How can I bless you?

But that's his heart.

Jesus was not acting out of character when he decided to ask Bartimaeus, What can I do to help you?

That was what Jesus did all the time.

That's what he still does because he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And so if you need something today, if you haven't gone to Jesus, I would just say, Why?

Go to him.

There's nothing he can't do.

You ask him, and then yes, you submit to his will, and sometimes he goes about things a different way than you would like, but man, you got to take your needs to him.

He looked at Bartimaeus and said, Bartimaeus, what can I do for you?

And Bartimaeus goes with the obvious, because sometimes you got to go with the obvious.

He says, I want to see.

I want to see.

And Jesus gave him what he needed.

Now this story is kind of ironic.

Because even though even though Bartimaeus can't see, he isn't blind.

He had tremendous spiritual insight.

There's an interesting scripture in Ephesians 1, verse 18.

Ephesians 1:18

Paul wrote, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you and the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.

Okay?

The eyes of your heart.

The idea of having spiritual insight, having wisdom and discernment, recognizing what God is up to, who God who God really is.

Bartimaeus has that in spades because he recognizes who Jesus is.

When he hears that Jesus is near, he shouts, Son of David, son of David.

And that was a declaration of royalty.

Because again, I mentioned this a few minutes ago, the Messiah was prophesied to come from the line of David, this ancient king in Israel.

And to call someone son of David, that was that was royalty, that was kingship.

And so this man wasn't just going, Jesus, Jesus.

He didn't say Jesus of Nazareth.

He said, Son of David.

He's saying, I know who you are, I've heard the stories, I'm not blind.

I can't see, but I'm not blind.

You're the Messiah.

And he did it with such passion that even though there was a whole crowd of people silencing him, he didn't stop, and Jesus heard him.

I wonder sometimes if we miss out on blessings because we just don't go to God with the kind of passion, the kind of reckless abandon that a man like Barnamaus does, because he wasn't like, um, excuse me, Jesus, um, excuse me, son of son of David.

I'm sorry.

He's like, son of David.

And everyone's saying, shut up, and he's like, You shut up, son of David.

Like, come on.

We can go to God with that kind of intensity, and we should more often than we do.

He recognized who Jesus was.

Even though he couldn't see, he wasn't blind.

In fact, before Jesus heals him, Bartimaeus was in far better shape than many of the people in Jesus' day.

Like, take for example the Pharisees, the religious leaders.

Those dudes were blind.

Because they had Jesus right in front of their eyes.

And they saw him do miracles, and they saw him heal people, and they they couldn't get it.

They just couldn't get it.

That he was that he was of God.

Jesus says as much in Matthew chapter 15.

Matthew 15 · chapter mention

The disciples come to Jesus, and this is like one of my favorites.

They ask him, Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?

As if they expect Jesus to go, I did?

Oh no, not the Pharisees, you know?

And Jesus goes, he's so blunt.

Every plant not planted by my heavenly father will be uprooted, so ignore them.

They are blind guides leading the blind.

And if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.

That's pretty direct.

And if if you're like, yeah, but Jesus didn't say that to their face, read Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

Jesus is bold.

I love Jesus.

He's so bold.

In Matthew 23, you learn really quickly that Jesus is not afraid of offending people because he starts talking to the Pharisees, and it's almost like he's going, What else haven't I said that could upset them?

Oh, and multiple times in Matthew 23, he calls them blind.

He calls them blind because they were.

Just not physically.

They were spiritually blind.

In fact, we see this happen in another story about Jesus healing a blind man in John.

And this story is great.

Jesus heals this blind man, we don't know his name.

And the Pharisees, they hear about this, and this is a problem for them.

You would think that the godly leaders would be excited that miracles are happening.

But no, because they've already created this narrative about Jesus, and that's that Jesus is evil and horrible and he's not from God, and people should stay away from him.

The problem is, evil people don't tend to heal other people of things that you can't fix and then not ask for anything in return.

And so when Jesus does miracles and serves people and heals people, it really affects their narrative, and they don't like that because the movement of Jesus is threatening to them.

Like, the greatest movements are never started by people in power.

That's why you gotta be so careful about what people in power promise, because people in power don't create movements.

Movements change everything, and people in power want to stay where they are.

The greatest movements come from the bottom up.

By the way, that is why, this wasn't in the first service, but look, that is why, as Americans, we gotta stop believing that the way we we like change America is to get the right people at the top.

No, like the movement of Jesus is a bottom-up movement.

It's like worry about your neighbor, the people you work with, the people you go to school with.

Start there.

Start there.

I'll tell you this: that the a big movement of Jesus is not gonna start on Facebook with complaints, that's for sure.

So, like, don't even, that's not where it's gonna begin.

It's never gonna be like this one person sounded off on Facebook, and that's when it all started going well.

Like, no, no, no, no.

No, it's a bottom-up thing.

And the Pharisees, they don't want a bottom-up movement because they're at the top.

And so they try to squash this thing.

They bring the blind man in, they grill him, they're trying to get him to say something that will make them like justified in casting Jesus aside, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't give him anything good.

They bring the guy's parents in, and the parents are just like, we don't know anything.

We weren't there, you should ask our son.

They just throw him under the bus.

And so they bring him in a second time.

John chapter 9, verse 24.

John 9:24

For the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, God should get the glory for this, because we know this man, Jesus, is a sinner.

Ironically, Jesus is God.

They just don't know it yet.

I don't know whether he's a sinner, the man replied, but I know this.

I was blind.

Now I can see.

But what did he do?

They asked.

How did he heal you?

Look, the man exclaimed, I told you once, didn't you listen?

Why do you want to hear it again?

Do you want to be his disciples too?

And then they cursed him and said, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know God spoke to Moses.

We don't even know where this man came from.

Why, that's very strange, the man replied.

It's almost like he's saying, Are you blind?

He healed my eyes, and yet you don't know where he comes from.

We know that God doesn't listen to sinners.

Now, look, when this guy says this, just know, he's repeating the words of the Pharisees.

See, he he has begged his entire life right outside of the synagogue, because that's where you would expect to find generous people, or you should.

And so he's heard these Pharisees teach and they have taught over and over again that God does not listen to sinners.

God doesn't listen to sinners.

And so he's like, You say all the time that God doesn't listen to sinners, right?

But but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will.

Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind.

If this man were not from God, he couldn't have done it.

And then they say, You were born a total sinner, are you trying to teach us?

And they threw him out of the synagogue.

Now, when Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, Do you believe in the Son of Man?

And the man answered, Who is he, sir?

I want to believe in him.

And this is what's interesting.

If you read the story in John 9, this healing's kind of different.

Jesus heals this man's blindness, but at first the man's eyes are just like fuzzy.

Like he can see things, but it's just all kind of hazy.

And it's not until just a little while after that that his sight gets clear.

So even though Jesus healed him, he he didn't see Jesus' face, not yet.

He's like, I want to believe in him.

You have seen him, Jesus said.

And he's speaking to you.

And then it's like it clicks.

The guy he hears the voice, he's like, Oh my gosh, it's you.

Yes, Lord, I believe, the man said, and he worshiped Jesus.

And then Jesus told him, I entered this world to render judgment, to give sight to the blind, and to show those who think they see that they are blind.

Now, some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, offended, Are you saying we're blind?

And this is so great.

Like, guys, Jesus is the best.

He's so nuanced and he's clever and he's really funny.

And what he does here is like he he at first he's kind of like, No, you're not blind.

But then here comes the punch.

He said, No, if you were blind, you wouldn't be guilty.

But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.

Oh.

In other words, you're blind, but you're blind.

That's what he's getting at with the Pharisees.

Your problem is not that your blind is that you don't recognize that you are.

You think you see clearly, but you don't.

And so it's like your pride has made you blind on purpose.

You are willfully blind.

Far more blind than Borderman is everyone.

Because even though Warterma isn't blind.

Over the next few weeks, I really want to encourage us to be together.

Unless you're out of town, like be here on Sunday morning.

It would be amazing to have a year where we just we're together on a weekly basis.

And then like February we're like church.

And then May we're like church.

And then December we're back to church.

So it's not because you need church.

You need Jesus.

And the truth is that's all we focus on here.

Very practical things we can do on an ongoing basis.

We need to be like one of the goal.

Jesus, I need vision that comes from you.

I need vision for my family vision.

Jesus, I need vision for my job, vision for what I'm doing in my studies.

I need vision for my relationships.

Jesus, I need vision for my community, I need vision for my church.

I don't have 2020 vision.

I am I am blind.

I need you to restore my sight.

That's what we need to do.

Just go up to Jesus this morning in our hearts and say, Jesus, I want to see.

And I'm telling you, when you do that, when you mean that, when you have the humility to go before God and say, You're Jesus, you have the vision, just give it to me.

It's a game changer for your life.

That'll change your 2020, that'll change your next decade.

When you stop living dependent on your vision, and you start asking God to give you sight.

Lord, I want to see.

I want to see.

We don't have 2020 vision.

You know, you know that phrase that says hindsight is 2020.

It's not.

It's not.

That phrase isn't even accurate because there's all kinds of things that happened to us 10 years ago, and we still can't make sense of it.

We're like, I still don't know how that went the way that it went.

That doesn't make any sense.

The only person who has 2020 vision, the only person who sees anything with real clarity, it's God.

But he loves us.

He loves you.

And here you are, and you're blessed enough to be alive at the beginning of a new decade.

And can you imagine the things that God might have for you in the next 10 years?

Can you imagine the things that He may want to bless you with?

One thing is clear.

In the next decade, there will be surprises.

There will be surprise blessings.

There will be things so good, and you couldn't have seen it coming if you wanted to.

But there will be surprise challenges.

Jesus doesn't really get surprised.

Like God doesn't really get surprised.

There's a few times in scripture where where God expresses surprise.

There's a few times in the Old Testament where he's like, Man, I didn't, I didn't think you guys would stoop that low.

He says that a couple times.

And there were a few times in in Jesus' ministry where he was surprised by the faith that people had or didn't have.

But most of the time, like the vast majority of the time, God is like, yeah, kind of saw this coming.

Did you know that you offended the Pharisees?

Yeah.

He has He has perfect vision.

And so this morning, if you're a Jesus follower, if you've made that commitment to Jesus, then this year, man, just cling to Him.

Rely on Him.

Follow Him.

Like follow Him.

Follow Him.

Like I was following that car with the Iowa license plate.

You know?

And we follow him close.

Like if that car had had a license plate from Georgia, I would have gone like, nope, nope, backing up.

I'm just gonna pull off the road.

That's this person's gonna die.

Uh, and I'm not gonna be like that.

That's what I would have thought.

But but you can cling to Jesus and follow him so closely.

There's no rule that says you must follow from a safe distance, you must follow from afar.

No, no, no.

You follow him.

What did Barnamaeus do the moment that Jesus restored his vision?

He worshiped Jesus and then what?

He followed him down the road.

You think he followed him like a mile away?

Or how much you want to bet Bartimaeus was right there, standing right next to him.

You can be like that with Jesus.

He's real, he's alive.

You can know him, you can seek him out.

Every day you can wake up and pray in his name.

Lord, speak to me.

He talks, you can hear him speak to your heart.

You can.

You can study his word so that when he speaks, you recognize that it's him and not just your emotions.

But there's no reason in this decade to follow him from afar.

No, no, no.

Tail him.

Go where he goes because he has perfect vision and he will not lead you astray.

And if you're here and you don't know Jesus, you haven't given him your life.

I would highly recommend you do.

Because he will change everything.

And you know, one of the challenges is that sometimes we just don't think we need things to change.

We're like, I'm good.

And maybe you are today.

Or maybe you don't even know what good actually is.

See, we live in a world that's obsessed with life improvement.

Everyone's got some way to make your life a little bit better.

You know?

Do this.

Like, that's why dieting is so hard.

Because all the people that want you to never eat another piece of bread or ever have sugar, like, all they do, they maybe they'll live like three more years than you.

Maybe.

And it's like, I don't think that's worth it, you know?

Like, I'll just eat sugar and be in heaven and know what sugar was like, you know?

Then.

But you know what I'm saying?

Like, every every thing that this world, this world often sells us transformation, but it's not transformation, it's just slight improvement.

And sometimes, unfortunately, people take the gospel, the message of Jesus, and they they boil it down into life improvement.

Like, follow Jesus and He'll make you this.

No, throw that away.

Jesus wants to transform you.

He wants to transform your life, He wants to give you a quality of life and a depth of faith that changes everything, doesn't make sense.

I'm not worthy of his love.

None of us are, but he's given it to us.

And I can I can be honest and say, I don't see straight.

That's why I don't have a five-year plan for our church.

Because five years ago, I had no idea where we'd be.

You know, but I I'm gonna live every single day of my life clinging to him, trusting in his vision, not my own.

And if you're here today and you haven't given your life to Jesus, do you want to see?

Are you ready to see?

And if the answer is yes, then you give him your life.

You commit, you pray, I'm yours, I belong to you.

And then the very first thing you do is you get baptized.

It's an act of obedience.

It's an act of obedience.

There was an amazing woman that I was talking to just a few minutes ago, and she is going through a lot, and she expressed to me that she's about ready to get baptized, she just needs to get her feet underneath her, and like once she's got things settled, she's gonna get baptized.

And I was like, that is that's like saying once you're really fit, you're gonna go to the gym.

You know?

Like, you don't have to wait.

It's an act of obedience, it's an act of surrender.

It's you being like Bartimaeus saying, I want what you have, I wanna see.

And if that's where you're at today, then go all in.

Go get signed up today, get baptized, and begin this adventure with Jesus.

It will be an adventure, it will have twists, it will have turns, there will be good times, there will be hard times, but every step along the way, you have him.

And he can see.

He can see.

So, with that said, we actually have two people getting baptized right now, which is awesome.

So I'm gonna shut up and we're gonna we're gonna celebrate as a couple of people go on with Jesus.

Uh, before that, though, would you would you pray with me?

Lord, thank you.

I just feel your spirit in this room right now.

I believe that this is a room full of people who who are like Bartimaeus.

I believe that you're doing something in our hearts this morning, Lord, and that we are recognizing that, yeah, we don't have 20-20 vision, but you do.

We just have to go to you.

So, Lord, thank you for giving us a whole family of people united together, saying that we want to see, we want to see what you see.

We want to see what you see, Jesus.

So show us what you see, give us the vision that we need for our lives.

Lord, we love you.

And we ask that you be with these people going all in with you right now, that you would bless them, that you would make this moment a marked moment in their lives.

That they would they would know that before they go under the water, you you love them completely, that that's not going to change.

That love has already been given.

But they they would know that you're very proud of them, that you're proud of them for obeying you and taking this step, just like Jesus did.

So mark this moment for them, Lord, and help us as a church come alongside them and be there for them to support them in whatever situation they're in, Lord.

We love you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.