Matthew 20 (Part 3) :29-34

And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him, obviously following Jesus. 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 us, Son of David. The crowd rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but they cried out all the more, Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David. And stopping, Jesus called them and said, what do you want me to do for you? And 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. Pray with me. Holy Spirit, open our hearts. Open our eyes. With just your word, let us hear from you today, in Jesus' name, amen. This is such a wonderful passage because it speaks of all of us. We are all these blind men. And we are all those whose hearts are touched with the coming or with the understanding of Jesus, and we cry out to God. And you know, I love this passage for so many, for so many reasons. And there are so many things that we can learn from it. But it really just is this beautiful kind of a picture of the heart of God to these men who were in that culture kind of throwaways. These blind men, and by the way, Mark tells us when he tells this story that they were begging. They were beggars. And so they were considered social outcasts on so many levels. First of all, they were blind. They were considered to be under the curse of God because they were blind. Anybody who had lost their sight was considered to be cursed by God. And they were not only in darkness because of their blindness, but because of their blindness they couldn't work, which means they were also thrust into poverty. And when they began to cry out after Jesus, obviously they knew there was a commotion. They inquired of someone in the crowd, what's going on? And they're told that Jesus is passing through. And they begin to cry out, Jesus, son of David. And they call him by his messianic title, son of David. That would be the exact same thing as saying, Messiah, have mercy on me. And the people around them are telling them to be quiet. Just shut up. These guys, remember, they're like street trash. And they're ruining everything. I mean, you know, Jesus is walking by, and by the way, it was not uncommon for a rabbi to walk through a city and teach as he went. So it could be that some people were even straining to hear or something. But this crowd, this huge crowd of people are walking, you know, as they're walking out of Jericho, this enormous crowd, and these men are calling, Jesus, you know, have mercy on us. And Jesus stops the whole procession. I gotta tell you, I love that. I love it because it reminds me that Jesus hears the voice that longs for him and that wants to receive from him. And he will stop. You know, I've actually had people tell me in the past, well, you know, I pray about it, but I know God's really busy. God loves you, and he's willing to stop everything to respond to you. It's the beauty of what this passage reveals. So Jesus stops the whole thing, and he calls the men, and in my mind's eye, I can see some of the disciples scurrying over to where these guys are and grabbing them by the arm. They can't see, remember, they're blind, bringing them over to where Jesus is, and Jesus simply says to them, what do you want me to do for you? And the men say, we want to see. We want our sight restored. And so we're told here in this passage that Jesus touched them and restored their sight. And then we're told that they followed him, which is such a beautiful expression of gratitude, is it not? Some wonderful things that we learn from this passage. First of all, we learn that these men seized the opportunity to react when they knew that Jesus was passing through. It took the opportunity. They could have, I suppose, just stayed quiet. They could have just said, well, he'll probably never even think about coming and talking to someone like me, street trash that I am. They could have just held their tongue, and they would have lost the opportunity to reach out to Jesus. Kind of makes me wonder, too, you know, how many people sit in church week after week and hear about Christ, hear about the gospel, hear about the cross, and don't respond. They don't take the opportunity to call out to God and say, Lord, I need you. I need your forgiveness. I need your life, you know, in me. I think sometimes about when we do communion, because communion is such a beautiful picture of actually taking Christ in, you know. We take the bread, which symbolizes his body. We take the cup that symbolizes his blood, and we take it in. We literally consume it. It's a picture of consuming Christ, receiving Jesus as Savior. How many people sit through communion? I know I did. When I was a kid, you know, my parents made me go. I was one of those kids, probably like some of you, who had to go to church, had to go to church, was made. You guys have it made in the shade. I had to wear a suit. I had to polish my shoes, slick down my hair, you know, the thing, and my dad would get my brother and I up on the stool thing, and he'd polish our shoes every Sunday morning. I had to wear a suit and a tie. That was, you know, back in the 60s, when we were at least pretending to be something we weren't. But anyway, I sat through countless numbers of communion services, never giving a second thought to Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross, never seizing the opportunity. I like how these guys did that. The second note, the second thing that we learned from these guys is, man, they talk about tenacity. Even when the people were telling them to be quiet, what does it say? It says they shouted louder. Did you notice that? How would you like it if there was something that you wanted, in fact, needed from God, and you weren't getting any encouragement from anyone about it? How about if you're getting the opposite of encouragement from people around you? What if they're actually discouraging you? What if they're actually telling you, you know, oh, that's ridiculous, and what are you thinking, and why don't you just be quiet? How would you respond? Would you just kind of clam up? Oh. Or would you speak up? Would you keep crying out to God? You know, it's interesting. These guys were blind, and so they had a reason to call out to God, didn't they? Isn't it interesting? I'm starting to learn in my life that the things that many times we are given that are challenges in our lives are reasons to call out to God. I think there was probably a lot of people standing along the roadside there as the road stretched out of Jericho who did not have, at that time, any real reason to cry out to God. Maybe life's going okay, whatever, and they just watched him walk by, and they were unchanged by the event. Here's these men whom society would consider throwaways. They've got a reason to call out, and so they call out, and they cry at the top of their lungs. And I want you to see a third thing, too, that I think is a very important thing that we learn from this. The third thing is they declared their faith out loud, and I like that. You know, it's pretty obvious that these men had talked about who Jesus was because they did refer to him using that messianic title, Son of David, but the crowd did everything they could to shut him up and to shame him or whatever, and maybe even some of them disagreed with their conclusion that Jesus was the Son of David, and they're trying to get them to back down, but again, they cried out all the louder. Let me tell you something, people. If you haven't been shut down yet, you just wait, because it's coming. in a society today that's becoming increasingly hostile to those of us who simply want to say, I am a Christian and I believe. We're living today in a culture where it seems like almost every day we hear about believers being called on the carpet or shamed because they openly declare what they believe. They're willing to say it out loud, like these guys. Jesus, son of David, that's, do you understand that that's like saying, Jesus, you are the Messiah. That's what they're saying. It's a public declaration that they are giving about the person of Jesus Christ. You know, it's amazing too. We send our kids off to college today and within the classrooms of those colleges, they find some of the greatest assaults on their faith. And in fact, some of the colleges, some of the Ivy League schools that we now look up to as these huge bastions of superior education. Many of these colleges were started to equip people to go out into the mission field. Did you know that? I mean, some of these colleges out east and so forth, they were literally started by Christians to send people out in the mission field. And now you go to one of those colleges today and your faith will be assaulted at every turn. It has gone completely the opposite. They're not just no longer preparing people for the mission field. Now they're discouraging people from any kind of a functional belief or faith in the Bible or God or what have you. And this is our world, you guys, and welcome to it. But I think there's a lesson to be learned about these men who just pressed through and so forth even though there wasn't a whole lot of tolerance from the crowd, you know? Funny today, isn't it? Everything is tolerated except your Christian convictions. That they won't tolerate. When the time comes, will we speak up and tell others what we believe even when it isn't popular to do so? Let me show you a passage from Matthew chapter 10.

That's a sobering statement. That's a very sobering thing to hear our Lord say. Are you willing to speak up? Even when it's unpopular, even when people are trying to shut you down, are you willing to make that public declaration of faith? Fourth thing that we learn from these guys, they weren't afraid to ask for something big. I like that too because that shows faith. And so many times we pray, but we're afraid to ask something for something big. Maybe we're afraid that, you know, we don't wanna put God in a bind, or we don't wanna put him in a place where he might just have to let us down. And all the while, our Bible, in Ephesians chapter three, verse 20, we're told to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think according to his power and so forth. We're told that this is a reality. God is able to do beyond, far beyond what we can even ask or think, and yet we don't ask. We don't ask for big things. These guys ask for big things. Jesus said, what do you want me to do? We wanna have our sight restored. Whoa. That's not something you just go around asking anybody. That's something you can ask God. And these guys were not afraid to ask for something big. Do we believe? And then the fifth thing I wanna show you here about these guys is that they showed their gratitude. And I like it because this section ends in this chapter with the statement that immediately after Jesus touched them they recovered their sight, and it says, and they followed him. In other words, they got their sight and they made a decision at that point. Upon receiving their sight, I am going to follow you. That's gratitude because it's giving my life, you see. You gave me my life. I'm giving my life back to you. I'm offering it up to you. It really is a beautiful thing. Again, I'm always kind of comparing this with our culture and our culture. I mean, you guys know you live in this culture too. We're living in this increasing sort of a mentality where I deserve my rights and I deserve, and we've kind of forgotten how to say thank you. To be completely honest with you, we've forgotten really how to be grateful. And now we so consider it a part of our rights to be given things, even if, well, for whatever reason that we no longer have a heart of gratitude about anything. We just kind of like, you owe me. For what, I'm not sure, but you owe me. Maybe just for breathing or something or taking up space, but I want my money, you owe me. And whether it's coming from the government or coming from whoever, we've lost this sense of gratitude to be grateful and to have a heart of thanksgiving. And I love, and I think that you and I can do that even as it relates to Jesus. We can come to Jesus just to get, you know, and then, well, now, what are you giving him? What are you giving back? What are you, what have you laid before him as a result? These men received their sight and they gave him their lives. We're going to follow you. And now we're going to walk with Jesus from here on out. Paul wrote to the Romans in the 12th chapter in a verse that I know you've read many times. He says, therefore, I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy. What is God's mercy all about? Well, it's how God has been merciful to you. How, you know, these guys received their sight back. What have you received? Well, spiritually, you've received sight. You've received other things as well. So in view of that, now, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Paul says, here's what I want to do. I want to urge you, in fact, to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, because this is your spiritual act of worship. This is what it means to spiritually give yourself to the Lord. You know, to say, you gave me my sight. You restored to me my life. And I give you my life to you, for you. So forth. God, I thank you. These are cool things. You know, I just, I decided before first service that we were going to, after hearing and reading about this whole idea of a life that is restored by the opening up of the eyes, I told Ken right at the end of worship, I said, I'm going to share for a little bit. Then I want you to share some of your testimony again with people, because I think it's a really good way to give a good reminder of just how God opens the eyes and restores a life. And I just thought, you know, here on this Sunday before Christmas, what better reminder of the light of the glory of God that shines into our lives and brings life and light. Blindness, is that something I can really relate to? Because, you know, I think most of us can relate to that actually, because for periods of our lives, we all walk in darkness. My folks started coming here to Calvary Chapel when I was about 15. They had believed in God when I was growing up, but they were not believers in Christ, and they were seeking him. And so we would, you know, when I was really little, they tried different denominations, different churches. And finally, by the time I was about 11 years old, they ended up in a Bible believing church where they received the gospel, and they both became believers at that time. And in the next six months, a year or so, all of my siblings and I all had kind of gotten into the youth group there and gotten into the social environment there and all professed Christ. And in hindsight, I kind of can see that that was largely because of kind of our environment. I don't know if I speak for all of my siblings when I say this, but there was this element of like, oh, I become a Christian, I fit in with these new friends, this is kind of what we're doing. And so there was no real depth there. But, you know, I was excited about the Lord at that time when I was 11, 12. And then as I started kind of getting into my teen years, 13, 14, I really felt this really strong draw for the things of the world, and especially like the sex, drugs, and rock and roll kind of culture. And especially. especially like Classic rock from the 70s and 80s. I don't know why that was such a draw for me But it was in hindsight again 2020. Well, I won't comment on genres of music. But anyway you know that was something that was a real a real draw to me and I was looking for an excuse I think to Be able to say that God and the things that he wanted and who he was Was invalid so This actually kind of came in a number of different ways, but there were two two main ones the first one Came Largely from an experience that I had with music I'm a really feelings driven person and I think we live in a really feelings driven culture We're always, you know being told to You know be who we are and when translated that means do whatever you feel like and and we're really taught to be Impulsive with the things that we buy with the with the types of decisions we make and so forth And I'm very very much a product. I think of that of that type of thinking and and also I think that my personality just kind of compounds that and so You know when I was when I was in middle school and we would be at church and they'd be you know Doing worship music and everything. I would I would raise my hands and all and I would feel this like feeling, you know And I was like, oh, that's awesome Like that must be God and I even remember at a junior high summer camp one year I was having a conversation with another kid and he was like, you know that feeling and worship like feels like you're gonna yawn And I was like, yeah, I totally know what you're talking about, right and I asked for service and nobody knew the yawn thing But him and I I guess we both had the yawn thing, but it like, you know, there's this like feeling like in you're somewhere this area that you know, it's like And I experienced this and you know, he told me that he had the same feeling so obviously must be the Holy Spirit and so I kind of you know Understood the Holy Spirit to be this feeling that I experienced during worship music and and So, you know, like I said, I was I was already at that time looking kind of for a reason to Disprove God and it came for me Through a song that I think was by Toby Keith country artists, so this was right after 9-eleven and he had come out with this song about America and And there was this like, you know, there's this really great arrival in the song and I remember I was I was listening to the Song and I had that same feeling, you know that same excitement and that same thrill and I was like, haha God is a charlatan this whole church thing These people are just you know, they're just using music to to do people into thinking that you know There actually is you know something greater something bigger, you know Because what I discovered was that there are a lot of songs and a lot of genres of music that can give you that same feeling that I had called the Holy Spirit because because it's you know, it's these these particular progressions of Chords that lead almost everybody to have this, you know sense of mild euphoria. And so That was kind of the first thing that I kind of used to take a step away from From from the Lord and from the truth that I was being taught at school or excuse me church Not school at all. I was going to public school at that time So that was the first kind of step that I took away the the second one was That I had I had learned about or rather heard about Predestination and I had heard that it was in the Bible somewhere and so I decided That I must be predestined for hell and that there was no good wasting my time on Religion or on God or on church and that I should just basically have as much fun as I could And live to be like 25 which at the time I thought was really old I don't think that anymore So anyway You know, I I kind of just came to this place of where you know I was kind of pulling these curtains shut on the truth for myself, you know And it was like this voluntary blindness and the funny thing is that and the thing that I can really relate to these guys about These these blind men is like, you know as as I pulled these curtains shut more and more and more The more miserable I got so like the less truth that I could see the less truth that I that I believed You know, my life didn't get any better because of it, you know as I started doing the things that I thought that I wanted to do I found that I was more and more and more miserable and more and more and more wretched, you know And it's like with these guys They Had a reason to cry out Right. It's like who's to say that if they had sight they might have just ignored Jesus, you know Like pastor Paul said they might have just not even realized that they needed him And so, you know in the same way I'm seeing less and less truth and I'm becoming more and more and more miserable And and as my parents like came to Calvary Chapel, I was 15 And I wanted nothing to do with any of it nothing to do with any of you who were here at the time Nothing to do with pastor Paul nothing to do with the teaching. I just you know, I was like so checked out and so You know As much as I possibly could be my parents would drag me kicking and screaming to church services on Sunday morning or on Wednesday night They'd make me go to youth group and I made it very clear through my body language That I did not want anything to do with anybody or anything that had to do with church I would like sit all the way slumped down with my chest on my knees and my fingers on the floor In services and then I would you know, like do these kinds of things During youth group and make sure that the speaker knew I didn't care at all and Which is you know now and I'm the speaker at youth groups Anyway So You know, I was I was running away from the Lord as as fast as I could and you know He did bring me Finally to a place where I was able to feel the weight of my sin and that happened right as I was turning 18 I was like 17 or 18 And my girlfriend at the time who we had been like just this horrible relationship on again off again all the time kind of a thing And she told me that she was pregnant. And so I was like, okay. Well, I'm gonna have to figure this out I'm gonna have to get married and I'm gonna have to you know, do whatever it is You know that I need to do to support her and this baby and then she she miscarried and she Told me that it was my fault and that I had emotionally abused her and so forth, which Honestly, it's probably true because you know, I had no idea how to have a healthy relationship at that time and You know when when she had the miscarriage, I mean, you know what she told me she was pregnant that rocked me enough But when when she told me that she had miscarried That Kind of I guess that just kind of brought things into perspective for me because I had been being taught at church And at school because when I was in high school, I did go to a Christian school you know that sin leads to death and now I was actually experiencing that in a real sense, you know, and I was like, okay, I Have to come to grips with the fact I have to or at least I have to look into the eyes Of the fact that my sin has resulted in this death period. There's no getting around that and And that was really crushing to me. I Was sitting right back in that corner and After the after the teaching which I have I have no idea what it was about Sorry But pastor Paul said, you know that if anybody had any prayer needs To come down and I decided kind of all in a moment. I decided okay. I Need something. I need some help. And so I came down and I you know I was gonna ask pastor Paul to pray with me and I couldn't get three words out before I was just like Bawling and I had tears running down my face and I was like, oh I wasn't expecting this And pastor Paul was like, whoa, you know, like let's go over to my office, you know Give you some special attention. Just hold on a second So he took me over there after after he was done with whatever he was doing and we sat in his office For I mean a good hour at least Just talking about all of these things and and you know through the counsel of God's Word. He you know He helped me to see that You know so many of the things that I believed were just outright lies and the biggest one was you know Was God's love for me? Which really even even kind of a level down from that? was rooted in the fact that I thought that feelings equaled truth So, you know I told him that I and that I thought God had just made me to send me to hell and that you know that I Didn't believe God loved me and and he was like, well, do you believe the Bible and I said? Yeah, I believe that the Bible is true and I believe that God is real He said well if you believe that the Bible is true then you do believe that God loves you because it It says that on like every page, you know, and so and I was basically just you know I was just like yeah, but I've never I've never felt that I've never felt that in my heart And he turned me to the book of Jeremiah Chapter 17 verse 9 says this it says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it and It was that pinprick of truth that pinprick of light You know, that was pretty much I mean the the beginning and it was like Okay, I don't have to believe everything my heart is telling me Just because I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when I choose to worship the Lord using music or whatever Doesn't mean that I'm not worshiping the Lord just because I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when I'm praying doesn't mean he's not hearing Me, you know just because I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when I read the word Doesn't mean that it's not true doesn't mean that it's not true. Is that right? Okay Wait, is that right? You know what I mean? You know, it's like my feelings are irrelevant. My feelings are irrelevant You know to pretty much everything I do in my life really I mean Mathematics, you know if my math teacher tells me that two plus two equals four I don't have to feel it for that to be true. I don't have to feel it for me to Apply that as if it were true. I Mean, I'm horrible with math as it is and the only thing I've ever felt towards math is disdain. So I'd be lost I Hope you understand my point You know that that that faith is not a feeling faith Isn't you know characterized even by a feeling there's all these movies out there that are like if you just believe hard enough It'll be true one of them is a recent ish Peter Pan movie and there's this like part where everybody's singing I believe in fairies or something like that and And like because they're all saying it and because they're believing hard enough it like, you know The fairies come to life or something I don't really remember but that Kind of idea is really ingrained in many of us that if we believe hard enough or we have enough faith then things will happen But that's not the case at all You know, I have faith in this platform right here that it's here and that it's supporting my weight Believing it anymore doesn't make it any more true believing it any less doesn't make it any less true And so again, that was kind of the you know, that that first little Glimpse that the Lord that the Lord gave me that first, you know bit of you know light that he that he shone into my life that I was able to see and Praise God. He gave me a heart to continue following after it and digging into it more and more you know and When I became a believer when I became a Christian my life wasn't automatically perfect and it still isn't you know And I as a person wasn't automatically perfect I remember one of the things pastor Paul said in his office that day was that you know My life was like a garden he uses an analogy and my entire life I'd been sowing, you know, these weeds in it and these you know, these thorns and and thistles you know in this garden and just because You know There has been some some new plants that have come up some good some good plants Doesn't mean that those other things aren't still there and it's gonna take a process of having the Lord weed those things out of my Life, you know as as I as I grow in him and as I walk with him and I've really seen that to be the case I've seen this process of the Lord You know working in my life to uproot the old way of thinking and and to and to change my mind into something new after I after I Accepted the Lord at you know, and and and really understood that truth and I decided to truly commit my life to the Lord You know There were a couple of times where I slid back into my old way of living and I and I believed lies again One in particular was I've sinned I've messed up. I tried the Christian thing and I wasn't good enough So I'll just never claim to be a Christian and I'll have my 25 years again. I kind of went back to that And Have as much fun as I can because I've messed up and I can't do this Anyway, you know, that was another lie that the Lord had to show me. No. No, this is not true. You know, I Am I'm changing you I am renewing you and it's a process You know and and when and when you fall like this It doesn't mean that that you're lost and gone forever because remember how I save those who are lost and gone Remember how like that's the whole reason I came to the earth so those are some good reminders for me and I Wish that I had less of them I wish that I that I didn't wonder as much as I have and and sometimes do but the Lord is gracious so after I after I started Walking with the Lord. I went I graduated right at that same time and I went to with a group called CTI Who's based in Minnesota and they are a missions organization that uses bands and then they send them out and the band's partner with ministries all over the world to Basically, you know put on free concerts for that ministry so that they can bring people in and share the gospel and things like that So that was a time that that I was in this environment of spiritual growth And that's one of the things also that that I've really have seen today pastor Paul mentioned Universities and colleges and how they can be a really bad environment for a young believer and I You know can't agree more. I Think that that's true of all of us though. It's like we all have goals in our lives Whether we're aware of them or not doesn't really matter so much but we all are moving towards something and we all have something that we want and if we look at where we spend our time and What we spend our time doing we can often see what our real goal is and what our real desire is you know if I say I want to grow in Christ and then I play video games and watch movies constantly and you know, That's all I ever do and then I come to church on Sunday morning, you know, do I really want to grow in Christ? Maybe part of me does But I think that that's evidence that really no, I'm pretty much interested in you know, blowing up aliens or whatever Which is interesting but you know, not very useful So, you know that is a place that I find myself all the time still like I I like to watch like you know videos about like scientific discoveries especially in regards to like our solar system, but I find that when I spend my time doing just that I very quickly start to Stop growing very quickly start to stop growing you understand that as well. I'm sure And I have to get you know, I have to get plugged in I have to identify what you know What is what is it that I that I want I want to grow in Christ I'm not strong enough to do that I'll ask him for the strength and then I'll use the tools that are available to me to grow you want to grow in Christ Read the Bible it's a really good tool 66 books just for you to grow in Christ You want to grow in Christ pray? Jesus has made a way for us to communicate directly with God So use that fellowship with other believers You know spend time encouraging one another serve Serve people. These are all tools that we have at our disposal. They're not like you must do this or you're going to hell They're like hey, here's a gift my word Use it grow so You know, I'm not perfect in that by any means and and the Lord is he's continuing to bring me back to that room at you know Understanding like you want to grow? Yeah, of course. Then why are you wasting so much time? Read your word read the Bible. So anyway, I'm not doing a very good job closing. I'm trying help Mayday That pretty much characterizes any conversation you'll ever have with Ken He just can't bring it in for a landing and you just have to kind of turn on the airport lights and just ground him Let's stand together. I Was thinking in first service when he was talking about how I took him over to my office to talk to him on that Sunday And now that's that's that's his office now and Those really ugly Sofas they're now in his office and he can't get rid of them. So I won anyway So there's a little Christmas gift for you along with the scripture that we dealt with related to The blind the blind man calling out to God just the the story of one life That had to recognize his own blindness and call out to God and say Lord come save me Come give me a new life come and transform my life and I'm aware that there may be some here today or watching us live on the internet or Watching this maybe after the fact somewhere and You know, maybe your life is one, you know Like that that has just had this web of blindness that the enemy has just put over your eyes And you need God you need you need him to just fill you with the light of his presence. And you know what? There's no shortcut, you guys. It's not gonna happen just because you come and warm up a seat. Those guys that were there when Jesus was passing by, they decided to do more than warm a seat. They decided to get up and yell their brains out and say, we need you, I need you. So don't think that by coming to church you're gonna be a Christian. It's gonna be as you call out to God, as you cry out to God, Lord, I need the life that you have. And you know, that day when Ken asked me to talk with him and pray with him, that was the beginning of him just starting to cry out to God. That's what that was. And I wish everybody who wanted to talk was calling out to God. Unfortunately, it's not always the case, but in that case it was, and I'll tell you one thing. Jesus will stop the procession of the universe for one heart that calls out to God. He will stop everything and He will turn and He will say, what would you like me to do for you? What would you like me to do for you?