Luke 18:15-43, “How Do You Come to God?” part 2

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church

1 view

November 15, 2020

Luke 18:15-43 “How Do You Come to God?” part 2

Evening of Eschatology part 3

00:00: Luke chapter 18, starting verse 15 to verse 43, the end of the chapter. Hear the word of the
00:05: Lord. Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.
00:12: But Jesus called them to him, saying, Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
00:20: Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
00:27: And a ruler asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him,
00:33: Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments.
00:39: Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. And he said,
00:44: All these things I have kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, One thing you still lack.
00:51: Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.
00:57: But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said,
01:05: How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
01:15: Those who heard it said, Then who can be saved? But he said, What is impossible with men is possible with God.
01:22: And Peter said, See, we have left our homes and followed you. And he said to them, Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this life and in the age to come, eternal life.
01:40: And taking the twelve, he said to them, See, we are going up to Jerusalem. Everything that is written about the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished, for he will be delivered over to the
01:51: Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him.
01:58: And on the third day he will rise. But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
02:09: As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant.
02:17: They told him Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
02:24: And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.
02:32: And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him,
02:38: What do you want me to do for you? He said, Lord, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him,
02:45: Recover your sight. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying
02:52: God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
02:58: May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, what are you impressed with?
03:06: What gets your attention? What makes you sit up and go, wow. Maybe it's a stunning athletic achievement.
03:14: Because of the pandemic, we didn't get to have the Olympics this year. We're supposed to have it next year. And I'm looking forward to next year, being impressed by how fast someone can run or swim.
03:24: I remember the first time I saw a near world -class runner running the 10K on the track. We were at what was called then
03:30: Troy State University. I think it's just called it Troy University now. Running about five minute miles, five minute per mile for six miles, 6 .2
03:38: miles. I was impressed. I mean, at the time, I could barely run five minute miles just for one mile. And this guy was doing it for a whole six miles.
03:46: I'm impressed by gymnasts who could do a backflip on a balance beam and land on the beam. And that's just amazing.
03:53: I just watched that. I think that's just amazing. Maybe sports isn't your thing. Maybe you're not so impressed by athletic achievement.
04:00: In Chinese culture, they don't as impressed by athletics. In Singapore, I saw schools have soccer matches with no parents in attendance.
04:07: I just don't care. I don't care about sports. But when the results of the yearly exams were announced, they were impressed by the highest score.
04:14: I mean, understand that would be like here every year when the results for the SAT come out, everything stops and everyone focuses on which student got the best test scores.
04:24: That's what it would be like. Every camera focus on them. We don't even, we don't cover that. But there they do.
04:30: Academic excellence is impressive, they think. Getting into the best universities, graduating with honors, that earns their admiration.
04:39: So in Mary's Church in Singapore, rather than have a basketball court like this to attract kids and to use that as a draw for ministry, they ran a tutoring ministry.
04:48: They would give free tutoring to the kids in the neighborhood. And so they could then share the gospel with them.
04:53: And it worked. Kids would come, believe it or not, to get tutored. People would be drawn to what they are impressed by.
05:01: What are you impressed by? Maybe it's wealth. You know, you find getting rich impressive.
05:10: Someone who can write a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars, buy a big house with cash right off the bat.
05:17: You like stories of how someone started with nothing, started a business, worked day and night, and now writing those big checks for big houses, luxurious vacations, big, nice luxury cars.
05:28: And so some people buy books or go to seminars so they can learn the secrets of doing the same thing.
05:34: They admire the wealthy. Or maybe it's power. Yeah, that's impressive. To be able to give orders, get your way, to have people obey you, to implement your ideas on a whole nation.
05:46: Some people want money precisely because it gives them power. You know, that's why we say, he's so rich, he lives like a king.
05:52: He can buy anything. He can pay people to do whatever he wants them to do. But some people want power so they can live like they have a lot of money without having to bother with making a lot of money.
06:04: You know, kings, prime ministers, presidents, they live like wealthy people even if they didn't have to do the hard work of becoming a wealthy person, of actually earning the money.
06:16: So if you could do that, you know, if you can get the power, why not just cut out all the work in business and grasp for power so you can live like you're wealthy, if you can.
06:26: What do you find impressive? Whatever it is, do you think
06:32: God is impressed by that? Do you think God is impressed with the winner of the
06:37: NBA dunking competition? A lot of kids around here would think that would be impressive, to be the
06:42: NBA dunking champion. You think God's impressed by that? Probably not. The creator of the universe isn't amazed with how many feet we can jump.
06:51: Or academics, he who knows all things, isn't impressed with our greatest scholars, our Nobel Prize winners.
06:57: Or great wealth, I mean, he owns it all anyway. Or power, like wealth, it all comes from him and he takes it back when he gives the edict.
07:05: So how do you impress God? Now, people think that's what religion is about. The religion is about giving people the ways to impress
07:13: God so that we can come to him in a way that he will find impressive and so will accept us.
07:19: He'll be impressed that we kept his laws or we did his rituals, that we gave some of our money, even though he owns it all anyway.
07:26: I don't know how he could be impressed without, or we gave him some of our time. How do we impress
07:31: God? Now, we're back to that question we looked at last week. How do you come to God?
07:38: That's what this entire chapter, actually probably extending into chapter 19, this entire chapter of Luke 18 is about.
07:45: How you come to God with what can you impress him with that will gain his approval?
07:52: We've divided it up into two parts so we can have time for each part. Last week, we saw we come to God, remember, persistently and penitently.
08:02: Now this week, finishing the chapter, we come to God in six additional ways.
08:08: First, child -like -ly. Second, wholeheartedly.
08:14: Third, miraculously. Then, passionately. Then, personally.
08:22: And finally, desperately. First, we come to God child -like -ly.
08:30: Not really childishly, which means to be immature, but I had to invent a word. Child -like -ly.
08:37: Like a child. People were bringing small children to Jesus, apparently babies, hoping for his blessing. And he was fine with that.
08:44: Notice that. He was fine with it. But his staff thought that he had better uses of his time than to bother with mere children.
08:52: He is, after all, a very important person and so he should only be dealing with other important people.
08:58: And so they rebuked these parents for wasting Jesus's time with these insignificant children.
09:04: But Jesus called together his disciples and made an announcement. Here's a policy, fellas.
09:10: This is the policy of our organization here. Let the children come to me and do not hinder them.
09:16: For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Now notice carefully that he didn't say the kingdom of God belongs to children per se, but to such, to people who are like children.
09:32: This passage has been misused to mean that children are accepted into God's kingdom just because they're children, just based merely on that fact.
09:41: And some people would even, I guess, draw from that. Well, that means that's because children are sinless. They're pure.
09:46: They haven't sinned yet. Well, no, that's not what the Bible says. What he's saying is that people who are child -like, those are the ones who come into God's kingdom, who have some of the qualities of children, like trust.
10:00: You know, children trust that they'll be fed and clothed and housed. Children usually aren't weighted down with a great deal of anxiety, wondering where's my next meal going to come from.
10:11: They're not anxious about how they're going to be clothed, how the rent's going to be paid next month. You don't find many children with ulcers from anxiety and worry.
10:20: They have a sense of wonder. You know, maybe some of the older children have brought to Jesus that, do you mean
10:25: I get to be blessed by Jesus? Kind of that attitude. Not like an adult who thinks he has to impress him or that he even can impress him somehow.
10:35: The kind of people who don't stand on ceremony on what is impressive. Don't you know who I am?
10:40: I had an athletic scholarship. I went to the Olympics. I graduated top of my class. I'm a millionaire.
10:46: I'm a president. Children who know that they don't have anything to impress you with and they're totally unselfconscious about it.
10:55: Lack of pretension, of swagger, of thinking that, you know, I have some credentials that you need to recognize.
11:01: They are impressive. Maybe religious credentials that I was told would impress God. I got baptized at the right time.
11:08: I've been to church every Sunday for the past so many years. Impressive. Well, not really to God, no.
11:15: To those, the credentialed, those who think he or she is impressive, to those, does not belong in the kingdom of God.
11:26: Children can be spoiled by being taught that they are impressive. That they have something that requires your or God's acceptance.
11:36: They think they're the next LeBron James because they've been told how great they are. Now they can dribble the ball and now they're a star, they think.
11:43: Or before they really even achieve much. In the movie, The Empire of the Sun, Sun S -U -N, the main character is a
11:50: British boy, about 10 years old, I guess, living in Shanghai, China at the start of World War II.
11:56: And his parents allow him to lord it over his Chinese maid there, to order her around, to treat her disrespectfully.
12:05: And so he's become a brat, a child, but one who thinks he's impressive.
12:11: One who thinks he can tell adults what to do. When the Japanese invade and he's separated from his parents, he sees his maid taking things from his home and starts to order her around like before.
12:24: The maid comes up to him and slaps him hard in the face and just walks off, leaving him amazed that he has no more power, that there's nothing impressive about him.
12:38: Jesus says, truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, as if there's nothing impressive about us that deserves it, unpretentiously, unconcerned about our dignity, trustingly, not like a brat, presumptuously, anyone who does not do that shall not enter the kingdom of God.
12:57: You come to God child -like -ly. Second, you come to God wholeheartedly.
13:05: Here's another of the famous Bible stories, what we usually call the story of the rich young ruler. He asked
13:10: Jesus, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, calling him good teacher, that's unusual.
13:19: It's an unusual greeting. And Jesus notes it in verse 19. Why do you call me good? Calling me teacher is not unusual.
13:27: It'd be probably original language, he'd probably be rabbi. Calling him good teacher, that's something no one has found in history other than this.
13:34: So Jesus responds, why are you calling me good? It's a question to get him to think.
13:40: And to guide his thinking, Jesus reminds him, you know, you do know, right, that no one is good except God alone.
13:49: And here's another statement of, by the way, of total depravity, that mere people, even the babies he just finished talking about, just before this, that they are not good.
14:02: No one is good, not even the babies, except God alone. Notice though, Jesus is not denying that he's good.
14:09: He doesn't say, well, I'm not good, only God is good. He didn't say that only, I'm not good, did he? He says, no one is good except God alone.
14:16: So why are you calling me good? He's saying, you call me good, but only God is good. So if you're right, then who does that make me?
14:28: Well, it makes him someone who's very impressive. Well, that probably caught the rich young ruler, you know, totally by surprise.
14:35: His real question was not who Jesus was, although he needs to think about that. So Jesus got him thinking about that.
14:41: But what must I do to inherit eternal life? The ruler is asking, how do
14:47: I come to God so that I can live with him forever? With what do I impress God with?
14:53: How do you, how do you come to God? What if you're already rich and you're young and you're powerful?
15:00: You're an impressive person in society. What do you do to impress God? Jesus responded in verse 20.
15:08: Well, you know, the commandments do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.
15:15: The law is supposed to be a mirror that shows us our sin, our unimpressiveness that shows us that we need judgment.
15:25: We deserve judgment. We've earned it like a hard slap in the face. But this man thought he had kept it all.
15:32: And outwardly, he probably had. He had kept the rules, at least physically. And yet he knew still that he hadn't impressed
15:40: God. What must I do to inherit eternal life, to enter the kingdom of God? And Jesus says in verse 22, well, one thing you still lack.
15:49: Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. Now, sure, he had kept the rules.
15:57: But where was his heart still at? And that's what this gets at. Where's his heart at?
16:03: You can keep those rules and your heart still be full of theft and adultery and hatred. Where's his heart at?
16:11: Well, he heard that in verse 23. He was extremely sad because he was extremely rich.
16:17: He thought that he thought about all that he had about his luxurious mansions. He'd have to sell, you know, that beach house with a yacht on the pier.
16:27: The Mountain Lodge, he gets to ski down the slopes. The Rolls Royce, the jewelry, the 100 -inch flat screen
16:34: TV in his home entertainment center. You know, sell all that stuff and then give the money to the poor.
16:40: And then become one of those raggedy followers of Jesus who some nights don't even have a bed to sleep on as they follow
16:46: Jesus round town to town teaching. That's the choice that this man saw.
16:52: He saw two ways before him. The life of wealth and power and luxury that he had been enjoying.
16:59: Or you can have Jesus and his truth. Now, part of him wanted to follow
17:06: Jesus. He calls him good. He wanted to enter the kingdom of God to have eternal life. Part of him wanted that.
17:13: But he liked too much the easy life that he had here. He respected
17:19: Jesus. Called him a good teacher. He sensed deep down there's something more to Jesus than just another good teaching, fluent rabbi.
17:29: He wanted eternal life to enter God's kingdom. But he didn't want it more than he wanted to keep his cash, his stuff, his titles, his power.
17:41: So he was sad that he couldn't have both. And he slinked away.
17:48: How do you come to God? Well, wholeheartedly. Modern American evangelicals really don't like this story.
17:55: We like to think that we can have our big bank accounts, our fancy homes and new luxury cars every couple of years. Our splurging on ourselves.
18:03: We can have all that. And Jesus too. So we have preachers who assure us that we can have both.
18:09: Not like this rich young ruler. And so we're told, especially about this story, you know, it's okay to own things as long as things don't own you.
18:18: That's a great preacher slogan. Whoever thought it up should have trademarked it, would have made a lot of money off of it. It's brilliant, well put.
18:25: And for many people, for some at least, it's a cop out. If ever there was a time when
18:31: Jesus could have said that, it was here. But he didn't say it.
18:37: He said, sell everything and give it away and follow me. Now, how do we know that our things don't own us if we're never willing to do that?
18:47: I think the slogan is right. I think that slogan is true. You can own things as long as the things don't own you.
18:52: But I also think that a lot of us are much more owned by our things than we want to admit. And that we use slogans like that to avoid admitting it.
19:04: Here, Jesus says that if you want to come to God, to inherit eternal life, to enter God's kingdom, you must come wholeheartedly.
19:14: That if you love some things more than him, maybe you love him with 49 % of your heart.
19:20: Well, that's not enough. You need to give up those things and be wholehearted.
19:28: Jesus saw that he was sad. This rich young ruler, he was sad, slinking away because he couldn't have both eternal life and his wealth and power.
19:39: He wanted to have it all, but Jesus told him that he had to pick one or the other. Too often we're told that we can't have both.
19:46: It is really no problem. But Jesus says in verse 24, how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
19:54: Now, how difficult is it? How difficult is it for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God? Well, it's as difficult as a large animal fitting through the eye of a sewing needle.
20:06: In verse 25, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
20:12: How difficult is that? Well, it's impossible. Because we're desperate to find ways that we can have the wealth and the luxury we want now and eternal life, we look for ways to make that sound not so hard, not so bad.
20:28: One of the more popular explanations is to say that this eye of the needle refers to a gate, really a doorway in the wall of Jerusalem that was supposedly called the needle's eye.
20:38: And so the only way for a camel to make it through was to take off its load, head on its back and crawl on his knees.
20:46: It's hard, but it's possible. He can do it if he manage.
20:52: But there's actually no evidence that such a gate in Jerusalem existed at this time. There was one built later, like 500 to 1 ,000 years later in the
21:01: Middle Ages when it was named after this story, but not in Jesus's day. Jesus isn't saying that it's hard for rich people to work their way to heaven.
21:11: But if they only get on their knees, get rid of some of their excess stuff, well, they can do it. They can beg their way in.
21:17: It's difficult, but possible. No, he's not saying that. He's saying it's impossible. That was especially hard for people in Jesus's day to take.
21:27: You know, those who heard it say, you know, this is claim. Well, then who can be saved? Now, their assumption was that the reason rich people were rich was because God had blessed them.
21:37: That they were impressed by wealth, by riches. In fact, they believe
21:44: God was impressed, at least by wealthy people. And he blessed those people by giving them wealth.
21:50: That their wealth was proof of being favored by God already. This is what is called the bourgeois heresy.
21:59: It's the false idea that prosperity demonstrates proof of God's blessing. And it's still around today, this bourgeois heresy.
22:07: It's around when people excuse the exorbitant lifestyle of celebrity pastors. You know, have millions of dollars at the bank, mansions and private jets.
22:14: They just excuse that. They say, well, God blessed him. And so we should live like it. It's around corporately about America when we say, well, our prosperity is proof of God's blessing.
22:25: We must be God's favorite nation. That's why we have so much wealth and power, right? We say that a lot, don't we? But here, this man's wealth and power was actually a curse on him.
22:34: Other than a blessing, wasn't it? Because it kept him from eternal life because he wouldn't let it go.
22:41: Well, the people ask him, well, then who can be saved? You know, the people they think are the closest to God, the rich can't be saved.
22:49: How can anybody? Not the rich, who? How do we come to God? Well, it's impossible.
22:56: Left to ourselves. We can't. It is in verse 27. Impossible. What is impossible with man?
23:05: Is possible with God. It is possible. Salvation is possible with God. Salvation is impossible for us.
23:12: So when it is done. Well, that's a miracle. Miracle by definition is something
23:18: God that it is done. That's naturally impossible. It's naturally impossible for the rich, really for anyone to be saved.
23:25: But some are. So how do you come to God? Miraculously.
23:33: Well, Peter pointed out how he and the other disciples left their homes meager as they were. They're probably not very impressive homes, but probably hobbles.
23:40: But they left them anyway to follow Jesus. And that's that's impressive, isn't it? He's asking. Well, actually, it is.
23:45: Yeah, you know, it's where your family is and you're growing up all that. And Jesus responds that everyone who has left, unlike the rich young ruler, everyone who has left house or wife.
23:56: Oh, man, that gets right to that American idol of the relationship. Can you imagine that putting the kingdom of God ahead of the relationship?
24:04: That's what he says. Our brothers are parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God. So he or she can enter
24:11: God's rule that is live God's way, have an eternal life. That's the purpose, not just not just trying to be a religiously impressive person showing how much
24:19: I gave up. I really wanted this money, but I gave it. So I must impress God with it. No, you want to enter into God's rule.
24:25: You want to live his way. Everyone who has left those things, everyone who stood at that crossroads.
24:33: With the money, the relationship, the things or or Jesus, everyone who stood at that crossroads and knew that he couldn't have both
24:43: Jesus and the big house and the nice cars and the luxury and vacations every year or the unbelieving wife or husband who won't let you seek first the kingdom of God that he or she had to choose one or the other.
24:56: This is not making some kind of excuse for purposely alienating a husband or wife.
25:01: But if they make you choose, you choose the kingdom of God. You choose God's way. Everyone who stood at that crossroads and chosen
25:09: Jesus, the kingdom of God. Everyone who makes that choice, he says, will receive many times more now in this time.
25:22: And in the age to come, when the kingdom of God comes eternal life. But to do that, to make that choice wholeheartedly.
25:31: Well, that's naturally impossible for us, isn't it? So it will take the miracle of God changing your heart so that you love him and you believe his promises more than you believe in whatever shiny thing the world is swinging in front of you.
25:50: It takes a miracle. How do you come to God? Well, you come passionately, not now meaning your own passion for him, but the passion of the
26:03: Christ. You come to God through his passion, his death and resurrection. Here, the Lord Jesus is approaching
26:09: Jerusalem. In Luke's gospel, he's been set to go to Jerusalem since chapter 9, verse 51, where he says he set his face like a flint.
26:18: I was just utterly determined to go to Jerusalem. And everything he's taught and done since then, since chapter 9, is on the way of this pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
26:29: On the way to Jerusalem, a rich young ruler asked him how to inherit eternal life. The most important question. And when he's told that he'll have to choose between his wealth and his stuff and his power or the kingdom of God, he goes away sad.
26:41: Peter thought that he was more impressive than that. We left our houses. So just in case they think, well, they can impress
26:48: God with their sacrifice. They can impress God so much that that's how they get to God. And we come to God boasting of the relationships or the house or the money that we gave up.
26:58: Jesus takes them 12 disciples aside. Another meeting, another announcement. It says in verse 31, see, we're going to Jerusalem.
27:09: Do you know what that means? Do you know why we're going there? They don't really. Do you know why
27:16: I set my face to go there? Everything that is written about the son of man by the prophets, like Isaiah 53.
27:24: He was pierced. He was crushed by his stripes. We are healed. Everything he says will be accomplished.
27:32: He'll be handed over to the Romans and will be mocked. He'll be shamefully treated and spit upon. He will be the he will be made the opposite of impressive.
27:40: They will flog him for those stripes by which were healed and kill him.
27:46: But on the third day, he will rise. It's what people call now the passion of the
27:54: Christ. And it's how we come to God. And he told them so plainly.
28:01: They shouldn't have been surprised when all that started to unfold. But notice in verse 34, they understood none of these things.
28:08: What's not to understand? He's not speaking in some mysterious, mystical way, you know, like the towel was the sound of one hand clapping.
28:18: Oh, wow. You know, something like that. He described clearly that what is coming at the end of this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the disciples didn't understand because it says they were kept from being able to understand.
28:32: Notice says this thing, this announcement Jesus made what's going to happen was hidden from them was hidden.
28:42: It's put in the passive voice. That is, with the subject, the one who is doing the hiding, who is hiding it?
28:48: It was hidden. Who is hiding? The subject, the one doing the hiding is implied.
28:54: It's what's called a divine passive. That is, God has hidden this from them, even though Jesus spoke plainly.
29:02: Now, why? Why does God hide it? Because if we're to come to God, the Holy Spirit must reveal the truth, must reveal
29:09: Christ. What he must reveal what he did for us in his dying and rising again, the
29:15: Holy Spirit must reveal it to us what it means. It's not just a matter of our understanding the sentences, the grammar.
29:25: I mean, if you were there and you asked these disciples, what did he just say? They could probably recite back to you what he just said.
29:31: They understand clearly the words, but they didn't understand what he meant. It requires the
29:38: Lord revealing himself. John Wesley, who later became the father of Methodism, came to America, to Georgia in 1735, supposedly to be a missionary to the colonists and hopefully, he thought, to the
29:51: Indians. But almost as soon as he arrived, a pastor from the German Moravians, it's another denomination, the
29:57: Moravians, thought something was missing with this Wesley character. He asked him, you know,
30:03: Brother Wesley, have you, the witness within yourself, does the spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?
30:13: Wesley says, writing in his own diary, his own words, I was surprised and knew not what to answer.
30:20: The Moravian pastor could see that Wesley was disturbed and asked him, do you know
30:25: Jesus Christ? Now, imagine Wesley at this point, he is an ordained Anglican Church of England minister.
30:32: He's official missionary to Georgia. And he's being asked by this Moravian pastor, do you know Jesus Christ?
30:39: And Wesley paused and said, I know he is the savior of the world. True, the
30:45: Moravian pastor replied. But do you know that he has saved you? Wesley knew the facts and heard the gospel, but he was missing something.
30:55: And the result was that he was a failure as a missionary in Georgia, had to return to London, dejected and rejected.
31:02: And there he attended a meeting back in London of the Moravians on Aldersgate Street. He was so impressed by the
31:08: Moravians he had met in Georgia that he wanted to see what they're like back in England, in London. At that meeting, he said his heart, quote, his heart was strangely warmed.
31:19: And he testified finally, quote, I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.
31:26: And assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
31:36: How do you come to God? Now, sure, you know him through the passion of Christ as he becomes the atoning sacrifice that that tax collector, remember?
31:47: Tax collector, Lord atone for me that he was begging God for. But not just accepting the facts of history.
31:55: Wesley knew those facts before. Not just accepting, understanding the facts and not say you're just not disagreeing with them, but knowing what it means, knowing what it means to you personally.
32:06: How do you come to God? Childlikely, wholeheartedly, miraculously, passionately, personally, and finally, desperately.
32:23: On Jesus's way to Jerusalem, determined to go there, set to go there, they go through Jericho, which is only about 16 miles from from from Jerusalem.
32:32: So it's Jericho is closer to Jerusalem than Yanceyville is to Danville. OK, get a sense of it on the wayside.
32:38: So he's it's coming close. Jerusalem is on the wayside, a blind man begging. Here's the commotion of Jesus's entourage and ask what's going on.
32:48: And he's told Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And so he cried out in verse 38.
32:55: Notice that he cried out. Now, the Greek word there shows a desperation.
33:02: This is not a polite just raising of his voice, just using he's just using his outdoor voice so he can be heard better over the noise of the crowd.
33:09: The same Greek word is used when Jesus cried out on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
33:18: It's used twice in the book of Acts, a rioting mobs, you know, crying out.
33:24: So it's a word about intense desperation. He desperately shouts,
33:31: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. He calls
33:38: Jesus son of David, the one who fulfills the covenant with David, the Messiah. He pleads for mercy.
33:46: You know, he doesn't stand on anything he's impressed by. I come from a great family. Jesus, I have a lot of money in the bank.
33:52: I have connections. I have a good education and nothing, nothing, sheer mercy.
33:58: I need mercy. There's nothing I can nothing I have that impresses you.
34:03: I need your mercy. He made such a commotion that those nearby scolded him, told him to shut up in verse 39.
34:09: In his desperation, it says he cried out all the more. And this is a different Greek word. It means an urgent scream or shriek.
34:19: The tense showed that he kept doing it, the tense of the verb. In other words, he was crying out just over and over continually.
34:27: He was urgently screaming. It was an ongoing wail. Son of David, Messiah, have mercy on me.
34:39: All the more, Luke says. So Jesus stopped, asked for them to bring the blind beggar to him, and he asked the desperate man, what do you want me to do for you?
34:53: Now, you might think it's an obvious question what he would want. He's blind. But it's important that the blind man actually say it, that he put it into words.
35:02: Lord, master, let me recover my sight like a child, unafraid of losing his reputation, not even thinking about how he looks to others, what others opinions of this have of him, not caring about how whether or not he's impressing anyone else.
35:21: He's just desperate for mercy, mercy in the form of sight. And so Jesus says in verse 42, recover your sight.
35:30: His command has the power to create what he commands.
35:37: Your faith, faith that Jesus is the Messiah, faith that the
35:43: Lord, he is the Lord who can grant sight, faith that made him desperately scream out for mercy.
35:50: Your faith has made you well. Then he could see.
35:56: And he follows Jesus like that rich young ruler wouldn't.
36:03: And all the witnesses praise God for the miracle.
36:10: How do you come to God? You come as if there's there's nothing impressive about you, nothing that that makes you deserve him letting you come to him.
36:24: You come on pretentiously, unconcerned about your dignity as you cry out desperately for mercy.
36:33: You come trustingly, not like a brat who thinks he deserves it.
36:39: You come wholeheartedly. Or do you look for gimmicks so you can have your have your wealth and power and Jesus too?
36:48: You know that you can only come. Miraculously, by God giving you a new heart.
36:56: That in that new heart, you can't create yourself. Do you know that you can only come by getting a revelation from him of what he who he is, of what he's done, a revelation that you can't manufacture?
37:13: Do you come personally to the death and resurrection of Christ? You can come to God.
37:21: You can come to him like a child. You can come to him like a camel can go through a needle's eye, like a blind man can see again.
37:29: You can come to God by God doing that miracle.