Matthew 20:29-34 But They Cried Out More

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filseck takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. I'm Don Filseck. I'm the lead pastor here.

Welcome. I'm glad that we're all together. And I just want to start off with just a quick announcement. The weather, there is a storm that's coming across the lake, not coming across us yet.

But at the end of the service, it's like a 40 % chance of rain from noon on. And so we thought we had run the chances on that.

But if we do have it start to rain on us out here, substantially more than a sprinkle, we'll head inside.

And so just know that we are thinking that through. We did look at the radar, but we're just going to try to push through.

And maybe even if you just think about praying that it doesn't rain and we can just kind of keep our focus on God's word.

Just to kind of clarify, I know that some of you, this is your first time here. And some of you have been kicking around here for years. Recast is a funny name for a church.

And my guess is that many of you could come up with one or two of our core values, but probably very few of you could name all five, which at the end of the day, those five core values, our name is an acronym for core values of replication, community, authenticity, simplicity and truth.

So that's really those, those all could be explained to define what we, why we exist and why we're here.

But that core value, that first one of replication speaks to our desire to see the work that God is doing in our lives through the salvation we've received in Jesus Christ to then be replicated in the lives of others out in the community.

And then that comes about through evangelism and through the work that we do in service of our community around us.

And so we want to be a church that replicates what God is doing in our lives. And then we also would love to be a church of church planting.

We were a church that was planted and started out here by the, by the, the site and the vision of another church in Portage that sent us out here to start this work.

And we would love to do that again. So we're trying to find a church planter and we have for years just kind of tried to figure out and identify who's that next person who's going to lead another church and be sent out like I was.

But we're a church that, here's our mission statement. Think about this in light of the text we're about to read, we're a church that exists not only to worship him, but to find more worshipers for his name.

We're not a church that's satisfied to just kind of get bloated in Bible knowledge that just, you know, even when we talk about doing a

Bible institute or we talk about community groups or we come in and take in his word, it's not just primarily about filling ourselves up, but it's about filling ourselves up with a purpose that we can go out and be beneficial to our society, that we can enlist more and bring more worshipers.

So yes, it's very valuable that we gather together and worship, but it's also so that we can go out and find more who are not currently worshiping him to bring them in to this process as well.

And so our text this morning comes right up against that reality, that calling, that mission of our church of sharing this message with not just ourselves, but with others out in the world.

And it highlights a problem within the heart of those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ.

I think it's a problem that even rests in some of us, I think in all of us really to varying degrees, but we get comfortable in our walk with Jesus, right?

We get comfortable having patterns of our life of worship and all of that. We maybe even grow to enjoy listening to Jesus, and that's a really great thing.

But if we're not careful, we'll eventually find that the comfort that we get in that transforms into complacency.

It can be a lot more comfortable to be together with God's people than it can be sometimes to be out in the world. Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

How many of you are a little bit frustrated with some of the things you've heard out in the world recently? And it's a little bit more comforting to come together here than it is to be on social media listening to all of the other voices or on the news listening to all the things or even having a family reunion with all of those political views, right?

So at the end of the day, sometimes it's good for us to withdraw and come together, but we also need to be engaged out there.

We cannot allow ourselves to really let that comfort turn into complacency regarding the world.

Because the reality is our complacency can turn into ignoring or even silencing the cries of others out in our world who are desperate for Jesus.

We could be here guilty of just doing our religion thing while the world is burning.

So let's learn from Jesus this morning. Let's look at him and see the pattern that he lays out for us in the way that he responds to people that are desperate.

As I read the text here in just a moment, look for the contrast. Look for the contrast.

How do the followers of Christ, how do the crowds that are following him respond to people that are crying out in desperation?

And then look and see and learn from the way that Jesus responds to those same people. And in that difference between the way that the crowds and the followers of Christ respond and the way that Jesus responds, we're going to find our calling this morning as well.

Now, how many of you know that if Jesus responds one way and his followers respond another, something's got to give and it's not

Jesus. He's not the one that's going to move over to our opinion. He's not the one that's going to move over to the way that we want to do things.

He is calling us in this text to respond differently to the world around us and to others around us.

He wants to change the way we live and move and breathe among the people that he put in our sphere of influence.

He wants to change our responses. So he's gracious to not merely smack his disciples over the head and say, guys, get with the program.

What he does is graciously instead, with compassion and love, he shows us, demonstrates for us a better way to live.

So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 20, verses 29 through 34. Give you a second to get there.

This is the close of a chapter here in the book of Matthew. We're closing out chapter 20, but chapter 20, verses 29 through 34, recast this as God's powerful word, a word that has the power to transform us and change us.

If we would just believe it and go out and live it and trust, leaning on God to allow these things to actually happen and be true in our lives.

And so let's read and look for the contrast as I read, look for the way that the followers respond in the way that Jesus responds.

And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside.

And when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, Lord, have mercy on a son of David. The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent.

But they cried out all the more, Lord, have mercy on a son of David. And stopping,

Jesus called them and said, what do you want me to do for you? They said to him, Lord, let our eyes be opened.

And Jesus, in pity, touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and for your mercy. I thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus.

I thank you for the way that you are faithful to convict us and draw us further into you.

I thank you for the way that you are eager and ready to correct our faulty understandings about the way that we respond to the world around us.

And Father, I pray that you would now, even now, press in our hearts a joy and a delight of the salvation that we have in the name of Jesus Christ, that he alone is our hope, that he would stop and he would listen to us, that he would heal us, and that he would enlist us in your purposes and your kingdom.

So Father, I pray that from that place of having been impacted by Christ and being transformed and changed and given new life and new hope, you would help us to raise our voices in worship before you even now, that we'd be delighted to sing your praises.

We'd be glad to be in the gathering of your people. But at the end of the day, that all of this would not just be an exercise of glutting ourselves on your word, of just filling ourselves and becoming bloated with your word, but that Father, you would allow this to be a strengthening for the ministry that you call us to in this week coming ahead, that we would be more eager to listen to the desperate cries of others around us and point them to you.

We found hope in you, and I pray that we would be a source of hope in you to others around us. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, yeah, you can go to be seated and get comfortable. And I ask you to do me a favor and yourself a favor.

Just reopen your Bibles or your devices back to Matthew chapter 20, verses 29 through 34, so you can follow along and see that the things that I'm going to be talking about are coming from the

Bible, from God's word, and not just, I'm not originating this, I'm not coming up with this myself. This is God's word, and I'm trying my best to explain it to us.

And so I would suggest to you that more than ever, if you take a moment to be quiet and listen right now in our culture at this point in history, you can hear the desperate cries of a world in need.

Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Any of you hear some desperation, some cries going on out there, a lot going on in our world, right?

Social media, the news, friends, coworkers, everybody is sharing something, and it seems like there's a lot of loudness out there in the world.

There's shouting, there's screaming, there's crying out loudly, and I would suggest to you that a lot of that desperation is, although not intentionally pointed, it is ultimately because of the lack of a

Savior. The world is looking for a Savior, they just don't even know it, and many don't even know it, and they're looking for it in all different kinds of ways, right?

And it might be difficult for us to hear their cries for actually what they are, because we may not like the way that other people's views are expressed, but our culture is in a fever pitch of desperation right now.

They may not be crying out for the right things or even for the right reasons, but does anyone question that people are desperate for a

Savior in our world right now? I don't think any of us question that. So our text this morning is a straightforward account of Jesus as He encounters two people who are crazy desperate men, and they're just standing along or sitting alongside the road to Jerusalem where Jesus is going to make

His final ascent up into Jerusalem, and in just a couple of weeks' time be sacrificed on the cross for all of us.

So the last settlement, the last settlement rising up off of the floor of the

Jordan Valley, heading up into the hills towards Jerusalem, the last settlement is Jericho.

Now some of you could probably sing me a song about Jericho from like Sunday school classes when you were a kid or something like that, about walking around the walls and the walls came tumbling down, something like that.

How many of you know the song that I'm talking about? Some of you could sing it right now. You don't want me to lead in that song.

That's why we have Dave up here. He can sing, I can't. But that ancient site of Jericho was still called

Jericho during this time, and part of the reason that there was a settlement there in the first place is there were some natural springs there.

And so those natural springs were a source of water, and obviously we all need water to survive.

And so in that ancient time, wherever there was natural springs and fresh water, well settlements would develop. And so there was that old ancient site that was

Jericho, but then Herod built a palace just about a mile off of where that ancient site was.

Well wherever Herod was and wherever there were rulers, there was need for service, there was need for people. And so at the end of the day, there's another settlement about a mile down the road.

Well, they both happen to be called Jericho, and the only reason I'm bringing you into this is that when you read the different gospel accounts, you get some strange things that need to be explained.

And even this last week, I explained to a couple of people by text. They texted me after the sermon and they said, but Mark's gospel says this,

Luke's gospel says this. How do we reconcile these things? Well, Luke gives the account of this and he actually says that this event happened on the way into Jericho.

Matthew explicitly says that it happened on the way out of Jericho. But by perspective, it just depends on which

Jericho you're talking about. Are you talking about the ancient site or are you talking about the newer one with the palace? So somewhere between those two, on the way out of the one

Jericho into the other Jericho, there's this encounter with these two guys that are blind.

And Jesus had a great crowd that was following him up that arduous road into Jerusalem.

I say arduous road. The road's going to gain 3 ,000 feet in elevation over the course of 16 miles from Jericho up to Jerusalem.

So by the time you get finished with that walk, your calves are going to be burning. These guys, they would be burning on the way up to Jerusalem.

It's going to be a nice upward climb grade up into the hills there to get to and arrive at Jerusalem for the

Passover that's going on. So in that context, two blind beggars along the road find out and they hear, obviously they don't see, but they can hear a large crowd going by.

Maybe some people are even giving them some money along the way or whatever, but they hear this large crowd and they begin to hear a common name in the crowd,

Jesus. Oh, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus. And they surmise or they're able to determine that Jesus is walking by.

Now it's interesting to note that the reputation of Jesus preceded him. It went out ahead of him to the degree that even here in this

Southern, I wouldn't say backwater because it's on a main thoroughfare up into Jerusalem, but here in this

Southern town, two blind beggars know the identity of Jesus.

And to some degree, it could be argued, know Jesus's identity and trust Jesus's identity better than some of those that were in the crowd following him.

And I say that because what they know of him and their trust in him is shown by what they do next.

And it's significant what they do. They begin shouting out at the top of their lungs, Lord, Lord is a term of significant respect.

And then they shout out a simple but profound request, have mercy on us.

And finally, another title, Lord, have mercy on us. Another title, son of David, exclamation point.

They're shouting this. These two blind men understand three very important things that are intentionally surprising, should be surprising to us.

The first is that they know that Jesus is deserving of respect. And you can't take that for granted in this ancient time.

People had it out for Jesus. Some people actually didn't respect Jesus. They went so far as to accuse him of hanging out with prostitutes and sinners and evil people and drunkards and all of that.

And so he didn't have respect from everybody. The religious leaders afforded him no respect and no honor.

They gave all the respect to themselves, but they didn't want to give any to him. As a matter of fact, many of those religious leaders, as he's on his way up to Jerusalem, they have it out for him.

They're going to be the ones that put him to death. But here are these two blind beggars that are there along the side of the road trying to capitalize on the generosity of all of those people heading up that busy road up to Jerusalem.

And they know that Jesus is worthy of respect. So that's the first thing that they know. The second thing is they know or believe or trust that he can help them in their plight.

Begging him for mercy is a way to get his attention. But in just a moment in verse 33, when they're going to clarify what exact mercy they're requesting.

And it's clear that they thought that Jesus would be able to heal their blindness. Now how many of you, go ahead and raise your hand if you believe that that's a pretty significant faith.

To just say, Jesus, you know, I think you're, I think you're the solution to my problem. My eyes don't work. That's pretty, that's a pretty big deal.

That they would, they would go so far as to say, I think that this is the guy who has the answer to my problem, my physical ailment, and I'm going to trust in him and I'm going to cry out to him to have mercy on me.

Because I believe that if he shows mercy, I regain my sight. That's, that's significant faith. That's astonishing faith.

To cry out to Jesus for mercy is an amazing amount of trust expressed by these two guys. But further the request itself,

I want to, I want to camp on that for just a second. The request for mercy is a powerful corrective to us.

They're asking for what? Go ahead and say it. What are they asking for? Mercy. They're asking for, the word mercy means a treatment

I don't deserve. Okay? Something that I don't, I don't deserve this, but you're going to give me something.

As a matter of fact, I deserve something bad, but you're going to give me something good. That's mercy. What a beautiful cry that's informative to our current cultural climate.

Do you hear anybody out in the world crying for mercy? Or do you hear people out in our world demanding their rights, which is more prevalent in our culture right now?

Do you hear anybody acknowledging what they deserve and that what they deserve is condemnation so they're ready to accept whatever comes to them as God's kindness?

I don't hear a lot of that right now. Who is out in the street right now protesting their own sin?

Do you hear that? Do you see people out in dust and ashes saying, woe is me.

If God gives me what I deserve, I'm in trouble. We don't see that. Do we? Do you see people who know that they're broken and are willing to admit,

I deserve nothing from the hand of the almighty? What would these guys say to Jesus?

Put the same scenario. If they were to apply the model of modern day protest, Jesus is walking by and they're going to apply the modern day protest to this scenario.

Give us what is owed to us, Jesus. We demand our rights, Jesus. We demand our sight,

Jesus. We demand fairness. Everybody else can see, but we can't, and that's not fair.

You are so unfair to us. We demand our sight. But these blind beggars know, they know something that we all, all of us, all of us have to take on.

They deserve nothing and they know it. They're asking for mercy because they know if their life is to improve in this moment, it will not be because Jesus owes it to them.

Not because they deserve it, not because they've earned it, not because by some station of life they have a standard that he owes them.

So these blind beggars, they know that Jesus deserves respect. They believe that he can help them and beg for mercy.

And the third thing that they understand is that Jesus is the Messiah. They have significant and deep understanding about the identity of this man who's walking by.

They can see things that many people with sight cannot. You see the title son of David was a specifically messianic title coming out of the old

Testament. Nobody called him that without believing that he was unique and the specific one called out by God.

By calling Jesus his title, they're calling attention to that unique status as the one who would come and save all of his people from their sins.

They likely didn't understand all of that implied or how that was going to happen, but they, they didn't just think Jesus was some traveling miracle worker who man could do a, could do an eyesight trick and give them their sight back.

They thought he was the one sent by God to save his people, a much deeper understanding than just some miracle worker who can help us out here in a pinch and think about it.

So here's these guys, two guys blind by the road.

They have significant understanding who the Messiah is. Men with this understanding, men with this infirmity of blindness, men with this, this cry of desperation, crying out for mercy from Jesus.

Men like that are rebuked by the crowds. They were commanded to shut up by the disciples of Jesus.

You know, words like, don't, don't trouble the master. He's busy. He's trying to get to Jerusalem.

And by the way, you're interrupting the lesson he's teaching us here, folks. Can you guys keep it down?

We want to hear Jesus. And I'm sure that there was at least some selfish motives on the part of the crowd and the disciples here.

I'm guessing that their incessant shouting was at least a bit annoying. You get what I'm saying?

Can you guys keep it down? We're trying to have church in here. Verse 31 heightens our understanding of the desperation of these two blind beggars because they cried out.

It says in the text, they cried out all the more, Hey, you guys shut up. No, we will not be silenced.

The crowds wanted to silence them. The crowds wanted to push aside their chance at hope and mercy.

The crowds maybe even just wanted to keep Jesus to themselves. You know, he's trying to teach us here.

Can you guys keep it down so we can keep paying attention? But the crowds likely were just enjoying some time with the master.

And then these two guys were interfering with a comfortable learning environment. But if you thought these guys were annoying before, they take the shouting up a notch.

They shifted into high gear and let their engines whine, crying out the same thing, the same exact verbatim thing that they were told to stop saying.

But they shouted all the louder, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. Lord, have mercy on us, son of David.

Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. And they keep shouting until Jesus stopped and gave them his attention.

He stopped what he was in the middle of to give attention to these desperate men.

And then he asked a question, a question that then he listens to the answer. What do you want me to do for you?

You see, what they shouted was a pretty generic thing. Have mercy on us. And the crowds, you know, if he just says, okay, here's your mercy, have some mercy, and then just keeps walking.

What does that look like? So he wants to make sure that they speak the word so that the crowds hear.

What does mercy look like in this scenario? What does it look like? What do they even want? What is their heart really?

What's their deepest desire? And Jesus is attentive to that. He says, tell me what you want.

Tell me what you want most here. What do you want from me? Well, obviously,

I think he knew the answer, but he wanted them to say it so that what he gives to them, the crowds would understand was the actual meeting of the need that these men deepest, their deepest desire.

So they obviously wanted their eyes opened. And it says in the text with pity. Now, how many of you prefer the word compassion over pity?

Anybody with me on that? Pity has a little bit of a condescending downward look to it. Like, oh, they're there.

I don't believe that that's a very great translation of this word. As a matter of fact, everywhere else that this word is used in the

New Testament, the ESV translates it compassion. And for some reason here, they just kind of let's let's call it pity here.

I like the word compassion better. But what you need to understand about that word is that it's at least showing us that he was moved inside.

He's not just acting externally. He's not just going to heal these guys eyes and walk away.

He has moved in his spirit. He feels feels for them. There's there's like,

I'm sorry that this is the case for you. And he hears them crying out in their desperation.

And his heart goes out to them. Jesus touched their eyes.

And immediately, I love that word. Immediately, they recovered their sight.

They got up and followed him. Now, think about this, the way that this all transpires.

The crowds could not be bothered. But Jesus was moved by their plight. The crowds tried to silence these men as they're shouting out their desperate need.

But Jesus stops, pauses and asks them, what do you want me to do?

The crowds rebuked them. But Jesus enlists them and brings them in as his followers.

Last week in our text from it really goes from verse 20 through 28.

We looked at it last week. We saw two other people make a request of Jesus. Here's two men making a request of Jesus. Last week, we saw two men making a request of Jesus.

I don't think it's by chance that those two things are back to back. Last week, we saw James and John.

They didn't ask for mercy. What did they ask for? Power and authority. They asked for power.

They asked, can we sit at your right hand and your left hand when you come into your kingdom? Can we be like the guys?

Can we have the power? Can we have your ear all the time? Can we be right next to you in power and authority?

And by asking, they demonstrated blindness. They demonstrated a misunderstanding about his kingdom.

But here, these two men request mercy, acknowledging him as Messiah. And they prove that they've been able to see things all along that his disciples are not able to see.

It's interesting that the miracle itself, the granting of their healing only takes up one verse.

Well, the setup is extensive. And so I would suggest to you that although the infirmity matters a lot to those blind guys, how many of you think it would matter a lot if you were blind?

That'd be pretty significant. But I would suggest to you that, I mean, Jesus healed people who were lame, who were paralyzed, who were possessed, who had all kinds of problems in their lives.

And regardless of what the problem is, the point is the way that Jesus handles it.

The point in this is not just merely that Jesus can heal physical blindness. That's important and that's good. We know that certainly for this life, how many of you would like healing for whatever ails you?

You know, you pray for that, you want that. But at the end of the day, how many of you are really ultimately glad that you know that blindness and your back pain and whatever ails you doesn't carry on to the world after this one?

That although, yes, he's able to heal in the here and now, there is an ultimate healing that he has complete and utter control over.

That is that he can just heal blindness. He can heal infirmity. He can heal paralysis.

All kinds of things are within his power to just take care of. And he will in that final kingdom.

But the point of this passage is found in Jesus correcting the way that those who are already in with him and following him react to those who are not in yet.

This is the correction for our souls. This is the correction he wants to bring to us. How do we respond to a world that's reaching a fevered pitch of desperation?

I believe that this is a very timely message. And I want to be careful to explain that this passage is not telling us that we need to stand by and just allow ragers to rage and rioters to riot and looters to loot.

But instead, I think that this passage ought to lead us down a road, a specific pattern of applications following our master, following our

Lord, and the way that he leaned into those who are hurting. And these applications come about through contrasting the way that the crowds responded to people in desperation versus the way that Jesus responded to people who were desperate.

You see, here's the point. We can become very complacent toward the lost, toward those who are broken and out in the world around us, especially those of us who've been kicking around the church for most of our lives.

We have our spiritual patterns in our walk with Jesus. We have things that bring us comfort and routines.

And our compassion easily grows cold, even as we imagine ourselves drawing closer to Jesus.

I'm just alone, just me and Jesus a lot. And we're drawn close together. But let me just suggest to you in all honesty and all directness that I don't believe that you're close to Jesus if you're not walking like he walked.

You can pretend that you're close to Jesus because you had a quiet time this morning and read the Bible. But if that's not impacting the way that you work and the way that you talk and the way you interact with the lost around you, how many of you think that maybe you're missing something?

You're missing it if you're not putting into practice. And although we can become bloated and we can become glutted with the word and we can become glutted with community and all of these things that are of value, they ultimately ought to serve the purpose of walking like Jesus walked.

You getting it? Got to live it out. We've got to walk like he walked. You see, what did he do here in the text?

Let's think it through. These are going to be our application points. He's showing us what to do. And it's so clear in the text that these are the actual points.

He stopped. The text tells us he stopped what he was doing. He could have been like,

I got to get to Jerusalem, man. I got places to be. I've got people to see.

I've got stuff to do. I've got sacrifices to make. But he stopped for these two lowly blind beggars.

He stopped. He listened. He felt. He healed. And he enlisted. And those are our application points.

The first thing that I want to encourage you to do, if you're taking notes, write these down so that you can remember them. Stop. Listen.

Feel. Heal. Enlist. These are our marching orders. The first thing is to stop.

Give people time. If somebody is crying out in desperation, maybe it's a friend on Facebook.

Maybe it's a friend on some other media platform, social media platform. Maybe it's a coworker. Maybe it's a neighbor. But give them a moment.

If they're crying out and they're taking the time to post something that makes you angry, there's a chance that there's a reason behind that.

There's a chance that there's something deeper going on there that you might be called into helping them work through.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. We as Christians might get riled up sometimes by the things that we read on social media or the things that hit us.

But we ought to be able to handle that. With Christ and knowing the solution and knowing the answer, we ought to be able to handle a whole world of hurt online or in our relationships with our coworkers, our neighbors, or our family.

Are you guys getting what I'm saying? I'm not trying to browbeat you. I mean, some of you are looking like, oh, I'm just saying at the end of the day, like we have the message.

We have the hope. So stop, stop and be there. Without stopping,

Jesus is just going to continue up the road to Jerusalem. These guys would be left. These desperate ones would be left in their hurt, left in their pain.

And they're crying out for help. I mean, in this context, sure. Yeah, they're crying out for the right things.

They know what they're crying out for. But I'm not sure that that matters a ton in the world that we live in right now.

People are crying out. Yeah, they might not even know what the answer is. But we do, right?

We know what the solution is. So stop and give time to those that are crying out in desperate need right now.

The second thing is to, then when you stop, ask questions and listen. A lot of times we stop and we educate.

That's where we get into trouble online, right? We stop and we begin to educate. We stop and we begin to debate.

We stop and we begin to argue. You shouldn't feel this way. You shouldn't feel this way. That's illogical. That's unreasonable. Your argument wasn't watertight on this point.

Are you getting what I'm saying? And instead, we need to stop and do what? What's the second point?

Listen. We are not a culture that does listening much anymore. Jesus asked them, he asked these guys, what is it that you want?

And then he listened to their answer. And as Christians, let's be people who ask the question and then listen to the plight being expressed by others around us.

We may not agree with the causes of their plight. We might not even agree with their proposed solutions.

But we can at least listen to why they feel as desperate as they feel. You getting me? The third thing is feel.

Stop, listen, and feel. That just means that you have to listen with sympathy. You have to try to put yourself in their shoes.

Consider their plight and let desperation, their desperation impact you. Can you imagine?

Can you really just pause for a second? Think about everything that you know about our society and our culture that's swirling around right now.

Everything from COVID to the election, to all of the political upheaval and the unrest in our inner cities and the difficulties between race and gender and all of the stuff.

Now, imagine that you're hopeless. Now, imagine that you've got nothing beyond this life that you believe exists.

How do you feel? Is that a dark place? Is that a difficult place to live?

Are you getting what I'm saying? Are you feeling that? Can you bring that feeling into your interactions with those who legitimately feel that 24 seven?

That's all they feel. No moment of hope, no moment of respite, no moment of, well, at least there's more beyond this life.

If this virus slay me, I'll still have him. I still have

Jesus. None of that. Can you imagine and remember that kind of darkness?

Can you be moved to compassion for a world that lives in that perpetual state of darkness?

Can you take the hit on that one when they get angry? Can you with hope and strength in your

Lord and savior put up with some poorly thought and poorly structured arguments online from somebody who feels that darkness 24 seven?

Can you weep over them? Can you feel it?

A real darkness always, always, always over their life.

Never knowing hope. Can you feel it? Can you be moved to sympathy over the broken in your world?

I'm convinced that for us Christians, the movement of away from compassion has a logical root.

It's not completely like we're just jerks. It's not like we're just mean. And that's why we move away from compassion so readily.

I think that it's simply this. Hear me church. This is a blessing for us. You are further today away from hopelessness than you were yesterday.

You're a week further away from hopelessness than you were a week ago. You're getting what I'm saying? Why? Because you're always moving further away from that point where you came into hope through Jesus Christ.

You have a date. Probably most of you, not everyone here has a date, but you have an idea of when you came to faith in Christ and the gist.

It might be over the course of a year or something where you're like, God did some business in my life. Some of you have a date and you can point it to it.

And I'd encourage you to think about that date right now. Encourage you about that time. Think about that time. That's the point when you came into hope.

That's the point when you began to have a harder time relating to hopelessness. Are you getting what I'm saying?

Why? Because you received the greatest hope of all. And so now you're whatever.

If it was a week ago, then you're a week away from hopelessness. If it was five years ago, for me, it was almost four decades ago that I received

Christ as my savior. And not only that, I was eight years old. I wasn't extremely hopeless at eight. Do you get what

I'm saying? So I have not felt and experienced that darkness that so many live in.

The desperation of these two blind guys was real as they had to navigate that ancient world in utter darkness and blindness.

How long has it been since you had that abject fear of nothingness beyond this life? How long has it been since you experienced darkness?

And if I can use it metaphorically, many in our world are acting out a serious desperation as they've been living out all of their days in a desperate spiritual darkness.

Can you be moved to compassion by the plight of those crying out for help around us? Stop, listen, feel, and now bring the remedy to heal.

I wanna be careful. To the best of my knowledge, I've not been called to the ministry of physical healing. I haven't laid my hands on anybody and seen cancer go away.

I haven't laid my hands on anybody and seen, you know, limbs restored or blindness healed or anything like that.

But Jesus clearly healed many people to demonstrate his power and authority to restore them and make them whole.

But our calling, as much as it's possible for us, our calling is to meet whatever needs we can while never neglecting the deeper healing that provides real hope and real purpose.

What good is it to feed, to merely feed a person? What good is it to merely provide housing for a person?

Or even to merely provide physical healing to a person without the restoration of hope, without the restoration of healing for eternity?

You see, the healing we can provide to people is found in the good news of Jesus Christ. We need to bring that to the world around us after we have felt with them, after we have listened to them, after we have stopped to give them our time.

And the good news that we have to convey is found in words, it must be spoken. It cannot, giving a person a meal is never the gospel.

Hear me carefully, that's not the gospel. It's a way and a means to get to the gospel. Maybe somebody will listen to you because you bought them a meal or something and then you get an opportunity, but the words are simply this,

Jesus came to die for our sins so that anyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life on a new earth with him for eternity.

And I wanna just discourage you from having a false dichotomy here. This is a terrible, heinous dichotomy that has infiltrated the church for decades and maybe centuries.

It's not one or the other. It's not meet physical needs or meet spiritual needs. Unfortunately, many churches have gone one way or the other, but let me just encourage all of us to go full on meeting physical needs and equally full on declaring the gospel.

Both. It's a shame that churches have specialized in one or the other. I grew up in a church that specialized in the spiritual at the neglect of the physical.

Just give them the gospel. Somebody shows up at your door, knocks on the door, needs a meal.

What do you do? Here's a gospel tract. Thank you very much. Here's the gospel.

Be at peace. How many of you know that when your stomach is hungry, it's hard to hear that message? Do both.

Come on in. Let's have a meal and let's talk. Both. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I mean, some of you maybe grew up in churches that are the other, and there's many churches in West Michigan, particularly a certain brand and denomination that primarily and to their benefit, they've done a lot of really good things out in the community.

They do really great works in the community, but they're afraid to bring the gospel into that because they think it looks mercenary.

Like, well, I'll just give you a meal so that you'll listen to my shtick. Do you know what I'm saying? And so, no, no, just do both.

Just do both. Help people. And the greatest way to help people is to bring that gospel too.

It's kind of like somebody here is a waitress and they gave me a tract and it was a $5 bill.

But then when you opened it, it wasn't a full $5 bill. And it said, disappointed? You should be because, you know, you don't have

Jesus in your life or something like that. And I'm looking at that. I'm going, golly, do both. Give them a $20 bill.

And then the tract, you know what I'm talking about? But don't just leave that. That's all she got for a tip. All she got for a tip was a tract.

You better believe she was disappointed. She ought to have been disappointed. And that shame on, she actually told me that people in her line of work don't want to work

Sunday afternoons because people are, they're tipping with the gospel to both.

Obviously, that's just an illustration. But I mean, you know, you gotta bring both into the world.

Anybody like cringe when I say, when I give that illustration? Some of you? So especially Dave, since he used to be a waiter, right?

In college, you didn't want that. I mean, the tract would have been fine if there was a 20, right? You know, it's like, that would have been better.

So tip well, and then, and then bring the gospel. But meet real needs. Don't allow that false dichotomy to be yours.

The last thing is enlist, enlist. These two blind beggars became followers of Jesus.

And I believe they physically joined the crowds of the disciples heading up to Jerusalem. These two blind guys now with their sight, physically follow

Jesus up the hill to Jerusalem. I believe they were there in the crowds at the triumphal entry, shouting,

Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. With their eyes in their own sight, able to reach down and grab palm fronds and line the road on the way.

Waving those palm fronds, laying down garments for the king on the full of a donkey to ride.

Into Jerusalem, they were there in that crowd. So I think they physically followed him, but I think much more than that.

They were also brought into the family. They were brought in as disciples. That word followed there as a discipleship kind of word.

So they, they were enlisted as well. Recast, we are not being called in this text to resolve a national crisis.

That's not placed on our shoulders. This is not a sermon about political views. I didn't pick this passage because of current events, but God has orchestrated that we would be talking about the desperate plight of people while our nation finds itself in a time of significant desperation.

And that's not by chance. He has work for us to do. And there's plenty of room to apply these actions of our

Lord. Even this week, I'm convinced that every single one of us is going to have some opportunity this week to speak into someone's life who's desperate.

Someone's life who's, something's crumbling around them right now. And so let me read these things again to you.

This list, stop, listen, feel, heal, and enlist.

And do the whole list. It's not enough to stop and listen and feel. You need to bring the gospel and then enlist them into the kingdom work that he has for them.

Because you see, if this is done in a life, right? You end up with someone else who now is called to stop, listen, feel, heal, and enlist.

And it multiplies. If we enlist them into the cause and get them plugged into church and get them plugged into discipleship and growing in Christ, then these things will end up being true of them as well.

And I want you to think about it this way. Jesus did these things for all of us, didn't he? He stopped.

He listened to our cry of desperation. Save me, Lord. Have mercy. He felt compassion toward us.

He healed us. And he has now enlisted us. And even through this text, he's enlisting us further to reach out to the desperate ones around us.

And so as we take communion together, let's remember what he has done to remove that desperation that comes about and comes about in everybody's life through sin.

He has washed us clean and paid up all of the penalty that we owed for our sinful rebellion against our father.

So take the cracker to remember his body that was broken in place of ours. Take the juice to remember his blood that was poured out as a sacrifice to cover our sins.

And then recast. Let's go out with a renewed purpose to navigate this world and our interactions with others like Jesus.

Stopping. Giving people time. Listening. Asking good questions.

Feeling. Allowing our hearts to engage and be moved to compassion. Healing. Bringing the gospel and any tangible, meeting any tangible needs that we're able to.

And lastly, enlisting. Plugging people in to the purposes in the kingdom of God.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus. A hope that at the end of the day can kind of get in the way sometimes of our ability to understand the darkness that others live under.

And so, Father, I pray that you would move us in a way that we can't, we can't foster that. We can't make that.

I can give it as an application point to feel and we can't make that happen without your spirit.

So, Father, I pray that your spirit would even now as we have an opportunity to take communion and recognize the darkness from which we've been saved.

Father, that you would just alight on this place with your mercy to produce love and compassion for those that it doesn't come natural to us.

But that you would empower us to be a people who stop and give time to those that are desperate.

That we listen. Father, that we are eager to feel sympathetic with others.

That we would bring healing and that we would enlist others as followers of Jesus. I ask this in the name of your son,