Our sermon title this morning is Beware of Spiritual Blindness.
We all know what physical blindness isn't here.
Nobody, I think in this building right now is physically blind.
I think I can say that with pretty much certainty, but I'm
not so sure about spiritually. And I think all of us in some
level, in some way, have a certain amount of spiritual
blindness in our lives, in our hearts.
And I want to say this at the outset, some of this, what I
want to say here this morning may be very uncomfortable.
And some of you may disagree with me.
And that's OK because we don't all see it the same way.
And it may just be that we're have different backgrounds and
opinions. But also maybe we have blindness
at some levels. Blindness of the heart is a very
real thing. We're continuing our sermon
series to the Gospel of Mark this morning.
And from Mark Chapter 1 to the end of Mark chapter 10 covers a
time span of about three years. That's 36 months of ministry in
the life of Jesus. Roughly speaking.
Jesus did a lot of ministry in that time frame, but only a very
small sliver of that's recorded. The the writer, the apostle John
writes in John 21 verse 25 that Jesus did many things that are
not recorded. A lot of ministry that Jesus did
simply wasn't written down last Sunday.
Joel these recommends mention how important it is out of the
Mark Chapter 9, how we need to have faith to follow and faith
to follow Jesus means we have to have some form of spiritual
sight. Jesus taught his disciples, he
patiently taught the crowds about God and repentance and
God's Kingdom and all that. And a lot of it just kind of
went over their heads. And we'll see a lot of that this
morning. Spiritual blindness comes in
countless ways, but all of it together has its root in one
main sin and that's the sin of pride.
This morning we want to go through Mark chapter 10 and here
we find 5 stories. Now each story in itself would
be a full length sermon if we wanted to make it that.
But I decided this last week and I'm not going to do that.
I'm just going to take one main point out of each of these
stories and leave it at that because there's, there's a,
there's a thread that runs through each one of them.
And each of these five stories, we will see spiritual blindness
or spiritual sight demonstrated in one form or another.
So in the first four stories, in Mark chapter 10, we see a common
thread of how spiritual blindness kept people from
seeing the truth. And in the last story in Mark
chapter 10, we have a story of a man who had spiritual sight.
In this in this sermon, we will see how Jesus confronted a
number of sin issues that the people of that they live with
due to their blindness. Last Sunday in Mark 9, we heard
how important it is that we allow nothing to draw us away
from God. And if we did pay attention,
which I trust we did, we'll remember how Joel pointed out
the seriousness of sin in our lives, that we must continue the
path of repentance. And I think it would be a fair
question to ask is if I go to a service and if you go to a
service on a Sunday morning, the question was, Are you ready to
repent? No.
Oh, wait a minute. Why am I here then?
Because that's the part of it. We have to be willing to repent
if we're going to grow. That's what repentance is.
And hear Jesus talking to these people and they're not ready.
Well, let's begin reading Mark chapter 10.
Take your Bibles. Mark 10, verse 1 to 12.
That's the first story. Then he arose from there and
came to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan,
and multitudes gathered to him again, and as he was customed,
he taught them again. The Pharisees came and asked
him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
Testing him? He answered and said to them,
What did Moses command you? They said Moses permitted a man
to write a certificate of divorce and to dismiss her.
And Jesus answered and said to them, Because of the hardness of
your heart, he wrote you this precept.
But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and
female. For this reason a man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the
two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer 2,
but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined
together, let not man separate. That's the end of the discussion
with the Pharisees. Let's go on verse 10.
In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same
matter. So he said to them, whoever
divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against
her, meaning his wife. And if a woman divorces her
husband and marries another, she commits adultery and he would
again, the same would be to her husband.
So here we see the spiritual blindness of these Pharisees.
Now, the reason they're testing Jesus is not so much they want
to know about divorce, remarriage.
I don't think that was the that was the key there.
That was what they used, but Jesus used it to teach them.
And so here we see spiritual blindness prevents people from
understanding God's plan for marriage.
So Jesus moving on. And this time it's the crowds
coming to listen. And Timothy Geddert in his
commentary writes this. He says this happened in the
exact location of the region, the area where John the Baptist
had met his faithful end under King Herod.
And you know what John the Baptist did?
John King Herod had taken his brother Phillip's wife, married
her. And John the Baptist told me
it's not right that you have your brother's wife, Phillip.
King Herod throws John in prison and the end Long story short,
John is beheaded for what he did.
Herodias King, Herod's second wife couldn't stand him so and
so the Pharisees asked him, is it lawful for a man to divorce
his wife testing him? What's Jesus going to say?
Because this is a controversial issue.
It's dicey, it's it's difficult. What's Jesus going to say?
And Jesus being a man, we, he was God in human form, but him
being a man, he could have thought, Oh, oh, John got in
trouble in this place for speaking it against Herod.
What should I say? You see, the, the Pharisees,
they came to make Jesus life difficult.
They didn't come here to learn truth.
Actually, they were in the dark. But Jesus responded with a
question and said, what did Moses command you?
And they say in verse 4, Moses permitted to write a certificate
of divorce to dismiss her. And then they quoted Deuteronomy
24, verse one to four. It does say that if a man finds
something unclean or unacceptable and his wife, he
can divorce or write a certificate and then he can
remarry. What's the deal here?
The Pharisees were not marriage focused.
They wanted to to test you to see what Jesus would do with
this, with this principle, with his commandment.
They viewed marriage from a self focused mind of reference and
they wanted to hear from Jesus what he had to say about it,
hoping he would say something that they could find fault with,
trip him up and then get him into trouble.
In that time, as of now, as of as there is now, there were
debates on this. This was a common debate.
There was 2 particular rabbis. One's name was Hilo and the
other was a more conservative guy was Shamay.
Hilo was the was the more liberal guy.
Yeah. If your wife doesn't measure up
to your standards, yeah, you can divorce or just read her
certificate, divorce and you can marry again.
Shamay was more conservative. There had to be good reason to.
And so both based their their ideas on on Deuteronomy.
So the question was not can you do it?
Just how can you do it? That was the question.
That was what the debates and discussions were over.
But then what does Jesus do? What does Jesus do?
He points them back to the order of creation.
In the original design, there was no divorce built in as a
safety net in case things did not go well.
In the original there was no escape mechanism, so to speak,
if things did not work out. And then Jesus says in verse 5,
he says because of the hardness of your heart, He wrote to this
precept. But from the beginning of
creation God made them male and female.
Jesus took them right back to the beginning of time, sent it
enter the world, tarnished everything including marriage,
but that did not erase God's design.
And then he says in verse 9, therefore what God has joined
together, let not man separate. The problem was not marriage.
The problem was the spin the Pharisees given to the teachings
of the law and Jesus corrected them.
Jesus teaching that marriage that God has joined together
should not be separated. So we can clearly see the
difference in how Jesus viewed marriage and how the Pharisees
viewed marriage. In their spiritual blindness
they had constructed different means and ways in which it
wasn't so serious anymore. Jesus stated it was 1 flesh and
now they shared everything. But yet Moses did allow for
divorce in marriage because of sin, because of hardness of
heart. But the Pharisees conversation
ended there and then in the house Jesus together with his
disciples again and they ask him about that matter on divorce.
What what's with that Lord? And then Jesus says something
very profound and he UPS the he UPS the stakes a bit.
He says verse 11. So he said to them, his
disciples, whoever divorces his wife, marries another, commits
adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her
husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
Jesus calls it adultery. What's adultery?
Adultery is the sin of a married person being section involved
with another person, not their spouse.
That's adultery. But wait a minute.
Were they not divorced? Yeah, they were.
So what's he saying? The divorce isn't valid in God's
eyes. It may be legally valid states
on the state's part, but not in God's eyes.
So if the second marriage is adultery, what's he saying?
He's saying that in when If the second marriage is adultery,
then that means he's got he's sinning against somebody else.
It's important to know that when Mark wrote his gospel, he did
not write anything about Jesus giving permission for divorce
and remarriage. But we do find a verse in
Matthew now. We just want to go there very
briefly this morning because I know this is a question in many
people's minds. It's been brought to me so many
times. I'm going to address it in
Matthew 19. Jesus does make an exception.
Let's go through it in Matthew 1918, nineteen verse 8 and 9,
Jesus says it's again the same, the same event, but Matthew
writes it a bit different. He said to them, Moses, because
of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your
wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except there
it is, except for sexual morality and marries another,
commits adultery and whoever marries her who is divorced
commits adultery. So the question why would
Matthew and Mark and Luke, they write the same passage?
Why would they not write it the exactly the same?
Why would Mark write it differently than Matthew, for
instance? Why did not both record it the
same way? We must remember these writers
were not writing to the same audiences.
Some scholars believe and it's it's, it's safe to assume that
it's true. Matthew emphasized the kingship
and messiahship of Jesus as Lord.
Mark wrote to A to Gentile audience emphasizing Jesus as
the suffering servant. They both had a different theme
or a different thrust in their, in their in their writings.
The Jewish culture was different than Gentile culture.
And here's where many pastors disagree in these passages as to
what they mean and how should we interpret them.
How should we apply them today? In both gospels, both Mark and
Matthew, the Pharisees come to test Jesus.
Jesus points them in both cases to the permanence of marriage.
But what the Pharisees tried to do was capitalize on Moses
allowance for divorce. What I find interesting today is
how many pastors want to capitalize on the exception
clause. Jesus never commanded to
divorce. He did say there's an exception.
Now I will say I'm not sure exactly how to always interpret
this correctly. And I will also say that many of
us here, maybe most of us have family or personally been
involved and been through this difficult time and some people
have divorced and remarried. This not about judgment here,
but what's Scripture teach? That's what this is about.
Jesus simply forbids marriage, remarriage after divorce in Mark
chapter 10 verse 12 and Luke chapter 16 verse 18.
But in Matthew there's an exception and he says if a man
divorces his wife, marries another, he commits adultery
unless his wife has already committed adultery before he
did, then it's different. In that case, she has committed
adultery against her husband. And some might be listening,
thinking, OK, good, that gives me an out.
Well, let's be careful before I'm saying I'm free to remarry.
Think back to the spiritual blindness that covers this line
of thinking. Notice Jesus does not qualify
his statement on divorce and remarriage.
He simply says whoever marries a divorced woman is committing
adultery the same as Mark does. So where does this all fall?
This is not the scope of the sermon this morning where I want
to end up on, but simply saying that this is a very, very
difficult and challenging passage.
In my own experience, I've had people come to me numerous times
with a question from different people over the years asking my
opinion of divorce and new marriage.
Then I try to find out what are you focusing on before I go and
say I'm going to judge someone who's divorced and married or
does that? That's not, that's not my
thrust. Where's your heart?
Do you want to follow Jesus or your desires?
And it's not the unforgivable sin.
I'll grant that it's not. But it is a violation of the act
of God's creation. And it can be repented of, it
can be redeemed, it can be healed.
And many do. There is grace, but this is not
God's plan and I'm in the way I see it, One of the great issues
of spiritual blindness in the church in the West, in our
times, we tend to view what God created as permanent, as
something that we can dictate, something we can customize to
our own desire, just like the Pharisees did.
And it remains a big blind spot in the church today.
The Pharisees were blind about this.
The disciples want to know more and said, Jesus, give them
something. Well, that's the story of the
Pharisees and the disciples. Let's continue reading.
There's another story, Mark chapter 10, verse 13.
Then they brought little children to him, that he may
touch them. But the disciples rebuked those
who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was
greatly displeased and said to them, Let the little children
come to me, and do not forbid them, for such is the Kingdom of
God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever
does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will by no
means enter it. And he took them up in his arms,
laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
You see, first there was the Pharisees who were blind in
their view of God's Word. Here we see the disciples.
They're blind to the importance and value of little people.
Spiritual blindness prevents people from valuing the
vulnerable. We do not find many times that
Jesus got upset, but here he did.
The new, the new Living Translation says Jesus was angry
with his disciples. And guess what?
He was angry in public with his disciples.
You can just imagine the scene here, Jesus doing stuff.
He's talking to people, sharing the gospel, whatever he's doing.
Here come these women with the little ones, toddlers on, on
their on their arms, these little ones.
We'd like to see the master. Oh, no, no, no, no, you don't
have. He's too busy.
Jesus finds out about this here,
sees what's going on, and he makes very short work of his
disciples. He's angry with them.
What are you doing? And then he says, by the way,
guys, the Kingdom of heaven is like these people.
If you can't, if you can't welcome these, then there's
something wrong with you. And he says anybody who doesn't
come into the Kingdom of heaven like a child will not enter the
Kingdom of heaven. This was an area in the lives of
the disciples where they were blind to Jesus mission, Jesus
values. They had not understood or were
not understanding what Jesus was about to Jesus didn't matter.
Older people, young adults, children, everybody's equally
made in God's image. He loves everybody the same.
What does this tell us about how we should value those who are
less able than we are? All children are equal value in
God's eyes and doesn't just refer to children.
It means everybody. You see, it's a great privilege
to help someone who needs us to take time from someone who's
dependent on us, especially children doesn't have to be our
children either. The disciples.
He received a lesson in the value of all people, not just
grown-ups. See the, the disciples, they had
a lot to learn here and we're going to see more of that as as
we go through the sermon here. The Pharisees were blind in the
matters of the legal, legal matters, the, the marriage and
so on that stuff. The disciples were blind and how
they view Jesus taking time for children.
It's a short story, but I can just imagine the disciples being
embarrassed. Uh oh, the masters rebuking us
in front of these mothers. But it happened.
Well, Jesus goes on from there. Now another story, Mark 10 verse
17. Now as he was going on on the
road, one came running, knelt before him and asked him, Good
teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
So Jesus said to him, why do you call me good?
No one's good but the one that is God.
You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not
murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not
defraud, Honor your father and mother.
He answered and said to him, Teacher, all these things I've
kept from my youth. Then Jesus looking at him, loved
him, and said to him, One thing you lack, Go your way, sell what
you have, give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven.
Come, take up your cross and follow me.
But he was sad at this word, and went to his sorrowful for he had
great possessions. Then Jesus looked around and
said to the disciples, How hard it is for those of riches to
enter the Kingdom of God. And the disciples were
astonished at his words. But Jesus answered again and
said to them, Children, How hard it is for those who trust in
riches to enter the Kingdom of God.
It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.
And they were greatly astonished, saying among
themselves, Who then can be saved?
But Jesus looked at them and said, With men it is impossible,
but not with God, for with God all things are possible.
Then Peter began to say to him, see, we have left all and
followed you. So Jesus answered and said,
assuredly, I say to you, there's no one who has left house or
brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or
lands for my sake in the Gospels who shall not receive a
hundredfold. Now in this time houses and
brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with
persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
This guy came to Jesus totally good, good intentions.
The desire came running. In fact, he was in a hurry.
He was urgent. He wants to make sure he knows
that he's on the right track. He was rich, but he was a good
guy. But he was blind as well.
Spiritual blindness prevents people from realizing the
dangers of earthly wealth. How many people would we say
today do not want more, bigger, newer?
And I'm not saying it's never justified.
Sometimes we do need something newer or something more we do
once in a while. But what for?
The man comes running, kneels before Jesus, and asks the
question. What's interesting is how Jesus
started this man off with where the man was at.
Gives him a quick rundown of the commandments.
This is what the commandments say.
He says, OK, that's good, I've done all that.
He says you're missing one thing, and the thing that you're
missing is what's holding you. It's your wealth.
He had a lot of stuff. And it's clear in this man's
life, there's an emptiness that needs filling.
There are people in this world who reach a high standard of
wealth totally honesty with honesty, integrity.
They work hard. They they're blessed with
wealth, but they're still empty inside.
And I want to say to anyone who's listening, if you have
wealth and you feel empty, you're blessed.
That's a blessing. Earthly wealth is never intended
or meant to satisfy the soul. If it does, that means your soul
is plugged into the wrong thing. The feeling of emptiness is a
gift from God, which God never intended to satisfy with
material stuff. I'll say this for the person for
whom wealth has become a satisfying thing.
That person is in great trouble. That's total blindness.
For this man to come running to Jesus knowing he needed
something he didn't have, he just wanted to know what it was
that was a good thing. That's God designed.
Take the human body for instance.
What would life be like if you would never know you're thirsty?
You would need water to hydrate your body, but you never know if
you're thirsty. Somebody you have to test
somehow. Oh, it must be thirsty.
I'm getting sick or something. Your body lets you know you need
water. There's a need, there's a,
there's a need for water and you and you drink and your need is
your need is gone and now you're good for a while.
The same holds true spiritually, but this is where the blindness
comes in. Satan tells us, OK, just get
this and you'll be happy again. Well, it may seem that way until
a few days go by and then it's the same old, same old and we
feel as empty as we did before. We can't trust wealth.
The man knew he was not where he needed to be.
He came to Jesus, looks at him, what need, what do I need to do?
And Jesus says, Mark 10/21 one thing you lack, go your way,
sell whatever you have, come, give to the poor and you'll have
treasure in heaven. Come and take up the cross and
follow me. What his response?
But he was sad at his word and went away sorrowful.
Fred. Great possessions.
The very thing he thought he needed or wanted or had to have
for life to be meaningful or purposeful or just to get by was
holding him back. And so it was crowding out.
It was full of that. He needed to empty that.
This is not here to say, sell all you have and give to the
poor. This is not said to everybody.
But in this man's case, he needed to.
And some people to stay today still may need to.
He was missing something, couldn't see what it was.
He was blind, spiritually blind, what his wealth had done to him.
If love of wealth would make people physically blind, how
many blind people would we have today?
Think about that for a second if material wealth would blind us
physically or the desire for it. In this man's case, he wasn't an
evil man, he was just had his priorities mixed up.
He was spiritually blind. The disciples are blown away.
What who can then be saved and God says, Jesus says with man
this is impossible, but with God is possible.
And Peter's quick to chime in and we've left everything.
And Jesus points out that the, the, the permanent blessings are
not here and they are, they come in eternity.
But then there's another story that we come out to story #4
this is perhaps maybe the most difficult one of all, I would
say maybe even more so than than the first one with the divorce
and the marriage case story #4 is where Jesus goes and he
starts talking to disciples about him.
He's going to be arrested and he's going to be killed.
Let's read the story, verse 10, verse 3210, verse 32.
Now they're on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was
going before them, and they were amazed.
As they followed, they were afraid.
Then he took the 12 aside again, began to tell them the things
that would happen to him. Behold, we're going to
Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be betrayed
to the chief priest, to the scribes, and they will condemn
him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles.
They will mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill
him. On the third day he will rise
again. OK, if you stop there, so far so
good. Now let's get Stacy verse 35.
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying,
teach you, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.
And he said to them, What do you want me to do for you?
They said to him, grant us that we may sit one on your right
hand and the other on your left in your glory.
But Jesus said to them, do you not?
You do not know what you're asking.
Are you able to drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the
baptism and baptized with? They said to him, we're able.
So Jesus said to them, you will indeed drink the cup I drink and
with the baptism I'm baptized with.
You'll be baptized. But to sit at my right hand and
on my left is not mine to give, but it's for those who for whom
it's prepared. And when the 10 heard it, they
began to be greatly displeased with James and John.
But Jesus called him to himself and said to them, You know that
those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lorded over
them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
Yet it shall not be so among you.
But whoever desires to become great among you shall be your
servant. Whoever of you desires to be
first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for
many. This story is just a jarring
interruption into everything so far that Jesus has been doing.
They were blind in their hearts and minds.
Spiritual blindness prevents people from understanding
Christ's mission. Jesus had explained to his
disciples once before already what was going to happen.
Now they're traveling southward, getting closer to Jerusalem.
He takes them aside and talks them about his upcoming
suffering, and so on. And here we see how badly his
disciples missed the mark and understanding what Jesus was
truly about, He's telling them what's going to happen.
But right on the heels of that conversation, we find the
disciples jockeying for positions of power.
He talked about suffering. They're talking about
promotions. They have no idea.
They completely missed it. He had talked about how this
earthly life would end and he would rise, but they missed it.
Sons of Zebedee, grant us what we want, and we want to sit on
your right and your left. There's a blind as can be.
No idea. They're thinking power, Jesus
thinking serving. He says, can you experience what
I'm going to experience? Yeah, we can do that without
batting an eye. And then the rest of the
disciples, one would think that they would just be happy.
Oh, God, I'm not asking that question.
No. Look at what they're getting
from the Master. They're upset they have an issue
at the 2 for the audacity to request of Christ that position.
And you know what the response from the 10 reveal what's in
their hearts. They didn't ask for positions of
power, but they're sure angry at those who did.
What a mess. 12 disciples. Can you just imagine the the
loud arguing that would have happened?
Jesus calls time out. This is not how it goes, guys.
And then he explains to them the disciples were blind when it
came to the mission of Jesus. How many times do we not do the
exact same thing? All we're serving, we're
participating, we're involved. But sure, it has to go my way.
I want to be in control. I want to be in charge.
My idea is better. I, I deserve this.
I'm entitled to this. I'm entitled to that.
And then when somebody who shouldn't be getting something
doesn't get what they shouldn't be getting, we're glad they
don't get it in the next breath. We want the exact same thing
Jesus says. Even the Son of Man did not come
to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for
many. This is the key verse.
This is the model, this is the template, this is the point of
reference. And when this is solid in one's
life, everything flows from that.
All the rest of it becomes very small, often insignificant and
of low consequence. The 10 needed a lesson and they
got one. The 11, the 12 needed a lesson.
I believe there'd be a lot less stress, tension, conflict, and
division in churches of every member, every participant, every
attendee would come to church with that mindset.
How can I contribute? What can I bring, how can I
serve instead of I hope my needs will be met here.
If they don't treat me this way, I'm out of here.
I deserve this. I deserve that.
Or Jesus keeps on traveling after this event.
Now we come to the fifth story and this is the last one, the
final event or story that took place before Jesus entered
Jerusalem. There's an interesting thing in
the placement of the story in Mark.
If we go back to chapter 8, 22 to 26, there's a story of Jesus
healing a man who's blind. He did it in two stages.
Commentator Timothy Get it, writes the following.
And I don't want to make too much of it, but it's very
interesting, he says. He says Mark has framed this
whole discipleship journey section that we have gone
through the last few Sundays with two miracle stories, both
of them about opening blind eyes.
The first healing of a blind man happens in two stages.
That was chapter 822 to 26. Now this last 1 chapter 1046 to
52, symbolizing that the disciples who could see Jesus as
the Messiah but could not accept the way of the cross are still
in need of another touch. The second one symbolizes what
faithful disciples do when their eyes are truly opened.
They follow Jesus on the way. I do not want to push this
emphasis too much and place too much on these miracles, but I do
agree that Mark did not do this randomly or haphazardly or just
this how the chips fall. This was intentional.
One of the big issues with the people, the religious leaders,
even the disciples, was they could not see what Jesus truly
was about. And oftentimes the miracles that
Jesus did were reflections of where the people's hearts were
and what he wanted them to grasp and comprehend and to respond to
while they come to Jericho. Here's the last story.
Now they came to Jericho. As he went out of Jericho with
his disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus the
son of Timaeus sat by the road begging.
When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out
and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
Then many warned him to be quiet, but he cried out all the
more. Son of David, have mercy on me.
So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called.
Then they called the blind man, saying to me, Be of good cheer,
Rise, he's calling you. And throwing aside his garment,
he rose and came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to
him, What do you want me to do for you?
The blind man said to him, Raboni, that I may receive my
sight. Then Jesus said to him, Go your
way, your faith has made you well.
And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the
road. Here we have a scene of a man
who's not had an encounter with Jesus.
He's just heard of Jesus. Jesus coming by here is it?
He's blind. He can't do a lot for himself
except call out, which he does. He's begging, Oh, it's Jesus
coming by. OK, he yells, Jesus, son of
David, have mercy on me. Timothy Geddert mentions in his
commentary that just like the disciples said, Jesus asked his
disciples, what do you want me to do for you?
Well, I want to sit on your right, on your left.
Jesus asked this man too. What do you want me to do for
you? James and John wanted power,
authority and status and privilege.
The blind man simply wants what he needs rescued from his
blindness. He wanted to be the way he was
supposed to be, but his crying wasn't welcome.
The crowd's trying to shut him up.
He's creating a ruckus. They're trying to shut up.
He just cries it all the more. And all of the arguments that
have been going on with the Pharisees and the disciples and
the rich man, and then again the disciples, here we have this
one, the one who should not have been told to shut up him.
They tell to shut up. Jesus hears it, stands still,
stops walking, calls the man over and is what do you want me
to do for you and the man says Raboni, a title of honor
respectfully says I may receive my sight.
Why is this story included in this passage?
As I mentioned before, it's interesting how Mark frames his
gospel in the story of the healing in eight chapter 8 verse
3022 to now and chapter 10. The last part, friends,
spiritual sight is a must to understand the message of the
gospel. It's not optional.
Whether it's divorce and remarriage, whether it's money,
whether it's how we treat our neighbor, it doesn't matter.
We need spiritual sight. And with the blind man of all
people we can see, even though physically he was blind,
spiritually he could see. He cries for mercy from the one.
We all need to cry mercy from spiritual.
Spiritual sight leads to humility and to trust in Christ.
And that's our final point. Once we see we need Jesus and we
see that need supersedes all other needs, whatever it is.
Maybe there's marriage struggles.
Maybe there's all kinds of marriage breakdowns in our
relationships. Maybe there's all of that stuff
going on. Maybe it's money, maybe it's
jobs, maybe it's it's family. Whatever it is, above all, we
need sight. And only then can we make our
way forward. The Pharisees, they failed,
didn't see God's principles from God's point.
They looked it through a human lens.
The disciples rebuked the mothers for bringing their
children. They're blind as they categorize
people. The rich man could not see past
this earthly wealth. He knew he had a need, but
couldn't see past it. The disciples could not see the
true purpose of Christ's mission.
They're blinded by their personal ambition of blind word
Emmaus. He had sight, a heart open and
receptive, dependent on Christ, begging for mercy.
Where are you and I in these stories?
Can you and I see? Are we spiritually blind?
Where is our focus? Well, there's hope.
Matthew Chapter 7, verse 7 and 8.
Jesus says ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you
for everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds and to him
who knocks, it will be opened. We do not come to God on our
terms, telling Him what we want, what we want to do.
We ask the Lord, what do you want us to do?
Humbly asking Him to make us what He wants us to be.
So do we have spiritual sight? We need it in every aspect of
our lives. So May God bless us with
spiritual sight to see clearly our way through life in our
earthly journey. I want to encourage us.
I don't want you to leave here this morning feeling guilt
riddled. And there's no hope.
No, whatever place you find yourself, there's hope.
There's grace and there's mercy. The best thing we can do is
acknowledge we've sinned. Repent before the Lord, ask Him
to redeem what we messed up, to make it holy and to heal us and
to increase our sight. And if we do so, he'll reveal to
us. If we knock, He'll open.
And if we ask, we'll receive. And by God's grace, as a family
of faithful believers, we can move forward.
Let us pray, Lord, we thank you for your word and the stories
through which you teach us how to live.
The teachings you've left in the Scripture are for us to read, to
listen to, and to learn from, and then to apply to our lives.
May we be faithful, Lord, living out your will on this earth.
We thank you, Jesus. In your name we pray.
Amen.