Cry Out All the More to Jesus

Psalm 5 and 1 Peter 5:6-7 as the Call to Humble Dependence

If everyone would please stand, we read God's word. Old Testament reading this morning is Psalm 5. To the choir master, for the flutes, a Psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for I do pray to you. O Lord, in the morning, you hear my voice. In the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness.

Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful now shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.

I will bow down towards your holy temple and fear for you. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me. For there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction.

Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance of their transgressions, cast them out. For they have rebelled against you.

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exalt in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord. You cover them with favor as with a shield.

The New Testament reading is 1 Peter chapter five, verses six and seven. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

You may be seated.

Thanksgiving for the Fire Conference and the Move to Luke 18

Bibles to Luke chapter 18, please. I want to thank you as well as the five men in total from this church that went to the fire conference together to Oklahoma City. We rented a car and drove and enjoyed the conference together.

And part of the reason why that many could enjoy is because of the funds that come forth from the church to provide for the car and the hotel stay so that the financial burden is eased. And so I think we all thank you for sending us.

It was a delight. The fellowship being the preaching, it was truly a delight. Being in Oklahoma City and driving, we were gone for an extra amount of time. We were gone for the better part of the week.

So I knew I would have less preparation time. And so I decided that we would take a little detour from Ephesians today and we would look at Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in Luke 18. We went through this in family worship a few weeks back and we really enjoyed seeing Bartimaeus and saw him as a model of how to cry out to Jesus, which was helpful for our children who need to cry out to him for salvation initially.

And it's helpful for Sarah and I, as we remind ourselves of how important it is to cry out to Jesus every day of our life. I don't like to ask for help too often. Doing all the driving, a lot of the driving this week, it reminded me of whenever I've spent too long in a certain lane and I need to get over quickly and there's cars, Sarah will tell me, turn on your blinker so they know that you need to get over it.

And I never do that, I will never do that because it's like me asking for help and I can't do that. If anything, I would turn it on to let you know I'm going now, so be careful. That's how I like to use a blinker.

I don't like to use it as a cry for help that I messed up and I need help getting over. And I think there is a common feeling within ourselves in which it is difficult for us to ask for help. It is difficult for us to humble ourselves to cry out for help.

I think we get a great example here in Bartimaeus of one who is so burdened by his problems and he sees such a solution before him that he doesn't allow pride or anything else to get in the way of him crying out for help.

It reminds me of a video I saw recently of a woman with her toddler son running to a fire department where there were firefighters crying out for help because her toddler was choking on something and he couldn't breathe.

That lady did not question whether or not she should cry out for help. It was not something that she's like, well, should I do it? She saw that there was help nearby, they surely could take care of him.

And so you could see in the video, her frantically running and screaming for help because help was there for her son to get taken care of. And I think it's so important as we're looking at Ephesians chapter four, as we're looking at the imperatives, as we're looking at being the new man in Christ, living righteously before him, enjoying that land, it is so important for us to look at that not as a command that you must now be a perfect Christian that as you look at it, you say, but I am not, and what can I do?

And then so you just sit around in depression because you don't even come close to what Paul's talking about in Ephesians four. We're in Luke 18, okay, it's okay. We're in Luke 18, but I'm connecting this with Ephesians four but what I want to press upon you as we're taking time in Luke 18 is to remind yourself that as we're looking at the imperatives, as we're looking at how to live righteously in light of what Christ has done, what it should hit on your heart, on your mind is that we should be, as Christians, professional criers for help.

This isn't a, man, I am supposed to be a better Christian, although that might be true, but this is a, initially, I need to cry out for Jesus, not just at the first, but every day, for me to enjoy the things that he has for me.

I've kind of alluded to that, or I've said that previously in sermons, and so I thought it'd be good, as I've recently have gone through this in family worship, really, I've considered it. I think it's been very helpful that we would remind ourselves now that we need to be criers for Jesus, that as we look at what he has called us to be, as we look at our shortcomings, we need to learn how not just to cry to him at the first, but cry to him all the days of our life, and I think we get a great taste of that in Bartimaeus in Luke 18.

I absolutely love his story. Lord willing, if we have another child, and inevitably, it's gonna be a boy, because that's just how it's been, I would like to call him Bartimaeus, but Sarah put the cutoff on that.

She doesn't like the idea of calling him Bart. But I respect Bartimaeus. I respect what he looks, how he's an example to us here, and so I wanna look at him and look at Christ together with this passage.

Jesus on the Road to Jerusalem and the Crowd’s Expectation of His Kingdom

So read with me in Luke 18, verse 35. 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. They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.

And Bartimaeus cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. 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. And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him, and when he came near, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you?

And he said, Lord, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, recover your sight, your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight, and he followed him, glorifying God, and all the people, when they had saw it, they gave praise to God.

Let us pray. Oh God in heaven, what a wonderful word we have before us here. What a delight it is to be those who have become aware of our destitution, of our misery, and we have with delight looked upon the Savior of the world walking by.

God in heaven, may we not grow hardened, may we not, Father, through falling into certain sins this week, try to avoid Jesus, or be too embarrassed to go to him, but let us be like Bartimaeus in which we cry out to him.

And Lord, I cannot help but think of those who have before me right now in this room who have never cried out to Jesus in this way for salvation. Oh, may they learn that it is a blessed thing to see how bad their need is, and to say, I will not allow anything to stop me from crying out to this Savior who is walking by now.

Oh, Lord in heaven, would you help us with these things? God, would you enable us to understand these truths of scripture? Would your spirit be so kind to us to apply the work of Jesus to give us open ears and a open heart ready to receive the doctrines of Christ and delight and to meditate on them?

Thank you for being so kind to us in Jesus, and may we see your kindness displayed here. In Jesus' name, amen. So as we're looking at this story of Bartimaeus, this blind beggar, of course, we don't see his name in Luke, but we see his name in the other gospels.

He is Bartimaeus, and as we see his example of crying out, I wanna enjoy that narrative, but I wanna enjoy it by looking at the three different characters of this narrative. We have three different characters.

We have Jesus, we have Bartimaeus, and we have the crowd, which is more than one character, but it's all grouped into one. And so we have these three main players in this narrative, and I want to make sure we highlight that, we appreciate their story or their perspective, and then we'll see them all converge together with Bartimaeus and Jesus as we appreciate that narrative of the cry of Bartimaeus to our Lord Jesus Christ.

So I wanna see these three characters and see how they converge together in the narrative, and then I want to then apply it to us today, because there's shadowy figures here that we're seeing in Bartimaeus that we see the fulfillment in our day today that I wanna make sure that we end this sermon looking at how that applies to us today.

So that's kind of like the three focus points that we're gonna be looking at with this sermon. And so as we look at verse 35, we see the first character or the first person, the first vantage point, so to speak, in verse 35 of Luke 18, we see, as he drew near to Jericho, and he there is Jesus Christ our Lord, as Jesus drew near to Jericho.

And so Jesus here is, he's on his last stretch of his ministry. He's on his last stretch of his prophetic ministry of which he went about the country Israel preaching the gospel, and he's on his last stretch, his last little bit as he is heading up to Jerusalem to do a major thing in obedience to the Father and for his kingdom.

Indeed, he has gone up to Jerusalem years past, for many years past, but this is very different as he's taken the most basic route through Jericho up to Jerusalem. This is the last time he will do that for he has a grand mission coming to completion up before him.

And we see this, go to Mark chapter 10. We see this on the mind of Jesus in Mark chapter 10 of what is going on in his mind and what the feel of the crowd around him was as he approaches his last leg of his ministry here.

You see in Mark 10, we see, do you see verse 46 through the end of that chapter? That's the story of Bartimaeus right there. But we see here in verse 32, something happens right prior to that that explains a little bit what's going on in Jesus' mind, and also we'll see what's going on in the crowd's mind as well.

Look at verse 32, as Mark says in Mark 10, 32, and they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them, and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. Now we see there, and those who followed were afraid.

I didn't finish like I was finishing there. And so we see here that Jesus is something very important is on his mind. He's walking ahead of them with a very deep purpose in his walk, and it's so amazing to behold that the people around him are afraid, they're amazed.

And I think what's going on there is that Jesus is heading up to Jerusalem, and he has a very particular mission in mind, and he's focused and bound, determined to fulfill it. And so it's, you know how you can feel like maybe tension in the room, or like you can feel like the energy in the room?

Well, there's something in which they can feel the energy here. There's something amazing that's about to happen. He's going up to Jerusalem to do something very, very important. Now we're gonna see in a moment what the crowd assumed he was doing in Jerusalem, but here we're in the perspective of Jesus, and what Jesus is about to do is what he then goes on to explain to his disciples, continue in Mark 10, in verse 32, towards the end of it, and taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was about to happen.

There is something amazing that's about to happen in Jerusalem. I'm on my last stretch of ministry here, and something important is about to happen, something very serious is about to happen, in which he says, saying, in verse 33, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock him, spit on him, flog him, kill him, and after three days, he will rise.

Jesus is essentially saying, I'm about to go up and establish my kingdom. It's a very weird kingdom, not one that anyone has ever seen before, for there has been many people who've gone up to the capital city to take their kingdom.

We think of Caesar going up to Rome. We think of William the Orange, William III going to London to take the English throne, and so we see there's many times in history where people have gone to take the kingdom, to take the main city, and Jesus is about to do the same thing for his kingdom, but it is indeed a strange one, one in which he will die, one in which he will sacrifice himself for others, and we see, just listen to me as I read it, the nature of that death, as Jesus underlines it in John chapter 10, 17 and 18, he says, for this reason the father loves me, because I laid down my life that I may take it up again.

Jesus says, no one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up. This charge I have received from my father. So we have this, the father has commanded the son to do a work for the sake of the kingdom.

The father has sent the son to establish a kingdom with his blood in which he would bring in wretched sinners into his kingdom and make them alive in Christ again. This is the charge. This is the kingdom.

This is the focus that Jesus has as he's going up to Jerusalem. He has this in his mind. I am to be obedient to my father and establish my kingdom with my blood and bring in wretched sinners to this blessed kingdom.

This is the kind of walk that he had. It's about to happen. I'm approaching Jerusalem. And so as we see in verse 35, and now we're gonna be in Mark 10 again. So be prepared for that. We're gonna be in Mark 10 again.

But again, in verse 35, let that kind of saturate your mind as you see as he drew near to Jericho. That's what's going on in Jesus' mind. He has been walking forth with a certain step of determination.

And it's so much so that the people around them are in fear as he's approaching Jerusalem to do something major. And so we see here, another character comes into the narrative though. And this is a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.

And again, that's in Luke 18 verse 35 as we're continuing in here. There is Jesus on the mission from the father. I mean, you talk about massive, big, right? The kingdom, the above all kingdoms, establishing that with his blood.

The greatest work he could ever do is this massive stuff. And then you have the contrast with the character of Bartimaeus, right? In Luke 18 verse 35, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And that's a dime a dozen, right?

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to do the biggest thing to ever happen on earth. And then we have the dime a dozen beggar, blind beggar named Bartimaeus. Even Jesus says in the gospels that you'll always have the poor with you, right?

We always have poor. We always have this sort of stuff is nothing unique, right? To have beggars in the street and to have this blind man who is a beggar sitting by the roadside begging. So you have this man walking into Jericho on his way to Jerusalem, about to do something massive.

And then you have this lowly beggar that really honestly, most people would probably think it'd be better.

If he was dead.

So you have the contrast of these two perspectives going on here. I hope you're seeing. And then in verse 36, we have the third character or group of people that's going to really come together in this narrative that as we know it will help us to appreciate it, in which we see in verse 36, and hearing a crowd going by.

Okay, so there's that third character. We have a crowd surrounding Jesus that we just saw in Mark 10. In fact, go back to Mark 10. We saw in Mark 10 that they were just a little bit before, they were in fear as Jesus is going.

He has this large crowd. He's going up to Jerusalem to do something big. And we can see from scripture, and you've heard this before as Christians, if you're acquainted, if you've been around preaching enough, that the crowd by and large was looking for a kingdom too.

It just wasn't the kingdom that Jesus was about to establish. They knew something big was going to happen. Jesus knew something big was going to happen. They were assuming a kingdom was going to come by him going up to Jerusalem as I alluded to earlier, but it's in the typical fashion of Caesar and of William of Orange, not in the way that he was going to bring.

But nevertheless, they were anticipating something massive as well. They're anticipating a coming kingdom of glory like we see in the nations. And we see this even in Mark 10. Remember, let's go back there.

We just saw Jesus determined to go. He talks about his death. That's what he's focused on. But we see the disciples focus on something else, which is kind of reveals the crowd's heart too. Look at verse 35 of Mark 10.

We see what the crowd's thinking. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus and said to him, We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. I didn't even notice this before, but notice how they're asking something just like Bartimaeus, but it is something different completely.

Oh, that's a whole sermon right there. But okay, let's continue on. In verse 36, and he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory, or in other words, in your kingdom.

What are they expecting to happen? They're expecting Jesus to finally, it's been a few years, he's kind of been doing different things, but finally he's going up to Jerusalem and he's going to finally set up his kingdom, knock out his enemies, and there's going to be a glorious day of David once more, of Solomon once more, and they're like, let us be at your right hand of glory.

Let us appreciate that kingdom that you're about to establish by defeating the Romans, defeating your enemies, so that your kingdom can be had here. This is what's going on in their mind. And this is not a unique thing to the disciples.

The crowd at large was anticipating this sort of glorious event as he's going up to Jerusalem. We see through the Gospels, the misunderstanding what the kingdom of God would be. You remember John 6, after he fed the people, what did they want to do to Jesus after he did that work?

They wanted to set him up as king. Okay, it's happened, it's here. We have a guy who can feed us, he can feed an army, and the army can go to Jerusalem and finally take back Israel. And so Jesus constantly,.

He had to get away,.

Go somewhere else. This isn't what I'm doing. This is a common occurrence, even from his disciples, even here before his death, that the kingdom is coming, that is the kingdom of the world. Something major is gonna happen, he's gonna go to Jerusalem, and he's going to finally complete this kingdom.

That's what they had in mind. This is what the crowd around Jesus has in mind as we go back to Luke 18. So we have these three different characters here, three different perspectives. Jesus has a grand mission indeed, an eternal mission, a mission far larger than we can even conceive, in which he's going to save sinners from their sins.

We have Bartimaeus, who is a blind beggar, a nobody, someone in which you could easily dispose of, and then you have the crowd that's richly anticipating what Jesus is doing, going up to Jerusalem, excited for the kingdom that's about to come, even fearful, perhaps, for what's about to happen.

And so that's how these three characters are coming together now, and they all converge here in verse 36, as we are then looking at Bartimaeus, he hears a crowd going by, and he inquired what this meant.

And so, again, imagine this man used to have a sight, we see later on in the narrative, he doesn't anymore, so now he just sits there begging, that's what he does. And he utilizes what he does have, his sense of hearing, and he inquires what's going on here.

He utilizes the things that he still has from God to ask an important question, like what is the commotion all about? What is happening? And in verse 37, they told him, the crowd, at the beginnings of the crowd, they told him Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.

So now he's aware of the presence of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth was a very common name at this time. Imagine that's what happens when someone is doing miracles around you, feeding people, healing people.

And so his name was a household name. Everyone knew of him. And so when he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, he, in verse 38, cries out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And that word cried out, it's like a random, just all of a sudden, just screaming going on.

We were on the porch Saturday, enjoying the nice day, and all of a sudden the cat that was laying and sleeping on the porch, that's all it does, it just randomly, growl like that real loud. It scared us all.

It's because Benjamin was going to town on the rocker and just went right on the tail. Just screamed out,.

Right?

Scared everyone. And so here, this is the same kind of language.

He just,.

He hears it and he screams out with all that he has. He screams out with all that he has. You gotta imagine in his mind, he's thinking, at one time I had my eyesight. And perhaps he wasn't a beggar,.

Right?

Perhaps he could contribute in society and not have to beg. And he remembers that day, and now being blinded for whatever amount of time, he hears that Jesus, who has been known to heal the one promise of old that would come and take sins, or conformities, or illnesses away.

He hears he is passing by, and his desperate need calls, draws him to cry out to him as loud as he can,. Jesus of, son of David, have mercy on me. And notice the contrast between son of David and Jesus of Nazareth.

Son of David has messianic undertones to it. Jesus of Nazareth, the details where he came from, and that would be a common way to identify someone. But son of, there's I think a meaningful contrast here when he cries out twice,.

We'll see,.

Son of David. This is a man who knows this is the promised one of Israel. He can do far more abundantly than I can ask or think. I know he can. He gives him a messianic title. He cries out, this is the one who can heal me.

An interesting reaction we get in verse 39 from those, the crowd around Jesus, in which in verse 39, those who were in front rebuked him. And they told him, be silent. God imagine, this man doesn't want to be blind anymore.

Jesus can heal him. He cries out, and this is the way the crowd responds. Now some people ask, why did they rebuke him?

Why'd they do that?

And I think the best, I think the best explanation of that would be, in my humble opinion, because we don't get it. It doesn't exactly explain why they rebuked him. But I think the best explanation of that is that Jesus is on his way and he's about to do something very big.

And you are not. Do not distract him. Do not get in his way. Let him do what he's about to do. It is very massive. And so stop distracting him with your typical problems of being a beggar, a blind man, that's a dime a dozen.

We don't need another one distracting him from doing what he needs to be doing. And so I think these stories are converging, in which Jesus is on his way to do something massive. The crowd wants it for a different reason.

And here you have little old Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, a dime a dozen, crying out and they say, shut up. Just go and stop making noises. Don't distract him from what he's about to do. But I love the response of Bartimaeus.

Now imagine the different things that you've wanted in life and you ask for it and then you get negativity from it and then it shuts you up. What does that show? You probably didn't want it that much.

You weren't very energized for it. Bartimaeus does not fit that description, does he? The negative reaction of the crowd only fuels his cry of help to Jesus. Now, this is why I don't like get into application at the end, because I want to make application now to us.

But nevertheless,.

Let that settle in your heart and mind that his desire for what Jesus has to offer was so strong that when he gets pushback from the large crowd, it only entices them to cry out all the more, which is what it says in verse 39.

He cried out, but he cried out all the more. It only caused him to cry out all the more. It doesn't stop him in any way. It doesn't quiet him. He only screams louder. Son of David, have mercy on me. And what is most beautiful and precious and wonderful, just meditate on this one morning and weep, because what does Jesus do?

In verse 40, Jesus stopped. Now, you got to imagine, Caesar didn't stop for no blind beggar, right? William III did not have blind beggars on his mind. There was beggars all over the place. He did not stop for anyone, because that wasn't his mission.

And the crowd, and thinking his mission is to go to Jerusalem, take the kingdom, his mission is not this beggar anymore. He's moving forward to bigger things. And our beloved Lord, with the same, I'm going to Jerusalem to do something massive.

I mean, think about when you have a big journey before you, and it's a big one. At least for me, I have a really hard time just enjoying the journey through it. Nope, we're not doing any potty breaks.

We're going, right? Let's get there.

Jesus stops with his focus on Jerusalem. He can see it in the horizon, not literally, and he stops for Bartimaeus.

Why?

Well, remember the perspective of Jesus. What is Jesus doing? He's coming for people like Bartimaeus. His whole purpose is to go and die for people like Bartimaeus. His whole mission is grand from the Father, right?

The kingdom given from the Father to die for the people.

Huge stuff, indeed.

But it is the little people like Bartimaeus that he's dying for. It's those people that are part of his kingdom. This is why the kingdom of what Christ brought is just so mind-boggling in so many different ways.

And here's one of them. That he's on his way to Jerusalem, set up a kingdom, and since he's dying for people like him, he stops. Look at verse 40. Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him.

Of course, Bartimaeus had to have help. There's a large crowd. Imagine, it's hard enough navigating through a large crowd on your own with all your senses, let alone when you're blind. It would be hard, so he needs help to get to Jesus through the large crowd.

And I like to assume, maybe this is too much here, but I like to assume the same people that were telling him to shut up are now the same people bringing him to Jesus. It's just too good to not think like that.

He is being brought to Jesus now. Turn of events, people thinking he needs to just be on his way, Jesus stops, he says, bring him to me. And when he came near, in verse 40, at the end of that, verse 40,.

When he came near, he asked him,.

Jesus asked him, what do you want me to do for you? What do you want me to do for you? Now, again, some commentators say that what Jesus is saying here is he's saying, well, you're a blind beggar, right?

What do you want me to do for you here? Is this man going to simply not get much above the senses of I need food and money, give me that. Give me some alms, please. Or are you going to ask for, give me my sight?

And that would probably alleviate this issue too.

He could work then.

And so some people think that Jesus is simply saying, well, do you want me to give you money? Or do you want me to give you sight? Which one is it? And some people, and I think this isn't completely opposed to that.

Whether or not Jesus is doing that, you can decide. But I do know that Jesus knows exactly what Bartimaeus wants. I do know that. Jesus doesn't need to be told what Bart, and Jesus is truly God. He doesn't need to be told anything.

But even us, who we are not truly God, we can probably surmise what he wants here, right? He wants a sight. Jesus knows that. But why does he ask? Because Jesus delights in the cry of faith of his people.

You hear that?

Jesus delights in the cry of faith to his people. Does he need the cry of faith? Does he need that? He's like, I don't know what your needs are. I don't know what your wants are. I have no idea. He knows all things.

But he delights in your cry for help. You need to understand that. He delights in your cry for help. He knows what Bartimaeus wants, but he wants Bartimaeus to express it. Do not forget that, beloved.