“When Jesus Stops” - Mark 10:46-52

Well, if you've got a Bible, we're going to be in Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

I told you in November, we're going to start a series on the church, what the church is.

I always like to tell people we do things the way we do them at Trinity for

a reason. We don't just randomly show up and kind of go, yeah,

we think this would be fun.

And so I want to spend some time going over that.

Travis mentioned something, and actually we ended up talking about it with the

students this morning, that this is Reformation Month.

And so October 31st, 1517 is when Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, dude, where have you been?

Come on, it's really cool.

But I love, and anybody who knows me knows this, I love church history.

I love it. It's one of my favorite things. I spent most of my master's work

studying church history.

And if I could just for a quick minute, tell you why. I love church history

because really it's like the story of my family that I never met.

I think a lot of Christians, especially that live today, we kind of live in

our own bubble and we think that we've figured something out.

And like, this is our church and this is our worship and this is our music and this is our sermon.

This is our pastor. This is how we do things. We have it this way.

And man, we've got it so great. And we think we're really smart.

And then something will go wrong and we'll go, oh my gosh, whatever shall we

do? As if we're the first person to ever face a problem.

We're the first Christians to ever have to deal with something.

The first Christians to deal with drama in the church or dealing with difficult

people or a war that's going on or something like that.

As if we don't have 2000 years of our brothers and sisters in Christ dealing with those things.

And so I always challenge people, if you want to, study church history.

You don't have to go and get the biggest book you can find.

In fact, I have a couple books, this is shocking, that I would be glad to give

you that are very accessible, very easy to read.

But I always challenge people to study that. Number one, it's your family.

These are Christian brothers and sisters who have gone before you.

Number two, and I say this with love because it was my experience,

you walk away from that going, you know, I'm not as smart as I think I am.

I'm really not as important as I think I am.

We haven't figured out some beautiful formula for a church that won't change in a hundred years.

And nothing we're doing now in terms of the songs we're singing or the way we're

doing it or where we're meeting or how we're doing it is sacred.

That really Christ at the center is the only thing that matters.

It's the only thing that has kept the church for 2000 years.

And so, again, this is my spill. I won't do it again except for next week and

the week after that, probably. But study church history.

And if you don't know what the Reformation is, there's a great little two hour

film that you should watch during this season. It's always free during the month of October.

It's called Luther and it's really, really good. So anyway, moving on, Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

And blind Bartimaeus. Mark's interesting in that right after this story,

we have the triumphal entry.

And so in Mark's gospel, it feels very abrupt to go from Jesus just walking

around, doing some healings and things like that. And then boom,

we're at the triumphal entry, but that's how Mark's written. It's quick.

But I want to point out to you something here that I think people need to know.

I think you need to recognize when you read Mark is that as always,

none of these stories are put in there haphazardly.

And it can often be like, when you get to a story like this,

well, we've talked about divorce and we've talked about the rich young man and

we've talked about the request of James and John. Those just seem like really important stories.

And now he's going to heal another blind guy. I've seen Jesus do this.

Let's just move on to the trial and for entry. That's a really cool story.

We can have the kid bring palm ranches in and we can walk a donkey in here. We won't, but we could.

And I think it's really important to understand that this is the bookend of a section of Mark.

As always a reminder, your chapters and your verses in your Bible are not given

to you by the Lord. They're not written that way. Mark's a letter.

That's a gospel. It's written to be dispersed and it's written to be read like

one. And this is really the bookend of a section that started in Mark chapter eight.

And so if you would turn with me to Mark chapter eight to give you a background of what's going on here.

Really, the midpoint of the book happens in the middle of chapter 8.

The climax of the book happens in the middle of chapter 8, where Peter confesses

the Christ. He confesses that Jesus is who he says he is.

Remember, Jesus asked him, who do you say that I am? And Peter goes,

well, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Christ responds,

blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal to you,

but my Father who is in heaven.

And from that point on, Jesus begins to show them things and do things with them.

That is supposed to inform them not only about who he is, but how they should

live in light of who he is.

Interestingly enough, no matter what Jesus seems to do, they don't get it.

There's the Mount of Transfiguration. They come down off of that.

And then they have an argument in chapter nine, verse 33, right? Who is the greatest?

Jesus is telling them, I am going to be crucified. I am going to be killed.

And if you follow me, your life will mirror that, that you will be killed every

single day. You will lay down your life every single day to do what God asked you to do.

And their response is, okay, but who's the greatest?

Who's the greatest?

Even earlier than that, Jesus feeds 5,000 people and the disciples now out of

bread that he had provided for them wanna know, well, now what do we do that we're out of bread?

And Jesus says, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not perceive or understand?

Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?

And do you not remember that I just fed 5,000 people with basically nothing,

and now you're worried about bread?

There's little children that come running up to Jesus, and the disciples try

and push them away, and Jesus gets really angry at them and says,

listen, unless you come to the.

There's some guy preaching in Jesus's name that's not part of the group that

they're in. And so John tries to stop them from preaching. And Jesus is like,

hey, you don't have a monopoly on what's going on here.

You don't get to tell people what to do. This is not your world. This is my world.

You have the conversation of the rich young ruler that comes up and says,

listen, Jesus, I need to know how I can be saved. I need to know how to inherit

the kingdom of God because I've got a lot to offer you.

I've got a lot of money. I've got a lot of prestige. I've got a lot of followers.

And so Jesus, if you could just tell me what I need to do to be saved,

that would be great. And of course, Jesus says, listen, there's nothing you

can do to be saved, right? He tells him, go out and sell everything you own,

to reveal in his heart. Listen, you're still trying to figure out how you can save yourself.

You're trying to figure out how you can be the greatest, trying to figure out

how you can make everything work to your own ends.

And after all of that happens, we get to Mark 10, and you would think by now,

man, the disciples have probably figured this out.

And last week, we record a conversation where James and John come up to Jesus

and say, hey, we want you to do what we ask. And what is their request?

Let us sit at your right hand and your left hand in glory.

And so Jesus can look at them and go, have you learned nothing?

Two chapters ago, he reminds them, you do not perceive or understand.

And are your hearts hardened?

Having eyes, do you not see? And ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?

And by the time we get to chapter 10 towards the end, that is still true.

That is still true. Now, why is this so important? I think to recap this,

number one, because we're gonna see a blind guy in this story and he happens

to be the only guy in the whole story who can actually see.

There's an incredible irony in Mark telling this story at the end of everything that's happened

because it's if Mark wants people to know that this blind guy on the side of

the road sees Jesus more clearly than even the guys that have walked beside

him for three and a half years.

Again, why is that so important? Because every single one of us lives in East

Texas and we all walk really close to Jesus and we all have touch points with

him and we all can listen to Christian radio and we all can go to Christian

things and see Christian things. We've got the 10 commandments in our classroom

and man, Jesus and God is everywhere.

And I'd say that to say that does not mean anything in regards to your salvation

or being able to actually see Jesus clearly.

It has no bearing on it. The blind guy that we're gonna see in this story has

experienced none of what the apostles or what the disciples at the time have experienced, none.

There's a really good chance he's never personally heard Jesus teach, not once.

He has certainly never seen Jesus do a miracle. Even if he was present,

he couldn't have seen it.

He was not at the Mount of Transfiguration. He was not at any of these things.

He didn't experience any of these moments.

And yet he is the one in the story that Mark wants us to know he gets it.

He gets it. And these guys still don't.

And I always like to remind us of that because we can get so inundated in the

fact that, well, listen, man, I wear a cross necklace and I even have a cross

tattoo. And I got baptized maybe five or six times, four times,

whatever. It doesn't matter.

I've prayed. I've given. I've done everything. And I've experienced powerful times of worship.

I've even seen Jesus do a miracle or two. And then we throw up our hands and

go, so I obviously know who Christ is.

And I obviously can look at my life and go, well, yeah, Jesus knows me and I know him.

And Mark wants people to know that's not how this works. That's not how this works.

If there's any part of you that when someone says, why are you a Christian,

that you respond with, well, I, that's the issue.

That's the problem. And the disciples are still doing that.

They're still going up to Jesus and saying, well, I want this and I want to

sit your right and left hand and I want to keep these children at bay because,

man, I'm trying to serve you And I'm trying to make your life easy as if God

needs anything from their hands.

And that's where we find ourselves at the end of Mark 10. So Mark 10,

46, you got a Bible turn there.

If not, cheat off your friends. If not, just listen carefully. All right.

Actually, Bowen hooked you up this morning. It's page 939. If that page is wrong,

it's his fault. Um, yeah.

So it says, and they came to Jericho,

not the exact same Jericho as Joshua fought the battles of Jericho.

And they came to Jericho. It's about the last stop on the way to Jerusalem as

Jesus is on his way to be crucified.

They came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a

great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus,

was sitting by the roadside.

But interestingly enough, this is the only person that Jesus heals that we get their actual name.

We get family members' names and other stories, but this is the only person that we get their name.

Bartimaeus actually just means son of Timaeus. What a simple name, right?

Kids just could have been Bar Brady. You know, that's just son of Brady.

That's just how it works.

Bar Brady II. How does that work for daughters? Bar Kareth. All right.

But we get his name, right? Which is interesting because we just don't have

that anywhere else. Again, it's Mark's way of telling us, hey,

this is an important story.

I honestly believe that what Mark wants to do here is say, hey, here's this guy's name.

If you happen to run across him, ask him, ask him about this story.

This is a real person that you can go and find. You can go and hear their story.

So what does Bartimaeus do? He's this blind beggar. And so a blind beggar,

at this point in time in human history, most likely this would be his life.

As the early morning, as people were going to work, his family or whoever he

lived with would take him to a city center, a city square, a city gate,

and they would drop him off.

And he would spend all day begging for change, begging for money,

begging for food, because if you're blind, you have no way of working.

You have no way of providing for yourself.

You're really no use to society and that's how they treated you.

And so his family or his friends would drop him off there. They would go to

work. And then when they got off work, they'd come back and pick him up and

take him home and he would sleep there.

And then he would go back and do the same thing every day. People would have known who he was.

They would have known his face and they would have seen him so much that they

wouldn't have seen him He was just part of this group of beggars.

That's who Bartimaeus was.

Verse 47, it says, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth passing by,

he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

A term that's only used in Mark one time, this time.

And what does son of David mean? Well, son of David is the title given to the

coming Messiah of God's people.

Reference in 2 Samuel 7, when God comes to David and makes him a promise and

says to him, I will raise up from your offspring an eternal king who will rule

on my throne forever and ever.

And to his dominion, there will be no end.

And this blind Bartimaeus ascribes this title to Jesus. So what does that reveal

about Bartimaeus? exactly what

I said earlier, that he knows and he sees what other people don't see.

He believes what other people don't believe.

This whole crowd and the disciples are around, and yet there's this one blind

beggar that cries out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

Now, part of the reason he said that may have been just to get Jesus' attention.

There's a lot of people calling him Messiah at this point.

There's a lot of people, of course, calling him Jesus and maybe even Savior

of the Jews, right? We're about to see the triumphal entry, and you're going

to see the kinds of things they say, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest,

right? They say a lot of things about him, but at this point,

not everybody's calling him son of David.

So Bartimaeus is like, maybe if I say this, my voice will kind of cut through

the crowd and he'll hear me.

I think that's a logical way of thinking.

Now, what's the response? Verse 48, as per usual, and many rebuked him,

telling him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, son of David,

have mercy on me. Have mercy on me.

It shouldn't be missed that as people rebuke blind Bartimaeus,

he continues to cry out. In fact, he gets louder. He gets louder.

What you see here is a man who knows that this person that's walking by me right now is my only hope.

He is my only chance at mercy.

Now you gotta imagine if you were blind your whole life, you probably tried

every single thing you could try. You tried every experimental treatment.

You tried every single doctor, every single medicinal plant that you can find.

You've done everything you can to try and fix your eyes and nothing has worked.

And now all of a sudden you hear stories about this guy named Jesus that's going

around healing people. And now all of a sudden he's walking by you.

And so you're going to cry out and scream as loud as you can and say whatever

you can to get his attention. But it's interesting that.

Bartimaeus has nothing to offer Jesus. He has nothing to offer him. He's a beggar.

So he's not like the disciples who can say to Jesus, hey, I will follow you

and I'll help you out. And I can really go where you go. And I can be kind of

your enforcer. I can help you make some money or I can go fishing and I can

get you some fish. He's blind.

If he were to come with Jesus, he would have been nothing but dead weight.

And he knows that. He knows that he doesn't offer Jesus or the disciples anything of inherent value.

And the issue with the disciples in the crowd is they think they do.

The issue with so many is they think they do. The issue with you and me is oftentimes

we like to think that what we're doing and what we have to offer offers intrinsic

value to Christ as if he needs us.

Now we're going to get to why that's not true in a minute. And I don't want

you to hear that as if, well, you're of no value, so you're just sick and scum

and don't worry about it. I'll clean that up in a minute.

But what I do just want to note is that Bartimaeus, who again,

knows that he has no value to offer Christ Jesus, rightly calls out for mercy.

And he doesn't try to exchange Christ's mercy for something else.

Jesus, if you do this, I'll do this.

Jesus, if you heal me, I'll give you X amount of dollars.

I'll help you out around the house. I'll do something for you.

He just knows, listen, I have nothing to offer you, Jesus.

I am pleading and begging you for mercy.

One of the greatest verses, I think, in all of Mark is verse 49.

Bartimaeus cries out, son of David, have mercy on me. Verse 49, and Jesus stopped.

And Jesus, the king of the universe who is on his way to be betrayed and beaten

and turned over to the authorities and to be unlawfully accused and crucified and buried.

Here's the cry of a blind man named Bartimaeus and he stops.

He stops.

Why is that such good news? because if you're a Christian, that's true of you too.

That Jesus, as he held the world together, as Colossians would say,

as he literally is keeping the world and the universe in motion,

that when you, at one point in your life, cried out to God for mercy,

Jesus stopped for you and he listened to you and he cared for you,

and he wanted to hear you.

That's good news.

The bad news is the disciples and the crowds don't see it.

They rebuke him and they push him away and they treat him like they treated the little children.

Man, Jesus doesn't have time for some blind beggar, man.

We're on our way to Jerusalem. We're going to Passover. We're a really big deal.

And you can imagine the awkward silence amongst the crowd and the disciples

when Jesus stops and says to them, Hey, can you bring that guy over here?

You can imagine, again, the awkward silence as they're yelling at Bartimaeus,

hey, can you shut your mouth?

Like, it's enough, man. You're screaming at everybody. We got a lot of important

things going on over here. We don't really have time for this right now.

And then Jesus stops and says, hey, can you bring that guy over here?

They have to go to Bartimaeus and say, so as I was saying, he would love to

see you, right? He's really excited to see you. You know, this is a little different.

I was just testing you earlier.

Jesus calls him over, verse 50, it says, and throwing off his cloak,

right? So you again can see this picture of this beggar with a cloak over him. He throws it off.

He sprang up and came to Jesus and said to him, and Jesus said to him,

what do you want me to do for you? Now, that should be a question that,

again, sparks something in your brain, because we asked this exact same question last week.

James and John, who again were on the Mount of Transfiguration,

who saw Jesus in his glorified state, who had heard everything Jesus had ever

said, who had seen every miracle Jesus had ever done, were asked the exact same question last week.

Jesus in chapter 10, verse 36, if you look up just a bit, says,

he said to these men, what do you want me to do?

What do you want me to do for you. And they said, grant us to sit one at your

right and one at your left in your glory.

Say it this way. And they said, just give us what we want.

Give us the job we want. Give us the money we want. Give us the status we want.

Give us the respect that we want.

Man, I just want to be liked by my peers. I want to be respected among people.

I want to live a comfortable life. I want to have things go my way.

Jesus, I want to sit at your left and your right so that I know that my life

will go easy and exactly the way that I want and truthfully,

the way that I think I deserve.

You got to know they're looking at Jesus like, hey, man, we've been walking

around with you for like three and a half years. We left a really lucrative fishing business.

We have put up with a lot of craziness in here. Man, we almost died in this boat.

And then you saw Peter walking on water. That was wild. And then we've been

bombarded by these crowds and we've done everything we can for you.

And so we're asking Jesus, would you allow me to sit at your right and your left?

That's how they think. Again, they think, Jesus, we have done things for you

and therefore you should do things for us.

Not so with blind Bartimaeus, who actually sees Jesus for who he is.

Verse 51, 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.

Bartimaeus first begs for mercy and then requests to be healed.

The disciples don't request mercy.

They request justice. Listen, we think it would be just for us to receive your

right and left hand seats.

Bartimaeus says, I'm not asking, I am begging that you would show mercy and restore my sight.

Do you see how incredible this is that, again, Jesus' disciples don't get it,

still, and this blind beggar correctly calls out, I just want mercy.

I need mercy. Why is that?

I would argue it is because God is already at work in this person of blind Bartimaeus.

Why do I say that? Again, I believe fully that faith is a gift.

Ephesians 2, faith is a gift. It is given.

What does Jesus say to Peter just a few chapters before?

When Peter rightly has faith, when he rightly sees Christ, he says,

Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.

He doesn't say, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because you were smart,

because you figured it out.

Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because, man, I chose you to follow me,

because you saw me do miracles, because you casted out demons,

because you experienced something or said something.

He doesn't say that. He says, blessed are you, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.

So Bartimaeus has had something revealed to him that hasn't been revealed to

the disciples. How do I know that?

Because the disciples don't do what he does.

They don't respond the way that he does.

He cries out for mercy. The blind man says, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.

Jesus said to him, go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

Go your way. Your faith has made you well.

Said earlier, that the problem the disciples make, and I think the problem a

lot of us make, is that we think our good deeds and what we do is for God,

and that it adds something to Him.

And that if we didn't do those things, if we didn't accomplish those things,

that God would be missing out on something.

And the reason I know that we all think like that at times, because when we

do good things, we often look back at God and do what? Well, okay, where's mine?

Where's mine? And then life doesn't go our way.

It doesn't happen the way we want it to happen. Something goes away and then

we look at God and we go, well, that's not fair.

Well, of course it's not fair. It was never fair.

Is it fair that John the Baptist, who is the greatest among men from Jesus's lips,

gets his head cut off for telling a leader that he shouldn't have gotten wrongly

divorced from his wife and married a relative.

Is that fair? Of course not. Is it going to be fair for any of these disciples

besides Judas that their lives will ultimately be filled with people persecuting

them, with the Romans trying to kill them,

with people stoning them, and ultimately all of them succumbing to some sort of persecution?

Even John, who survives most of it, gets kicked out of the city and has to live

on an island of Patmos by himself. Is that fair?

No, it's not fair. Of course it's not fair.

Is it fair that you and I can live a certain kind of life that we believe God

has called us to live, and yet there's evil people in the world who will make

more money and live more comfortably and have better jobs and get more promotions

and be more respected and have nicer things?

Is that fair? Of course it's not fair.

But if we think the way the disciples have been thinking, we will fall into

the trap of looking at God and going, if I do these things, you need to do these things.

If I go to church, if I pray, if I study, then God, I want you to respond in a certain way.

If that's the way we think, we're no better than the disciples.

We're no better than them because when we, again, look at God,

we look at him as kind of a vending machine of, okay, I've put in X amount of good works.

Now let me type in the buttons I want and receive whatever I think I should receive.

Blind Bartimaeus knows this. He is blind and has been since the day he was born.

He is a beggar on a corner, but yet he doesn't look at God and go, God, this is not fair.

This is not fair. Look at all these evil people in this crowd.

Look at all these people who are suppressing you. Look at all these people who

are trying to keep you away from people.

I'm nothing like those people. God, if you love me, God, you would do this.

No, Bartimaeus cries out for mercy because he knows even as a blind beggar,

he has no right to approach the King of Kings, Lord of Lords,

and ask him for anything, for anything,

except, and only in light of the fact that God is merciful and kind and gracious and loving.

God owes you nothing. He offers you his son.

He owes you nothing, yet he offers you his ears.

He owes you nothing, yet he gives you breath and life.

He owes you nothing, and yet all of us can look at something that's happened

last week that was enjoyable, that was fun, that was great for us to be a part of.

But listen, God owes you nothing, and so important, you can do nothing to add

to him or his glory or his mission. Nothing.

Moses and Abraham and David never did anything that God couldn't have done on his own.

Moses doesn't get done delivering the people out of Egypt and look at God and

go, aren't you glad that I was here?

Man, I don't think you could have ever done that on your own.

Right? Abraham doesn't get to the end of his life and look at God and go,

aren't you glad you found me?

If you wouldn't have found me, how could you ever accomplish this?

And David and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Paul and all of these men do not get to

the end of their lives and look at God and go, if God wouldn't have found me,

this wouldn't have happened.

No, the people that need your good works, the people that need what you do,

we talked about this this morning

with students, the people that need that are the people around you.

Your good works, the things that you do are not so that God would have something

he didn't, but so that the people that God would use you, that the people around

you would have something they didn't.

So the people in your life might see a picture of who Christ is,

might see a picture of goodness and graciousness and kindness and patience and long-suffering.

This is why it's such a tragedy when you're in church and people aren't kind

and they aren't gracious and they aren't long-suffering and they assume the worst.

And they think that because you did something mean to them or because they had

something mean done to them that everyone should know and everyone should owe

them something as if Jesus wasn't treated worse than they ever were.

I don't get to assume that I will be treated better than Christ and they killed him.

So I don't get to run around in my life and go, woe is me, man,

these people were mean to me. They didn't do the right thing.

They didn't say the right thing. That person said a naughty thing.

I shouldn't have done that. I don't really like what that person's saying.

And throw my hands up and go, this isn't fair. I don't know why God's treating

me that way. I've been really good. Why?

Look at how blind Bartimaeus reacts. That is the reaction.

That is the actions of a faithful follower of Christ.

Jesus, have mercy on me. I've got nothing to offer.

I've got nothing to bring you.

I've got, there's nothing intrinsically in my life that I can offer you that

makes me worthy to talk to you, that makes me worthy to request something of

you, that makes me worthy of any gift that you might give me,

but I believe that you are merciful

and I believe that you are kind and gracious.

And so Jesus, I am asking you on the basis of your mercy, would you hear me?

And the good news is Jesus stops.

He stops.

Not because Bartimaeus has something to offer him, but because Jesus is merciful,

and he is kind and he is gracious and he is loving.

Jesus stops when his people cry out for mercy and Jesus rebukes his people when

they cry out for whatever they want.

Again, it can't be stated enough that I think what Mark's doing here is trying

to paint a picture of the dichotomy between where Jesus' disciples are and where blind Bartimaeus is.

He asked the exact same question, exact same question.

He's told his disciples, not a chapter before, hey, you're blind.

You got eyes, but you can't see. You got ears, but you can't hear.

You got a mind, but you can't remember.

He's trying to get them to understand, hey, you don't get it.

And then the end of all of this culminates in a blind guy who gets it.

And it's like Jesus is putting him in front of his disciples going, yeah, do you see this?

This is what it looks like to be faithful. This is what it looks like to be

faithful in your life and the way you talk and the way you act.

This is what it looks like to believe in me.

And it is incredibly, again, ironic that the disciples do not get it. They still don't.

We find out after this, they still don't get it. But I think a better question

is, where are we in regards to our faith and how do we talk to Jesus?

Listen, I have no doubt that there are things in your life that have not gone

your way. Some of you way worse than others.

I have no doubt. And I do not ever mean to minimize the things that have gone

on in your life ever. I don't ever want to do that.

Certainly don't ever want to compare them to my own life. I don't want to tell

you to get over it. I don't want to tell you it doesn't matter.

I don't want to tell you to shut up.

I don't want to tell you to stop crying about it. I don't want to tell you any of those things.

I don't think Jesus ever tells people to do that.

I think what he does is he wants to remind his children, this is but for a time.

This is but for a short, short time.

And if you have called on me for mercy, I will answer.

I will answer every call for mercy that comes to my ears.

There is not one person who has ever lived that has called on Jesus for mercy

to which he did not respond.

There are thousands upon thousands of people that live in East Texas that have

called upon Jesus to do something for them because of something they're going

to do for him, and he has not responded. He has not.

And that is an incredibly dangerous thing. And just to put it in terms that

I can be as clear as I can be, there are thousands of people who have said,

Jesus, I prayed a prayer, Therefore, you have to save me. That's how this works.

Jesus, I've been in church for

30 years. If that doesn't call for me for heaven, I don't know what does.

Lord knows if any of us have something to put in front of the Lord right now, it's Kareth, right?

She can't get in front of the Lord and say, listen, I've watched those kids

every week. I'm not complaining, but God, I am owed. I am owed this.

I have given hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars. I have gone to camps.

I have worked denials. I have said the prayer. I have gotten baptized 15 times.

I don't know. Whatever it is, I have done all these things, Jesus.

Therefore, I deserve salvation. And that is how, listen, so many people that

you meet that say they are Christians, that's how they think about Christ.

Well, I just think Christ is a good guy and he's going to reward me for the

things I've done. He will not.

Because there is nothing you can do that warrants salvation.

There's nothing you can do.

You being here this morning does not get you closer to heaven.

Go read your whole Bible in 90 days. Have you ever done Bible in 90 days?

Ridiculous amount of reading. It really is. Okay. It's one of those things when

people are like, yeah, I read my Bible in 90 days every year.

I'm like, Pat, you're lying.

Maybe they're not. Maybe they're not. That's great.

But you can do all of those things. And when you come to Jesus and say,

Jesus, here's why I should be in your kingdom. He's going to go, I don't know who you are.

You never cried out for mercy. You came with a list of things that you've done

thinking that I should respond to that.

See, the only thing that makes Jesus stop is a call of a person that says,

Jesus, I've got nothing to offer you. I've got nothing to bring you.

There is not one dollar, one cent, one action, one thing I can do that should make you respond to me.

I am, like blind Bartimaeus, able to bring you nothing.

I'm asking and begging and crying out over and over again for mercy.

If you have done that, Jesus has stopped and he has saved you.

He has healed you. That is good news.

But please don't fall into the trap of thinking because you did something,

you've earned something, you deserve something. You don't.

And as Christians, for those of us in here would say, that's true.

I've called out to God for mercy. I know that salvation was not of my own doing,

that I received it all of grace, that God did it for me.

Should do well to remember that when we come across the people around us,

even the people in this church.

None of us are above correction. None of us are above doing something mean,

doing something off kilter, doing something that looks a little weird to other people.

And when that happens, we all need to remind ourselves, okay, hold on.

Before I fly off the handle about how unfair it is or how mad it makes me,

how about I remind myself, listen, And if it wasn't for God's mercy and grace,

I wouldn't be here anyway.

Let me close with this. I'm going to read Psalm 116. Not the whole thing.

If you want to turn there, you're welcome to.

I think Psalm 116 is what I wanted you to have in your ears when you left.

I think it encapsulates this story really, really well.

Once Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus, it says that he gets up and follows him.

He gets up and follows him.

Now that Bartimaeus can see, think about the first thing that Bartimaeus ever

saw was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords looking him in the eyes.

He says, I'm gonna get up and follow him. But this is Psalm 116.

I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.

Doesn't just love the Lord for what the Lord's given him, for his life,

for his breath, for the stuff that the Lord's done.

He loves the Lord. We love the Lord because he has heard our voice and our cries for mercy.

Number two, because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him

as long as I live. Salvation does not stop whenever you call on the Lord for salvation.

You will call on the Lord the exact same way for the rest of your life.

Again, don't come to church and barter. Don't open your Bible and barter.

Don't pray and barter. God, I know it's been a while, but I'm here.

You know, it's been gone away.

I lived a certain way, but I listened to KV&E this morning, so I'm doing better.

I think I'm okay now. Don't do that.

Every time you call out to God, whether you've had the holiest week of your

life or you've had the unholiest week of your life, you cry out to God.

God, have mercy. I need mercy.

I did everything right this week, but I know I need mercy.

God, I did everything wrong this week, so I know I need mercy because he inclined his ear to me.

Therefore, I will call on him as long as I live. Verse three,

the snares of death encompassed me.

The pains of Sheol or the place of the dead laid hold on me.

I suffered distress and anguish.

Then I called on the name of the Lord. Oh, Lord, I pray, deliver my soul.

5. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me.

Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

What a prayer. What a prayer.

You having a bad week? Pray that prayer. O soul, would you return?

Oh soul, would you return to your rest? Where is your rest?

Your rest is found in that God has been bountiful with you. He has dealt graciously with you.

And if you've never have any good thing ever happened to you from this day forward,

if you're a Christian, if Christ has redeemed you, then he has dealt bountifully

with you and your soul will find rest if you consider those things.

You know where there's no rest? There's no rest where you work for it.

There's no rest where you have to earn it. There's no rest when you wake up

and think, I've got to do the right thing or God's going to be mad at me.

As if you have ever done enough right things for God to not be justifiably mad at you.

All right, a little more. Verse eight, for you have delivered my soul from death,

my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.

Verse nine, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

I believed when I spoke, I am greatly afflicted.

I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars. You ever had that moment?

You're afflicted and you go, man, I am greatly afflicted and all mankind are

liars. That sound like something you've at least thought before?

Felt like, man, everybody I meet, everybody I thought that was good,

everybody I thought that really had my back, they're all liars.

They're all liars. This is great. Verse 12, what shall I render to the Lord

for all his benefits to me? That's a great question.

What should I do for the Lord since he's given me all these benefits?

I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

This picture of I will lift up the cup of salvation is I will lift up a cup that's not my own.

I will lift up a cup that was given to me and I will say in front of all the

people, this salvation that I hold in my hands is not my own.

It is God's and he has given it to me.

That's the response. What can you do when God saves you? You can hold up that

salvation and say, look what God has done.

Look what God has done for me.

I said we knew the whole thing we're going to. Verse 15, Precious in the sight

of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Oh Lord, I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.

You have loosed my bonds.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. I don't know.

We don't know who wrote this song, but it seems like he is in a place where

he is assuming he is going to die soon.

And his solace is, I know that my death is precious in the sight of the Lord

because he has saved me and redeemed me and I will be with him.

Verse 17, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows of the Lord in the presence of all his people,

in the courts of the house of the Lord, in the midst of Jerusalem. Praise the Lord.

If you do nothing else today, know that you have read a chapter of the Bible.

Knock that off. Okay, you did it. What a psalm.

I have no doubt. I just, I know in my heart that blind Bartimaeus knew that

psalm by the time he died.

A picture of his life in one psalm. I love the Lord because he has heard my

voice and my pleas for mercy because he inclined his ear to me.

Therefore, I will call on him as long as I live.

That is the cry of a faithful person. That is the cry of a person who knows the Lord.

Let me ask you, are you still bartering with him?

Are you still trying to do good work so that he'll like you so that he'll give you something.

He'll let you have the job. He'll let you have the money. He'll let you have

the stuff. Listen, if that were true, then there wouldn't be one rich person who is also wicked.

You can probably name 10 of them off the top of your head.

There wouldn't be one poor person who's righteous. There wouldn't be one unrespected

person that was righteous.

And you probably know many.

Are you still bartering with God or are you willing to call out to him every

single day on the terms of, God, I need your mercy.

I need your mercy today. If you will do that, I promise you,

he will have the exact same response as he did to Bartimaeus. He will stop.

He may not solve all your problems. He won't fix every ailment.

He won't fix every situation, but he will stop and he will talk to you.

He will hear your cries and your pleas.

I love the Lord because he heard my cries for mercy. Let's pray.