Good morning, my name is Eric and it's my honor to open the
Word of God. Today will be reading Matthew
927 through 31. If you don't have a Bible,
there's a Bible under your chair, and that's page 764.
And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed
him, crying aloud. Have mercy on a son of David.
When he entered the house, the blind man came to him, and Jesus
said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this?
They said to him, yes, Lord, that he touched their eyes,
saying, according to your faith, let it be done to you.
And their eyes were open, and Jesus sternly warned them, See
that no one knows about it. But they went away and spread
his fame through all the district.
This is the word of God. What's going on Port City family
and friends. How we doing Good.
My name is Tanner lead pastor here.
Good to be with you and happy Thanksgiving week.
Who's ready to eat some food? You know y'all.
In all seriousness, family time can be hard for some of us.
Maybe you've recently come to faith in Christ or you come from
a family that's not in Christ, where there's just just hardship
there. And you go back home.
And what your body begins to believe is that the old stuff is
more true than the Bible stuff, the Christ stuff.
And I just want you to hear that Christ reigns in the hallways of
your house. Whether you grew up in a home
with two parents who taught you the Bible or you don't have a
family to go home to this Thanksgiving, Christ reigns over
your story. You are not alone.
You are not forgotten. And God is good.
And I believe him to say those people you've written off, I'm
still just like, Lord, please just save one of these jokers.
You know? So just know you're loved and
God sees you and eat some food in Jesus name.
And if you ain't got nowhere to go, just come holla at me.
We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see where we can find a spot for
you. OK, Let's, let's go to God in
prayer for today's meal from his word.
And then we'll dive in. OK.
Our father, we're so grateful. We are grateful for food.
And every time we eat God, it's a reminder that our bodies need
you. We were made to need and God,
but also we want it. We want food.
We need food. There's just such a parable
there, an image, God, that you satisfy our needs and our
desires. So we pray as we gather around
tables this week in pain and in Thanksgiving and hopefulness and
all the mixture. God that you would, you would
reign and God, we would believe you that you are able to change
things. You are able to resurrect the
dead. You are able to make things new.
So, Father, now as we turn to your word, what we know not,
would You teach us, What we have not, would you give us, and what
we are not, would You make us. Let the words of my mouth, the
meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Your sight?
Everybody who agree with that said, Amen, y'all, there is a
phrase by the man by the name of Dave Ramsey.
OK. And some of you are like, I
remember my financial peace phase.
And if you haven't gone through it yet, hopefully you will one
day soon. OK.
Now, here's the thing about Dave.
You got to check out his podcast every once in a while.
If you ask Dave how he's doing, he says the same phrase every
time, better than I deserve. How can I help?
And now just think about the phrase better than I deserve.
Remember the first few times I heard it because Dave was
saying, yeah, I was like just a phrase.
You know, here's the thing about phrases.
They they mean something deep. And at some point they just
become cliches when people say it that don't mean it.
You know what I'm saying? And I'm not saying that's Dave.
I'm just saying that was my reaction to hearing him say it.
OK, but think about the phrase better than I deserve.
And if you said that every single time somebody asks you
how you were doing, what if you believe that?
Do you believe right now you are doing better than you deserve?
I don't know about you, but my default can be all the ways that
things should be better. If I was loved, if God loved me,
X would happen and I can focus on what hasn't happened and I
could be filled with bitterness, resentment, a little bit of
whininess, frustration instead of radical gratitude, humility.
And all of this is sort of rooted in what you think you
deserve. You know what the Bible teaches
is that we don't deserve good things, OK?
And that is our own doing. We, we, we need help, OK?
We are in great need of the word.
We're going to focus on today, which is mercy.
Somebody say mercy, y'all, we need mercy.
And y'all, Jesus is the King of mercy.
So my hope for us today, though we are not 2 blind men walking
the streets 2000 years ago, is that through them we will see a
window into a king who we need just as much mercy from.
OK, so we're going to take a journey through the streets
verse by verse and just just walk through this passage and I
got 2 application points. If you are ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. All right, let's dive in.
Verse 27, verse 27 says. And as Jesus passed on from
there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud.
Have mercy on US, son of David, that first phrase.
And as Jesus passed, just just keep in mind that every story
we're reading is on top one of another.
He's getting interrupted over and over and over.
Yeah. What if the truest you is the
you when you're interrupted? That is a scary thought.
Interrupted on the street, you know, by another car,
interrupted by a kid interrupt. And once you do something like
you're like, I've done my good deed of the day, or you, you
know, I've been patient with my kid that one time when they get
you one more time, you know what I mean?
The one after you've hit your limit.
What if that's more the real you than the one where you're gassed
up, ready. You know, you can't find Jesus.
Not ready to be interrupted. And we know he spends time with
the Father. He lives within his limits, He's
Sabbaths, He rests all the things right?
He's in prayer. But at the end of the day, you
interrupt Him and what you get is kindness.
What you get, Well, some people don't get kindness, but they get
the harshness that they need based on why they're approaching
Him. But what this shows us, y'all,
when you're interrupted, it reveals your true agenda, right?
So when I'm interrupted and annoyed, you are not my agenda.
You're in the way of my agenda, right?
For Jesus, the reason he's not irritated is because people are
His agenda. Some of y'all just need to hear
today that you are not an annoyance to the King of Mercy.
Your interruption isn't an interruption to his agenda.
You getting in front of him is his agenda.
Let's keep reading. As Jesus passed on from there,
two blind men followed him, crying aloud. 2 blind men. 2
blind men. OK, I don't know what image you
would use to describe your phase of life.
OK, just just if you could just take a snapshot of 1 moment and
describe to people, your job, your family, whatever it is.
Y'all, I just entered in a life phase with four kids.
It reminds me of what the comedian Jim Gaffigan once said
about having four kids. People ask me all the time,
what's it like to have 4 kids? He goes, well, imagine you have
three kids and you're drowning and you are barely surviving.
You're scrapping. Then somebody hands you a kid,
you know? And he does it in a very Jim
Gaffigan way. And I'm like, he nailed it.
That's the image. OK.
There's another friend here in the Port City world who growing
up, she said her dad was in the Parks and rec tourism world.
She said the show Parks and Rec kind of captures her dad's life.
And I was like, that's an image like it.
It grabs what it was like, yeah. I wonder if you could pick one
ailment that describes life apart from Jesus according to
the Bible. What you would pick, The
theologians among us would say a dead person because apart from
Jesus you need resurrection. And you would not be wrong.
OK. But I think in terms of the way
people's felt experiences, they feel alive.
Before, you know, Jesus, you were living.
You were doing something. So if you had to pick one
ailment that describes what life apart from Jesus is, I think you
would pick blindness because you're alive, but not fully.
You're you're, you're operating in a human reality, but one that
isn't the way it's designed to be fully.
And it becomes a picture for us. It's such a gift to us if we
will let the blind teach us because many of us who weren't
born blind think we see and we don't, right?
The basic point of the text is if you don't know Jesus, you
don't see. You might think you do, but you
don't. So let the blind teach us what
it means to see. Write that down.
OK, so I want to give you a little background in the Bible
of what the people of this time would view a blind person as.
OK, Leviticus 19 is very clear that you should love blind
people in the fear of the Lord. OK, so there was no issues in
the law. They weren't like marked in a
certain way. I was like, they're your
neighbor. Love them.
Like in fact, there was X the the verse in Leviticus 19 is to
point out, don't not love them like in the fear of the Lord,
love them. It's pointing out love them.
OK, but there are instances in the Old Testament where the
Lords punishment in a situation was to cause blindness.
OK think Genesis 19 with the sodomites.
Think Samson gets his eyes gouged out.
Think when Elisha is in trouble, he says Lord blind my enemies.
So there's this sense in which being struck with blindness, you
could get to where you thought, oh, that means this purse,
something has happened to lead to their blindness, which is how
you get in a scenario like in John Chapter 9, Jesus's own
disciples asked Jesus who sent this blind man or his parents
that he was born blind. That's not like a crazy person
in the crowd asking Jesus that. That was his own disciples after
walking with him for a while. So in the cultural air blindness
probably was viewed a little like stigma ish.
They were probably very alone. People avoided them even though
that's not what the the law intended.
It just was the cultural moment. So you got 2 blind men that
people probably keep their distance from screaming out to
Jesus, which we see in the next phrase they're crying aloud.
The Greek there gets that shrieking, intriguing begging,
like just just shouting, screaming following it and
they're shouting out have mercy on us.
This phrase have mercy on a son of David.
It's sort of like a a layered cake.
Some of y'all are into those bacon shows right now.
Amen. Somebody it's like, you know
what the show's going to be. I can't cook any of it, but it's
so fun. The British bacon show and their
accents. I'm like, this is amazing.
You just want to put a fire on and watch it and don't get it
twisted. The cake looks good, but when
you cut it, there's layers of flavor in there, you know.
And so Matthew is, is layering a cake of who Jesus is through
these blind men shouting out this phrase.
Have mercy on a son of David. So I just want to give you a few
of the layers. OK, First layer is mercy.
Somebody say mercy. The biblical view of mercy is
very practical. You might have heard the
illustration that mercy is withholding the bad you deserve.
Grace is giving you the good you don't deserve.
I think that's great. So mercy just becomes only
withholding bad from people. But I actually think the the
biblical picture of mercy is more practical than that.
Think Luke 10 in the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus.
The last thing he asks is which of them show the man mercy or
which of them proved to be a neighbor to the man.
My bad. And the the guy says, well, the
one who showed him mercy, good. You go and do likewise.
The idea of mercy is it's very practical.
It does something. Mercy moves towards people.
So it's not just withholding bad, it's actually kindness.
It's like help. Practical aid is the idea of
mercy. If you don't have Exodus 34, six
and seven memorized, consider this your invitation.
You could turn there on page 69 in your Bibles under your seat.
I'm going to read that over us. Exodus 34, six and seven.
When Moses is with the Lord up on the mountain, he asks him to
reveal himself to him and and the Lord comes down in the cloud
and stands there and proclaims the name of the Lord to Moses.
And this is what the name of the Lord is.
Exodus 34, six and seven. The Lord passed before him and
proclaimed the Lord. The Lord, a God merciful and
gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means
clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children and the children's children to the third and 4th
generation. So layer one with mercy is that
kind of taps into Yahweh's name like his name means merciful.
His name like this is what he oozes his practical kindness in
mercy towards his people. So they're shouting out,
shrieking, have mercy on us. And then they say son of David.
OK. They are the first ones to say
that phrase out loud in this book.
Hopefully you know where you should have saw that first.
It's in Matthew chapter one, verse one.
OK, So I invite you to turn there.
I just want you to see it for yourself.
Matthew 11. This is what Matthew said, the
book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the
son of Abraham, OK. So part of the goal of Matthew's
book is to show you that Jesus is the son of David, OK, the son
of Abraham. But the first people to
articulate that that isn't Matthew's kind of like letting
us know narrator style, are these two blind men.
OK, now, son of David, you're you're not going to turn there
on this one, but right down. Second, Samuel 7 taps into the
Davidic covenant. OK, now the covenant with David
happens at the height of David's kingly career.
He's just like, Lord, you've been so good to me.
I want to build you a house. And the Lord is like, I
appreciate you, but no, I'm a build you a house.
And here's what I mean. I'm going to make for you an
everlasting covenant where you, someone from your house will
always sit on the throne. That's the TSV, the Tanner
standard version. Okay, Now in this covenant, part
of the spirit of it is it means your son Solomon.
And then onward and onward and onward like your people will.
A person from your body will always be on that throne.
But the spirit of the covenant is 1 would come who would reign
eternally. Like it wouldn't just be a
forever, just your people, like the country of England or
something, but somebody is going to come from your lineage and
reign forever. OK, so by saying Son of David,
they're not just saying you come from his lineage, which
Matthew's genealogy shows us. They're saying you're the
eternal king, the promised king. OK, so that's layer 2.
We've got mercy, which taps into Yahweh's character.
We've got this eternal merciful king who was promised Messiah,
and then they're blind. So why do blind men think that
the eternal Son of David would have mercy on them in such a way
that they're kind of implying make us not blind?
Are you with me? So where does the blindness
layer come into the cake? We got mercy layer.
We got eternally merciful. But where does the blindness tap
in? A lot of y'all are familiar with
Isaiah 42. You could turn there 564 in your
Bibles if you're using ours, Isaiah 42.
Here's what this says. It's referring to the Lords
chosen servant, the promised Messiah.
Verse one says this, Behold my servant, whom I uphold my
chosen, and whom my soul delights.
I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to
the nations. Verse 6 I am the Lord I have
called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and
keep you. I will give you as a covenant
for the people a light to the nations to open the eyes that
are blind to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon from
the prison those who sit in darkness.
So the full scope that that the three layers that you're biting
into on the British bacon show of mercy.
OK, as these men are shouting it out, is them saying have mercy
on the Son of David kind of taps into like mercy is who Yahweh is
Son of David is the promised eternal Messiah.
And in some kind of way Isaiah through Isaiah, God is telling
us that Messiah would open blind eyes.
They are saying you're that guy. We believe that we're calling on
that name and y'all, that's who Jesus was on those streets that
day. That's who he is right now.
He is Yahweh in the flesh. He is merciful and gracious,
visiting with kindness for thousands, and he will by no
means clear the guilty. Y'all, He's the eternal king.
He ain't just king for a little while, He's king forever.
He defeated death. And y'all, he is the the
promised servant of Isaiah who came to set prisoners free.
That's who he is. So they're just shouting it out.
But what's interesting, Jesus doesn't respond right away.
He isn't like, good job. You pass the theological quiz,
He goes up into the house. Look at verse 28 with me.
So they're shouting this out, following him.
When he entered the house, the blind men came to him.
You might be thinking, where's the house?
What's the house? Most scholars in the gospel,
when they say the house, it's probably Simon Peter's house.
OK, in the previous chapter, you remember where he healed Simon's
mother-in-law. You remember that where he
touched her, she had a fever, she got up, probably that house
OK. And he rolls up in there and
sits down. And they came to him.
So this is such a good image for us of persistence in our faith,
isn't it? Like they're shouting out a
phrase nobody has ever shouted. They saw something nobody else
saw, and they were willing to scream it publicly, be kind of
embarrassingly outward with their faith.
And Jesus wasn't like good job, he just kept going and then they
kept going. What a what a good picture for
us. Here's my question.
Why, why does Jesus make them keep coming to him?
I wonder if in your mind, which my mind is tempted to do as
well, I wonder if we think he's only merciful to them when he
takes the blindness away. The moment of mercy is when the
blindness goes away. You know Jesus is merciful to
make you keep going to Him. Jesus is merciful to allow you
to keep pressing into Him. He's not only merciful at the
moment where your problem is alleviated.
Does that make sense? It's your proximity to His
presence is a part of the mercy. But if we think it's just the
removal of the problem, we miss Messiah altogether.
OK. And he asked them a question.
Do you believe that I'm able to do this?
Jesus is hilarious. These men are shouting this,
screaming this, following you. He knows the answer, right?
Jesus is the God man. He knows what they're going to
say. There's something about Jesus
where he can commend your faith and then he can test your faith.
Why he tests some and commends others and how he tests them
when he tests them, commends them, I don't know.
He's trying to pull it out of them.
There's something about saying the words.
Yes, he wants to hear that. Y'all, there's, there's
something we can do that's really weird about Jesus being
all knowing. I don't know if you've done this
and I'm going to try to articulate it, so just bear with
me for a second. We think that Jesus being all
knowing, God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit being all
knowing means that like stuff doesn't count, is not real
because he knew it was going to happen.
It's not authentic. I'm like, I know the stuff's
going to happen all the time. I still enjoy the process.
How does your knowledge is going to go down mean that it's not a
real thing? Does that make sense?
Like it's a story. God is a person, you know what I
mean? We take his, we take theological
truths like sovereignty and all knowing which are true.
And you should know and teach and learn, but that doesn't
erase the authenticity of how it's life, right?
Like I know that when I get home, I got to feed kids.
Guys, I'm not going to feed you because I knew that I was going
to have to feed you. What?
That doesn't even make sense. To keep with the comedian theme,
there's this little bit by Nate Bargatze where he he told some
friends that he had just gotten back from a trip to Disney.
OK. And they were like, well, you
know, they're not going to remember that, right?
And he was like, what do you mean?
Well, they're toddlers. They'll have no memory of that.
So why would you waste the money?
And I was a little bit like good friends.
Good question. I kind of Eileen agreeing with
them. And Nate was like, you know
what, man, you're right. Until they have working
knowledge of everything that's happening, full consciousness, I
should just lock them in a room like Harry Potter.
Just who? Nothing counts until you have
full acknowledgement that's going to happen.
There's something about both sides of that coin that clicked
for me where I'm like, we confuse what knowledge means.
Like you don't not relate to a kid because they ain't going to
remember it. Hey, man, you just sit right
there until you're about 9:00, OK?
And then at the same time, when we know something's going to go
down, we don't be like, let's just stop because this isn't
authentic. Like, I know when you play a
game, you're going to throw the ball.
So do I not Are y'all tracking with me?
But with Jesus, because he knows what's going to happen.
We're like, then why does it even matter?
Is this like a game? No, I think it's life.
I think it's a story. I think he's a person.
Does that make sense? So don't allow truths about God
to mean he's not a person. Life is not a game.
You know what I mean? Like, it's it's real.
It's he's a person. He's asking real people in front
of them. Do you believe?
And he knows the answer. But that doesn't mean he doesn't
want to hear them say yes. Are y'all with me?
They say back, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.
Yes, we believe you can do this. And their words express their
faith. Yeah.
We live in a cultural moment where I just feel the need to
say they're not creating their reality through their words.
They're not manifesting their sight.
They're about to get OK. They're receiving from the Lord
Jesus who can give it to them. Have a little jar in your house.
Every time you hear the word manifesting universe or karma,
just put a dollar in it. You have about $100 if you watch
TV at all in about a week. OK, but what you need to hear is
that the center of the story is a person, Not an energy, not a
vibe. It's a person.
They're saying back to him, we believe you can do this.
They're not creating their reality, OK?
They're receiving from a person. They're not performing something
that gets them something because they won some sweepstakes, OK?
And in verse 29, he touched them.
He touched their eyes. Y'all, you know, this Jesus
could have healed them by just could have snapped his fingers.
He could have said Alakazam, He could have done whatever he
wanted, but he touched their eyes and you'll remember people
probably kept them at arm's length.
What we're seeing over and over in these stories is our like
sore spots are kind of Jesus's sweet spots.
You notice that like where people like whatever the stigma
around you is, Jesus is not running from it like I I think
about for me y'all, my anger has got me in some problems in my
life, my insecurities, my little man's syndrome, my back in the
cornered Ness. But if I relate to the Lord
Jesus like he doesn't want a piece of that, how will I ever
be healed? Does that make sense?
Like if you begin to think because others keep a distance
from me over this, this thing, this sin, this whatever, and you
keep a distance from the Lord, you're missing the point.
Are you with me like he wants to move in where there's the sore
spot. Not that doesn't mean he's Co
signing that that my anger. It means he cares about me
right. He touches the blinds eyes.
He's looking at the woman last week.
These are very intimate, intentional ways.
He's demonstrating his authority, right?
And he's transforming that which he touches.
His touch is not a affirmation. Stay the way you are.
It's a transformation. He'll meet you where you are,
and then he won't leave you there.
OK. And he says according to your
faith, be it done to you, according to your faith, he's
responding to their faith. It's not in proportion to their
faith. It's not like, well, y'all
believe like 80 out of 100. So I would have given you 2020
vision. But now let me give you whatever
some other, I don't know what the other numbers are, 1520, I
don't know if that's the thing with vision.
But the point is, thank you. That's what I needed, 100
vision. But the point is in response to
y'all, remember your faith is more about the object of it than
your quantity of it. OK?
Your faith grows as you understand the object in which
you're putting your faith, not in focusing on having it.
Does that make sense? It grows when you see that he is
the eternal Son of God. He is Yahweh, He is, He is the
son of David, therefore I trust him.
Does that make sense? It's not focusing on I'm a good
truster, I'm a good truster, I'm a good truster.
They saw him, so in response to that, he opened their eyes,
verse 30, and their eyes were opened.
You know, the Bible and miracles.
We've got to understand this. We've got to understand this.
It is both not OK, just a set of stories that only applies to
those people forever has nothing to do with your life.
So it's not a book of lottery hitting, miracle receiving from
Jesus. Nice for them.
Let me just read it. And it's also not a prescribed
path for you to get that if you just do it right.
Does that make sense? It's not your path to get the
life you want. So it's not random lottery and
it's not a path for you to get the life you always wanted.
So what is happening y'all? The point of the Bible, the
point of the Gospels that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John wrote,
is to be a window that we see through and see Jesus.
That's the main purpose they were written.
It's a window, and we're up against the window just watching
who Jesus is, OK? And as we watch him and who
approaches him, it is also a mirror, OK?
It's a mirror into the type of need we have.
We're not just like, look at all these people.
This is really nice to them. If you continue to stare at the
window and not think, I wonder if I have anything in common
with him. If you just look at it and it's
like a cool movie that is not touching your life, you're
missing something. It's a window.
It's a mirror. OK, So what is the point of the
window mirror relationship is to show you that you need Jesus.
We need cleansing, we need eyes open, we need resurrection, we
need fevers taken, we need demons driven out.
We need the we need Jesus. We are in the position of need.
He is willing. We are needy.
That's the point of the whole thing.
So we're not just looking at a one time thing that's cool for
them and we don't 1:00 to 1:00 if that's my exact situation,
but there's ingredients under the surface that all humanity
shares, which is need and he is willing.
OK, Now how do we see Jesus? It's not physical, right?
Like we don't this, that's not the type of sight we do in this
era that we're in. You know, the Bible teaches that
how our eyes are open is through hearing with faith.
Y'all, the way that you see Jesus is notice y'all, they
heard him before they saw him. Hello.
The blind people could hear him. They could not see him because
they heard him and trusted him. They got to see him.
Y'all with me? If you want to see Jesus, you
got to listen to him. The path through your heart is
through your ears, and then you see.
You see by hearing. You hear by seeing the book.
If you want to use seeing like you see words on a page, you
hear with faith you trust and then your eyes are open to who
Christ is and you can't Unsee him.
You see Him through agreeing with His word.
Y'all with me? You see Christ by agreeing with
His word. It's statement about reality,
about who He says you are, about who it says He is.
You have to agree with Him. Faith is not some crazy concept.
It's something you do all day, every day.
You trust in things. You trust light switches will
turn on. You agree with the reality that
says that's got to be plugged in.
So you plug it in, yo, you have to agree with reality as God
sees it. And you do that through hearing,
with faith, through trust. And then he sternly warns them
not to say anything to anyone about it.
OK, we're not going to spend a ton of time here.
But y'all, this is just really practical.
He's just trying to do ministry up in here.
He's not trying to be on a healing tour where every day at
9:00 AM he's got people and he's on a podcast and appearing on
late night talk shows. He's just trying to.
We read Isaiah 42, it said in that text, one of the verses I
skipped over says he's not going to raise his voice loud in the
streets. There's the idea of the Messiah,
which we will tap into more in our Christmas sermon here in a
few weeks, that he, the way Jesus did things was by not
drawing attention to himself. OK, That's just sort of part and
parcel to how he operates. He warned them and in verse 31,
they disregarded what he said, OK, They did not listen, which I
actually think is genuine disobedience.
I do like, I think they that's counterintuitive, but I think he
wanted them to listen and they didn't.
And it also just points out the the the nature of like, I can't
keep it to myself. So it's both like it's like a
playful disobedience that Matthew wrote down for all time
where I genuinely think they should have listened to what he
said. But by not doing it, it's a
parable to us of y'all should not be able to keep this to
yourself either. And we don't live in an era
where Jesus is saying don't tell nobody.
We live in the era where he's saying tell everybody, OK, and
for some people sometimes he would heal you and say tell
everybody. So I genuinely think he just
meant please just keep it on the low.
It's not like other people would see them seeing now and they'd
be like, I don't see you don't see what you think you see.
Think he just meant don't overdraw attention to yourself.
And they disregarded it. OK, now I've got 2 application
points and we are done. All right.
First one, non Christian, come to Jesus, the King of mercy.
Come to Jesus, the King of mercy.
I got 2 points for you. If you don't follow Jesus here
today, here's the first one. You need mercy.
Wanna know why? Because you are blind y'all.
This is the most offensive thing you could tell somebody.
You can't see nothing if you all know Jesus.
That's tough. Tough, but it's the truth.
You're not struggling to see blind people aren't like telling
you. Hey, I just need a little help.
I'm struggling to see that I'm blind.
OK, There is a self-assessment that you have to agree with.
You are not struggling to see. You can't see, OK, And what the
Bible views you as is that you can't see reality you don't
like. Jesus is the light of the world.
Apart from him you can't see. You are made in God's image and
there's still, you know, that's why humanity is capable of great
things and art and all the stuff we could do.
But y'all, by and large it's darkness left to yourself in
your sin, when you're interrupted, the true you is
coming out. That's who you are.
Apart from the light of the world, Jesus Christ giving you
eyes to see, you cannot see. And apart from intervention,
your situation is hopeless. That's hard.
It's the truth. And for many of us who follow
Christ now we know that clear as ever.
We know in our previous life I could not see.
On the other side, you'd be like, this is what life is.
Yes, the idea is once you can see, you know what you couldn't
see. But if you keep thinking you
seeing, you won't know what you could see.
But you ain't. And here's the crazy thing, Who
gets to say you're blind? Jesus does.
OK, that ain't my idea. Jesus does.
God is the authority. You have to agree with him that
you need radical intervention and help.
You don't need a little coaching.
You don't need a little bit better vision.
You need total overhaul. Your life is unmanageable.
Your sin is a problem. You can't stop it no matter how
hard you try. Your New Year's resolution
approach to fixing yourself has not worked.
You need mercy. You need salvation.
You need to be born again. You need the Spirit of God to
awaken you. That's the bad news.
The good news is Jesus is the King of mercy.
So he is. He opens blinds eyes.
He wants to open your eyes, He wants you to agree with Him.
He wants to live with you. Why you think He wants you to
see? So you can see Him.
The first thing they see when they open their eyes is Jesus.
Once you can see, we're not talking about just being able to
see. Like reality is God at the core
of reality. As Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you
are awakened to life as you are designed to live it, but in your
sin you want to be ignorant to that truth.
The reality is, y'all, the reason we're blind is because
we're doing this right here. We don't want to see.
That's kind of what the New Testament teaches is that we're
blind and we have hands over our ears and our eyes because we
know if we hear, we might have to listen.
We know if we see, we might have to deal with what we see in.
And I'm just begging you to recognize that the King of Mercy
is just trying to pull them hands off your eyes and pull the
hands off your ears so you'll hear the truth and agree with
him. This is bigger than nobody's
perfect. This is bigger than I need a
little help. I need to process my story with
somebody. Y'all, All those things are
good. You need radical salvation.
You need help, and Jesus wants to give it to you.
That's what the cross is, y'all. That's why it's so bloody.
That's why it's so total. It's so final in human history.
That's why Jesus took the cross. He can give you mercy because at
the cross he got wrath. He absorbed the wrath of God so
that what he can give you is mercy.
That's what he wants to give you.
Will you go to Jesus the Christ, the King of mercy, for mercy
today? You just go to him in faith and
say, God save me. God help me.
God open my eyes, show me where I'm blind.
Help me Christian keep coming in faith to Jesus the King of
mercy. How could we miss their
persistence here? He does not solve their problems
in an instant. Isn't this how life feels?
Doesn't it feel like Jesus is there but not answering your
prayer? Doesn't it feel like he's in the
room with you and doesn't his presence?
Sometimes we can't comprehend how he'd be with us and not
alleviate it. But y'all, this, this is life.
It feels like a no even when he's with you.
But we have such an opportunity here to learn the life of faith,
don't we? Now, one of the books we've been
recommending throughout the series is called A Praying Life.
I recommend you get it. Paul Miller talks about the
effect that this can have on us. When you're continually in God's
presence and not feeling like you're getting a yes, you begin
to do one of two things. Two ditches on either side of
the road. OK?
One of them is denial and one of them is determination.
OK, denial says I'll be blind. You give up.
I'm blind. I'm done.
I'm out, it's over. You're a cynic.
You throw rocks at God, you're you're whiny and you're just
man, it's me, I did something wrong or God just don't love me,
I'm out. Game over.
The other side is determination. I'm going to get unblind.
I'm going to show up every day. And you can even involve the
Lord in your determination and you have a prayer schedule and
you have all the ways that you think your determination is the
determining factor. And if you're going to get that.
And eventually what happens for both of those people, for the
determined or the denial is they tend to steal because you, you,
you claim Christ and you're, you're in relationship with him.
You just pray or become something you know you're
supposed to do, but you don't think it's going to work.
And you're 11. Pastor said it like this, like
what was designed to be intercession to impact real
change in life just becomes a token of your devotion.
It becomes a part of your brand. You're good at praying, you like
to pray, You're spiritual. Prayer becomes duty at best.
Intercession becomes devotion. Y'all, prayer was never meant to
be just something you do because it's what Christians do.
It is part of how we commune with the Father.
It is part of how we accept reality as it is.
It is part of how we surrender to God.
But also, y'all, there is a real intercession is a real thing
stepping in before God in belief.
Do we believe and y'all all prayer fits within a relational
story. The idea, like we've talked
about, God is a person. Your life is an adventure.
You're sacrificing, you're confessing sin, you're failing,
you're serving people, you're loving people.
Life is full of pain, it's full of laments, it's full of
Thanksgiving, all kinds of things.
It's within that context that you're asking about this one
thing. But what we do is we shrink our
relationship with God down to that one thing.
Does that make sense? And if it's a no there, then
none of this is real. Does that make sense?
And I just want to call you neither to determination nor to
denial. I want to call you to childlike
desert faith. We don't live in denial.
We don't live in determination. We do live in the desert, Y'all,
this is not heaven. You're not going to get a yes on
everything. And I don't know why.
We live in the desert with the Lord and we have childlike faith
where we fight off cynicism. If you are in a cynical
headspace right now, I've been there and I just invite you
back. Get in your community.
Don't isolate yourself. Cynics tend to get alone.
Come back, be with people, hear the word.
If you're in a determined headspace, get around other
people. Get around people whose lives
are really hard and not changing because you can start to think
everything will just change. If you have crazy faith or
something, it's like, well, let's, let's lament.
Let's let's just keep it in proportion, OK?
But yes, in childlike faith, keep asking.
This is not a formula, but it is an image of the answer is to
keep going to Jesus. Like a kid keeps going to their
parent. They just keep going.
Kids are really good at not
being cynics and it's sad the day they start becoming cynics,
isn't it? Just let them keep coming to
you. So I just want to ask some of
y'all, where have you given up on God's goodness in your life?
Something you want to see God breakthrough and do something
that will be true in the new heavens, the new earth that you
were once begging God for that you have quit.
What is your quit list and is it rooted in you went through a
phase of denial, determination. Maybe God is just asking you and
if you're honest, there's some pain there.
You're like, I don't want that hope back because hope is
painful. But y'all where where the Lord
is, is at the intersection of those things of hope and pain.
That's where he is. Hebrews 416 one of the one of
the great verses in the Bible, y'all it talks about how the
Lord I'm going to read it over you.
Let me read this, let me read this, let me read it, let me
read it, let me read it. Almost done.
I promise. This is what it says.
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,
that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of
need. Y'all here's the idea.
Even once in Christ, your need for mercy ain't going away.
Probably what's happening is your awareness of your
sinfulness is going up the more you walk with God.
Therefore you feel like you need more mercy.
And So what you can do is now we approach God on I should be this
advance in my Christian walk or whatever as if it's a job and
you think you're performing poorly and so you stop praying
because you feel unworthy. But y'all think about mercy.
You don't deserve it. You get it because God gives it.
Their confidence was not that they did something that should
pull something out of Messiah. They know who he is.
Yo, the book of Hebrews is written.
The New Testament is pushing us to go to God for practical help,
to find help in time of need. Where do you need God?
Do an audit of where you need him and backtrack that to why
you're not going to him and it's probably rooted in you feel
unworthy or you think he is not willing.
And that is the whole point of these stories we're walking
through is neither of those are true.
He is, he is worthy, He is willing and he wants to meet you
in that. Ask him to open your eyes and
y'all praise God. One day blindness is gone.
One day we see dimly now then we will see face to face.
Praise God our faith will be made sight y'all.
So we pray now with the pain of hope.
It hurts to hope y'all. It's easier to just.
Let's just sever that off and become cynics.
Being a cynic is easy, I just pray that we were with courage
even when we have to hold one another up.
We could just say hey I got none in me right now can you be my
hope? Yes but we need one another to
hold each other up in childlike faith and keep going to the Lord
for grace and help in time of need.
God wants to help you in your actual life.
This is not a cool theology lesson that doesn't apply to
your life y'all. If God is getting bigger, we
should be asking him to help us more and more practical.
So just do a prayer audit. Where's it getting general
Where's it getting vague? Where are we not asking specific
and where you're not do an audit of that of why you're not and
you'll get somewhere with the Lord and then bring him into
that Lord. I don't think you're good.
Now we're getting an actual biblical prayer.
Now we're getting close to like some real stuff like you do with
real people in a real relationship, because that's
what God died to bring you into was a real relationship with
him. Y'all Amazing Grace.
How sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I'm found.
I was blind but now I'm see. I I blew that I was blind but
now I see. I hope you could say that's true
of you today. Let's pray.
Our Father, we love you. Thank you for grace, thank you
for mercy. Thank you that you're the King
of mercy who just oozes kindness to us.
God, I pray for my friends who don't know you.
God, I pray they would agree with you that they're blind.
I pray that they would agree with you that they need help,
they need your touch, they need sight of you.
God, would you just speak into the echo Chamber of their soul
and wake them up by the power of the Holy Spirit.
God help them to agree with you that they need resurrection.
May they see you on the cross. God, may your resurrection power
wake them up. And got to pray for my friends
in Christ where we've just given up.
We've grown cold and stale. Or maybe we're in the the the
throes of just self determined beliefism in the flesh.
God, would you bring us back to childlike hope, childlike faith
that that mixes sorrowful rejoicing so well.
God, give us faith, Give this church faith and answer our
prayers. God, we ask you to heal, we ask
you to say, we ask you to breakthrough, we ask you to give
us endurance and patience with joy.
God, fill us with the knowledge of your will.
Open our eyes that we may see you.
We love you. We pray this in Christ's name,
Amen.