"BLIND FAITH!"
TEXT: Mark
10:46-52; Deut. 24:12-13
INTRO: What’s
important to God? Who’s important
to God? Jesus’ followers were
suffering from “tunnel vision” … a form of disease that allows the person to
only see a very limited field of vision.
Along comes a completely blind man, the next stage after tunnel vision,
and shows them what God’s true vision is!
How much “tunnel vision” have we developed in the church? Have we failed to see who and what is
important to God?
How
clear is our vision on what God wants, and what God expects of us? Are we seeing clearly God’s compassion
for the lost, or are we satisfied with having a nice loving community of
like-minded saints waiting for the rapture? IF that is the case, we are suffering
from a serious condition called “tunnel vision” and should learn again what is
important from this story of a BLIND man!
ILLUS: There is a subtle false teaching that says
we can be evangelical without being evangelistic. It has to believe we "go" to
church rather than we "are" the church. -- Chris A Lyons, Leadership, Vol. 3, no.
2.
Sometimes today it takes the most unlikely candidates
to help us see clearly again what God’s vision is for this
world.
PROP. SENT: The Bible teaches us
that God values EVERYONE, literally everyone! We are not called to focus only on the
few who are like us, who are saved and doing well; we are called to save the
LOST!!
I. BARTIMAEUS – THE MAN Mark
10:46-48
A.
No Name! Mark 10:46
1.
This guy was on the fringes of society by first century Jewish
culture. He lived at the city gates
outside of
a.
The “old city” of
b.
The city gates were the normal hangout for beggars, the blind, the
indigent – here they could catch people traveling in both directions and beg for
alms and practical help.
2. It
is important to catch that Jesus’ travels here included being surrounded by a
large crowd of followers. (Mk. 10:46)
a. It
would have been easy to avoid or miss these beggars with this large crowd around
Him.
b. Jesus was on
a mission – the crowd was with Him on the mission as well … and the mission for
the crowd did not concern these
outcasts.
c.
Sometimes the church forgets the people at the fringes of
society!
3. So
insignificant was this man that he is not even
named!
a.
“Bartimaeus” is NOT his name, it was his identity! “BAR” meaning, “Son
of” and “Timoeus” meaning “the
unclean!” (Timoeus could have been his father’s name, but the meaning
of that name was “the
unclean.”)
b.
Hence the combination:
BAR-TIMOEUS (Aramaic) literally meaning, “Son of the
Unclean.”
c.
Bad enough that he was blind, but he was the “son of the
unclean” as well! This
puts him at the bottom of the barrel
culturally.
4.
Though blind, he saw clearly who Jesus
was.
5. I wonder how many people today are
desperately trying to find Jesus, they sense their real need – but they get
messed up by us disciples trying to push them
aside?
ILLUS: If this world is going to be reached, I am
convinced that it must be done by men and women of average talent. After all, there are comparatively few
people in the world who have great talents. -- D.L. Moody, Christian History, no.
25.
6.
His vision was better than the disciples! And, he wasn’t just after money for
help; he wanted something better than just
money!
B.
No Hesitation! Mark
10:47
1.
This blind man did not hesitate to call out to Jesus! In fact, he appears desperate to get
Jesus’ attention.
2.
This was not going to be easy with a huge crowd around Jesus, and Jesus’
followers here were not interested in these minority outcasts on the
sidelines! After all, they were on
a mission following Jesus!
a.
How about us today? How do
we as a church reach out to those unlike us? Are we uncomfortable with their
handicaps? (As though we are not still handicapped
ourselves!)
b. Oh
yes, we are on a mission too, following Jesus – and sometimes our crowd of
beautiful disciples are not that interested in the minority outcasts on the
sidelines of our society too!
c. Of
course, after a while we forget how much an outcast we once
were!
3.
Bartimaeus is only interested in one thing – getting Jesus’
attention!
a. It
is clear in the next verse that there were literal attempts to shut him up, to
quiet him down, to push him aside!
b.
Are we trying to do this today with the outcasts of our society, are we
seriously going to ignore the sinners in our culture because they make us
uncomfortable, and we don’t like their lifestyles or
values?
4. He
shouts over and over again, “Jesus, Son of David, Have mercy on me!”
a.
The “son of the unclean” calls out to the “son of the
well-beloved” (the meaning of the name “David”). In a sense they were polar opposites –
the son of the unclean calling out for mercy from the son of the
clean!
b.
His cry isn’t for equality, it is for
mercy!
ILLUS: When as a young man Robert Morrison had
first sailed to
c.
God WILL NEVER ignore the cry of a humble
heart!
(1.
Unfortunately, after following Jesus for a bit the large crowd of
disciples had lost their original humility from when they first started
following Jesus!
(2. So they
were bothered by this guy Bartimaeus and his cries for help.
(3. It was
messing up their schedule and their mission! (Really? Their mission? They were only traveling from point “A”
to point “B”?)
5.
This was Bartimaeus’ chance to get Jesus’
attention!
C.
No Compassion! Mark
10:48
1.
The crowd of Jesus’ followers rebuked Bartimaeus for calling out to Jesus
– can you believe this?
a.
Yet, I wonder if we do this today in our culture, we are REBUKING the
kind of sinners we don’t like and make us
uncomfortable!
b.
Maybe instead of rebuking all those terrible sinners in our culture we
should help them come to Jesus!
c.
After all, it is Jesus’ job to clean them up, not our
job!
2.
How radical would the church have to be today in order to truly bring the
less savory members of our culture to
Jesus?
3.
These followers of Jesus were bothered by Bartimaeus’ constant shouts for
attention, are we bothered by those today who are constantly shouting for
attention? Do we wish they would
just sit by the sides of our culture and just keep begging while we pass them by
(gladly too!) and thus not deal with who they are? Is it easier to ignore them and actually
hope they get their just desserts.
ILLUS: In his book, Fuzzy Memories, Jack Handey
writes, "There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day.
Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. "Then I decided to fight back. I
started taking karate lessons, but the instructor wanted $5 a lesson. It was
cheaper to pay the bully, so I gave up karate." Too many Christians believe it's easier
to pay the bully than learn how to defeat him. --
4.
The more they pressed Bartimaeus to “shut up” the more he shouted. Maybe we should learn from this, the
more the church tries to silence the outcasts of our own cultural identity the
louder they may clamor!
5. So
instead of trying to shut them up, maybe we should bring them up to Jesus out of
compassion!
II. JESUS – THE SAVIOR Mark
10:49-52
A.
No Closed Door! Mark
10:49
1.
Jesus stopped immediately and said, “Call
him!”
a.
Jesus’ reaction was very different from the crowd of follower’s
reaction. His response was
immediate and clear - “Call
him!”
b.
After all, THIS WAS JESUS’
c.
And lest we forget, that is still the Church’s
mission!
d.
Being a follower of Jesus isn’t just about being comfortable, or happy,
or fulfilled – it is about ministry to the
lost!
2.
Any church that isn’t about MISSIONS should not
exist!
a.
Home Missions
b.
Foreign Missions (world)
3.
Apparently the crowd of Jesus’ followers at this point finally got the
message, notice their new response to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling
you.”
4.
Really? They changed this
quickly! How interesting that when
Jesus ignores their self-righteous indifference to this blind man they
immediately change spots!
a.
Now they are telling him to “cheer up!” I wonder if they suddenly realized they
were out of step with Jesus’ concerns at this
point.
b. In
a sense, this was a rebuke by Jesus to them! He was showing them that they were so
wrong to hold at bay this man in need, they had forgotten who they
represented.
ILLUS: George Shultz, when Secretary of State
during the Reagan administration, kept a large globe in his office. When newly appointed ambassadors had an
interview with him and when ambassadors returning from their posts for their
first visit with him were leaving his office, Shultz would test them. He would say, "You have to go over to the
globe and prove to me that you can identify your country." They would go over, spin the globe, and
put their finger on the country to which
sent--unerringly.
When Shultz's old friend and
former Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield was appointed ambassador to
On June 27, 1993, Shultz related this to Brian Lamb on C-Span's
"Booknotes." Said the secretary: "I've told that story, subsequently, to all the
ambassadors going out. 'Never
forget you're over there in that country, but your country is the
4. At
least they responded after Jesus’ rebuke!
a.
While Jesus was happy to travel with all His followers, He was not for a
second willing to ignore even one lost soul crying out to
Him.
b.
This was a powerful moment as a lesson to all those following
Him.
B.
No Doubts! Mark 10:50; Deut.
24:12-13
1.
Notice that Bartimaeus immediately jumps to his feet and “throws his cloak
aside…”
a.
This is more significant than it appears on the surface. The cloak for the poor was their most
important article. It was their
warmth at night, their literal “security blanket” – one of their items of
safety and help. It could literally
be used as collateral for a loan or work.
b. So
important was a poor person’s cloak that there were restrictions in the Old
Covenant on taking away their cloak.
Notice in Deut. 24:12-13 these words
concerning the cloak of the poor:
“If the
man is poor, do not go to sleep with his pledge in your possession. Return his cloak to him by sunset so
that he may sleep in it. Then he
will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the
Lord your God.”
c. So
you can see that by Bartimaeus jumping up to “throw his cloak
aside” - it was an act of significant faith! He was literally throwing away his old
“security
blanket”! Throwing it
off was abandoning his old security; he was expecting something new from Jesus -
that is faith! Though he couldn’t
see everything, what he had heard was enough to warrant his faith in Jesus, and
he was ready to commit.
ILLUS: For centuries the islands of
d.
This action then was like throwing away his faith on the old and jumping
with excitement to embrace the new!
2. He
finds himself in the presence of Jesus!
a.
This was a very good place to be!
b.
Though he couldn’t see Jesus – he positioned himself in front of
Jesus.
C.
No Darkness! Mark
10:51-52
1.
Jesus simply asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”
a.
Jesus was laser focused on
Bartimaeus!
b.
Jesus got right to the issue, Jesus wanted Bartimaeus to express what was
in his heart, what it was that he wanted.
c.
Jesus doesn’t assume he just wanted money as a
beggar.
2.
And Bartimaeus’ answer is just as focused, “Rabbi, I want to
see.”
a.
Oddly, the NIV translates the Greek word “Rabbi” from the actual word in the original
Greek text which is not rabbi, but “Rabboni” – the word “Rabboni” is only used twice in the NT, here and
in John 20:16 (Mary cried this when she recognized
Jesus). It has a greater import as “Rabboni” than simply “teacher” which is the common meaning
for “Rabbi” – “Rabboni” actually is superlative, meaning “Great One.” Too bad the translators missed
this.
b.
Bartimaeus is crying out to the “Great One” for his eyesight to be
restored!
c. He
understood who Jesus was, and in faith asks for his sight to be restored. He had already thrown away his cloak of
security – he won’t have to depend on it as before once he is
healed!
3.
What happens next is amazing, Jesus says, “GO – “your faith
has healed you.”
a.
Immediately he receives his sight!
b. BUT – he
doesn’t GO AWAY – instead he follows Jesus along the
road!
c.
Would you want to simply GO and leave Jesus after getting your
sight!
d. OF
COURSE NOT! You would want to fix
those new working eyes on the one who gave you that sight, and follow Him as
long as possible!
ILLUS: One Mercedes Benz TV commercial shows their
car colliding with a cement wall during a safety test. Someone then asks the company spokesman
why they do not enforce their patent on the Mercedes Benz energy-absorbing car
body, a design evidently copied by other companies because of its success. He replies mater-of-factly, "Because
some things in life are too important not to share." How true. In that category also falls the gospel
of salvation, which saves people from far more than auto collisions.
-- Jim Beranek,
4.
Bartimaeus doesn’t want to miss anything Jesus was saying or doing, so
instead of going away, he follows Jesus along the road – yes, he joins the
followers of Jesus!
a.
When your eyes are open to who Jesus really is, you won’t want to go away
either!
b.
This is why I can’t grasp people who call themselves Christians and then
could care less about the church, tithing, testifying to others, reaching the
loss, supporting missions, or all the other things we believers are supposed to
be doing!
c.
When we truly SEE Jesus all we want to do is stay by Him, and help others
find Him too!
CONCLUSION: The story of Bartimaeus demonstrates how
quickly we who are followers of Jesus can forget what really counts in following
Jesus! They tried to keep a blind
beggar from coming to Jesus because they were busy following Jesus
themselves. Jesus however will hear
the cry of ONE above the crowd EVERYTIME!
Instead of us blocking people from coming to Jesus we should be doing
everything we can to help them come!
How are you doing with this?
How’s your church doing with
this?