Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus

6 · Narrates Bartimaeus's ordinary morning transformed by the extraordinary news that Jesus of Nazareth — the healer — is passing by, setting up the dramatic turning point

Bartimaeus wakes up. It's a normal day for him. He gets his cloak. He eats a little bit of breakfast. And he's led out to his spot outside the gates.

Spreads his cloak down, starts begging. As he's doing that, he starts to hear something. There's some commotion on the road. Maybe some children running ahead of this crowd. He asks the question, "What's going on?" Someone might say to him, "It's Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth." We don't know when Bartimaeus found out about Jesus, but when he was told it was Jesus, his mind went into gear.

He knew, he had either heard about Jesus before Jesus had been ministering. He had heard about Jesus, or maybe he just heard about him that morning. Maybe someone came up and said, it's Jesus of Nazareth, the one who heals the lame, the one who heals the blind. Bartimaeus, it's Jesus.

Anyway, his interest is perked, and look what he says.

7 · Highlights Bartimaeus's remarkable theological insight in calling Jesus 'Son of David' — a Messianic title — and his persistence despite the crowd's rebuke, raising the question of what 'Son of David' means

And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And listen to this, and many rebuked him. This crowd rebuked him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. It's not a natural thing to equate Jesus. It's natural for us.

But it's not a natural thing to equate Jesus with Son of David. Jesus is who Jesus was. That was his name. He was from Nazareth. But there were a lot of prophets.

There might have been Simeon from Bethany. There might have been Judah from another town. This was Jesus of Nazareth. But Bartimaeus knew something. We don't know when he knew it, but in his heart he was believing that Jesus was the Son of David?

Who is the Son of David?

8 · Signals a shift from narrative exposition to doctrinal exposition by turning to the Old Testament source of the Messianic title 'Son of David

Let's look at 2 Samuel chapter 7 and see where this term Son of David originated. What does that mean, Son of David? It's one of the terms for Jesus. It's one of the terms for the Messiah.

9 · Exegetes 2 Samuel 7 to explain the Davidic covenant — God's promise to establish David's throne forever through a coming king — establishing the theological foundation for why 'Son of David' is a Messianic title that Bartimaeus understood

2 Samuel chapter 7. This is the covenant that the Lord made with King David. Verse 11, moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make I will build you a house, talking to David, a house of generations. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, when you die, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. So this part of the prophecy took place with David's son Solomon, who rose up after David and built a temple.

For the Lord in Jerusalem. He shall build a house for my name, which Solomon did. But listen to the rest of this: and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So that part of the prophecy changed the nature of the prophecy. It wasn't just what God was going to do through Solomon.

Something was going to happen where David's throne would be established forever. Verse 14: I will be to him a father. And to him, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, so this is talking about Solomon, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.

And then look at verse 16. So all that was about Solomon, but look at 16. And your house talking to David, and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

So the Lord, through Nathan, is prophesying to David that through his line he is going to establish not only a kingdom in Israel, but a kingdom that will last forever. So generation after generation after generation after generation— this was spoken 1,000 years before Jesus was born— but each generation, each generation of Jewish young people were looking forward to the Messiah, to this person who would establish his kingdom forever. That word forever meant that this was not gonna be just an earthly king, but a godly king, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. So generation after generation, Jewish young people around their home, as they would study the Word, they would talk about the Messiah who would be coming. And one of the names for the Messiah came to be Son of David.

Bartimaeus knew that.

10 · Provides a parallel passage showing that crowds throughout Jesus's ministry were asking whether his healing miracles identified him as the Son of David — the Messiah

So he's calling out, Jesus, Son of David. Take a look at, A couple more scriptures. Matthew 12, a couple more places where this term is used, this title. Matthew 12:22, then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and Jesus healed him so that the man spoke and saw.

And all the people were amazed and said— look what they asked— can this be the Son of David? Could this be the Messiah? This person Jesus is healing people. Could it be the Son of David? The anticipation.

Could this be the Son of David?

11 · Provides a second parallel passage showing that even a Gentile woman recognized Jesus as the Son of David and cried out for mercy in language nearly identical to Bartimaeus's cry, demonstrating the widespread recognition of Jesus's Messianic identity

Look at Matthew 15. Here's a Canaanite woman, a Gentile, not even a Jewish person. But listen to what she says. And Jesus went away from there and withdrew from the district of Tyre and Sidon.

And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying. Very similar to what Bartimaeus cried. 'Have mercy on me, O Lord.' O Lord, recognizing that Jesus was God. O Lord, Son of David, my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. Jesus delivers that little girl from this demon.

And she is saved. She is saved from this terrible oppression. But even this Canaanite woman somehow knew that Jesus must be the Son of David, the Messiah. So that's what Bartimaeus— that's in Bartimaeus's heart. People have told him it's Jesus of Nazareth.

He cries out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!

12 · Returns to the narrative, emphasizing Bartimaeus's persistence despite opposition, the crowd's sudden reversal when Jesus responds, and Bartimaeus's immediate, eager response to Jesus's call

The crowd says, be quiet, you're a nobody. Be quiet, don't bother him. But Bartimaeus wouldn't be silenced. He cries out again, Jesus, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' Now let's look at the next verses.

Verse 49, 'And Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." And they called the blind man, saying to him—' So now the crowd changes its tune a bit. They're not saying be quiet. Jesus has said call him. So now the crowd changes and says, 'Take heart,' to Bartimaeus. 'Get up.

He is calling you.' And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

13 · Applies the crowd's fickleness to warn listeners against following popular opinion rather than following Jesus with personal conviction and wholehearted commitment

I mean, just a word of advice: don't follow the crowd. One day the crowd's for you, the next day the crowd's against you. Know what you believe in your heart about Jesus and follow him wholeheartedly. Don't follow the crowd at work.

Don't follow your friends unless they're following Jesus.

Don't follow the crowd. The crowd's a fickle thing.

14 · Meditates on the significance of Jesus stopping — pausing his journey to the cross, amid the crowd's noise and his own inner sorrow, to attend to one forgotten man's cry for mercy

But thankfully, this crowd turned from discouraging Bartimaeus to encouraging him. Take heart, Bartimaeus. He's calling you.

When Ricky asked me to speak on this passage, I read through it the first time, and this is the passage. These are the words. Jumped out at me. Jesus stopped. I mean, think about this.

Jesus had set his heart to go to Jerusalem. He's surrounded by this crowd. One commentator said the crowd was like an ovation. They were probably calling out hallelujah. We know that when they got to Jerusalem, they were crying out Hosanna.

That's when they put down the palm trees, and it was a festival of entrance for the Messiah to come. They thought Jesus was gonna overcome the Romans, set up his kingdom, this kingdom that we read about in 2 Samuel. But that wasn't his plan. He was going to Jerusalem to die. So this crowd was filled with excited people.

We also know there were people that were enemies of Jesus. The Pharisees had been plotting to take him, to capture him, to take him away. So this crowd was a mix of people. Jesus was in the middle of it. What was going through Jesus's mind?

I'm sure there was a sense of anticipation, but we know there was also a sense of deep sorrow. When Jesus got to Jerusalem, he wept over the city. He knew that this city, his people, would be rejecting him. He knew that betrayal, arrest, torture, and a terrible death awaited him. So there had to be a sadness in his heart.

As he's marching on this road, as he's walking towards Jerusalem. And as he's walking, he hears from someplace in the distance, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." And Jesus stops.

The Savior stopped and turned.

15 · Extended personal testimony of the pastor's conversion at 18 — how despite a religious upbringing and multiple altar calls, he was 'playing church' until the Lord confronted him through Matthew 24-25 and converted him by sovereign grace

Let me ask you, do you remember when Jesus stopped for for you individually? When he stopped and turned his attention, his affection on you and called you?

I remember. I was 18. If you're like between 16 and 25, could you stand up?

If you're in that age group, 16 to 25, just, or you know, 15 or 12. You know, if you're between 10 and 25, stand up. More? So, okay, so I was where you're at right now. So I want you all, I want everyone in here to look at this crowd that's standing.

Statistics show that the decisions you make where you are at in your life now will affect you for the rest of your life.

Thank you for standing. You can sit down. So I was your age. I was 18. I was playing church.

I had been in church every Sunday of my life, just about. My parents had us memorized Bible verses every morning before we went to school from the time we were like 5 years old. We had family devotions every night. We were in church Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday evening. Whenever there was something going on at church, we were there.

And I was really good at playing church because I didn't want to get in trouble with my folks. So I did everything I was supposed to do Billy Graham came to El Paso when I was like 12 or 13, someplace in that time period. He had a crusade out here at Kidd Field. The Sun Bowl hadn't been built yet. His crusade was at Kidd Field, which is now the track arena for UTEP.

I can remember on my own going forward and giving my heart to the Lord, but I wasn't converted. It didn't change. I mean, the Spirit was moving in my heart. No one made me go forward. I went forward.

I knew I was a sinner. There was another time at a camp meeting outside of Fort Davis where one of Billy Graham's associates was preaching, and I went forward there as well. I was probably 14 or 15 years old. Lord was moving on my heart, but it didn't change me. When I got to high school, I partied a lot.

So I was going, but I was still playing the game. I was still going to church on Sunday. I was getting involved in stuff. At church, but I was also involved in all kinds of stuff on the other days of the week. Two separate lives.

In my heart, my mom was really big on Bible prophecy, so she taught us about the Second Coming. She taught us about the Rapture. She taught us about the Tribulation. I believed all that. In my heart, I was saying, Lord, when I get old, when I get about 30.

This is really what I was saying in my heart. I said, when I get old, then I'll get serious, but I'm having too much fun now.

And so I continued to party and just live for myself, knowing the whole time that I was living two lives. But in my mind, I knew that when I got to be 30 that I would get serious about God because I believed it all. I believed everything I'd been taught.

Judy and I met when we were 17 or 18 at Burgess, and Judy started going to church with me. Her family was going to another church.

She started going to church with me, so she started playing the same game. So she'd come to church and play the church game, and then during the week we'd do whatever we were doing with our friends.

We drank a lot. We fought a lot. Our crowd fought a lot. I wasn't much of a fighter. I was more of a peacemaker.

But my crowd, that's what we did. We fought and we drank. We fought with kids from Eastwood. Judy and I went to Burgess, the high school that all of you wish you went to.

But that was our scene. A year after we graduated— we graduated in 1970, and drinking was the main thing. A year later, everybody was smoking dope. Changed in one year. But what we did is we drank and we fought.

Judy and I were playing the game so well that a pastor from a little church in the valley Brother Rosales, he was going to have an outdoor evangelistic crusade. And he asked— Judy and I were going down to First Baptist, and he came to First Baptist and he recruited some of the youth to help him in an outdoor crusade. So he recruited us. I don't remember what we did. We like led worship or something.

We were just part of the team. After the service, he had invited some guys from a Baptist Bible school to come in and preach. So these young guys preached. And then afterwards we went to Elmer's Coffee House on Montana and we just talked about the service. And somehow the discussion came around to end time prophecy.

And I'd been taught by my mom one thing, pre-trib, pre-millennial, rapture, 7 years of tribulation, 1,000-year reign of Christ. I knew my stuff. 18 years old. These guys from Bible school believed something different. I didn't even know at that point in my life that there were different views of the end times.

I just knew what I had been taught, and I thought everybody believed that. But these guys believed something else, and I couldn't believe that these guys from Bible school believed something else than what was in the Word. That was my thinking. So that night I went home, and for the first time in my life We just lived like 2 miles away from here in this neighborhood right over here off of Chelsea, right where the planes come in and land. Every day there were jets flying over.

Maybe there weren't even jets back then, prop planes flying over. That was just part of our life. I loved to see those planes come over. When I was 4 years old, a plane crashed in our neighborhood. There wasn't anything between Timberwolf and Montana at that point was just all desert.

And a guy was flying in, an Army guy was flying in on a dusty night, and he thought the lights on Montana were the runway. And when he realized that it wasn't the runway, it was too late and he crashed right in our neighborhood. I can remember when I was 4 years old looking out my window and seeing this plane in flames down at the end of our block. We've got pictures of engine parts, plane parts all over the neighborhood.

So that night I come home, and I'm in my mind, I'm thinking, I can't believe these guys believe something that wasn't in the Bible. So for the first time in my life, I opened the Bible on my own and started reading. I mean, I'd been reading the Bible my whole life, memorizing Scripture, but I'd never opened it on my own. So I start reading in Matthew 24, which is the area where we were talking about, and And for some reason I read into Matthew 25 where Jesus says, "My second coming will be like this. It's like the man who leaves his property in charge of a servant and goes away, and that servant says in his heart, 'My Lord delays His coming.'"

And I'm just reading. And the Lord starts speaking to me. He says, this is you. You're saying in your heart, Lord, delay your coming. And that's what I— because I believed Jesus was coming back.

I just wanted him to come back after I was 30. So I'm reading and it says, Jesus says, but the Lord of that evil servant will come back in a day when he doesn't know. And will find him drinking and fighting with his fellow servants.

And the lord of that servant will set him apart with the hypocrites, and there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth. I knew what that meant. The Lord spoke to me and said this: if one of the planes that comes over your house every day crashes in 'When you die, you're going to hell because you don't know me.' I was out of my bed, on my knees, repenting of my sins, giving my life to Jesus. I woke up the next morning a totally different person. Jesus stopped for me that night.

And he called me. He didn't ask me if I wanted to give my life to him. He ripped my heart open and forcibly brought me into his kingdom.

So I want you to remember when Jesus stopped for you.

16 · Returns to the Bartimaeus narrative, noting that Jesus asked Bartimaeus the same question he asked James and John, but their answers reveal contrasting motivations

This is what happened to Bartimaeus. Jesus stopped and came to And he says to Bartimaeus, what would you have me to do? And Bartimaeus says, that I might see.

The same question he asked to James and John. What would we have, what would you have me to do? They asked for position. Is that quote up there?

17 · Theological contrast supported by cited theologians: James and John sought glory and position; Bartimaeus simply asked to see — demonstrating the humility Jesus had just taught his disciples

Where's that quote by, take a look at this quote. This is by Pastor Danny Akins. He said, James and John asked for the best seats in the kingdom. Bartimaeus, in radical stark contrast, has a much more humble request. He says, I want to see. James Edwards says it so well: The sons of thunder, James and John, asked for extraordinary glory.

Bartimaeus asked for ordinary health.

18 · Dramatically narrates the moment of Bartimaeus's healing, using the experiential device of closed eyes again to help the congregation grasp the wonder of Bartimaeus opening his eyes to see Jesus's face for the first time

Look at verse 52, and Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Close your eyes.

So this is what Bartimaeus saw, nothing.

Have you ever wondered what it's going to be like when you die and pass into glory? Have you ever thought, what's it going to be like to see Jesus's face right in front of me, face to face? I think about all of our friends, a number of our friends who have died this last year, some from COVID some from from other things, who are now in the presence of the Lord beholding Jesus face to face. Jesus is before Bartimaeus. He's seeing what you're seeing, nothing.

And Jesus says, "Your faith has made you well." Bartimaeus opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the face of Jesus. The first thing he saw on this earth was the face of Jesus.

You can open your eyes. Imagine that, to see Jesus. The first thing in life— we take for granted everything that we see, but the first thing Barton May saw was Jesus.

19 · Theological claim about Jesus calling faith from Bartimaeus's heart, immediately illustrated by a pastoral anecdote about a blind congregant who now sees Jesus in glory

Jesus said, your faith has made you well. Jesus called faith out of his heart, and he was healed.

Janice Clark came up after the first service, and her sweet mom Sue, who was part of this congregation, sat right over here in this area, was blind. And Janice was just in tears. She said, I was just thinking about my mom who was blind, and when she went home to be with the Lord, she saw Jesus. I said, I've been thinking about your mom all week.

20 · Exposits the final phrase 'followed him on the way,' unpacking its theological significance through church tradition about Bartimaeus's continued discipleship and connecting it to the congregation's own calling to follow Jesus wherever he leads, even into suffering

Jesus said, your faith has made you well. Go your way. And look what it says next.

And he, Bartimaeus, recovered his sight and followed him, followed Jesus, on the way. Never be surprised how the most forgotten, the most overlooked people, the most unlikely people will respond to the grace of God. He opened up his eyes. Jesus said, go your way. Bartimaeus gets on the road to Jerusalem with Jesus.

Church history says that Bartimaeus followed Jesus to the cross, watched his resurrection, watched his ascension, became a vital part of the church in Jerusalem.

Jesus' way became Bartimaeus' way. Isn't that our story? We're following Jesus wherever he leads us. Listen to the words of this song. Like a blind man who walks in the darkness, I had longed, I had searched for the light.

Bartimaeus. Then I met the master. Now I walk no more in the night, for all things were changed when he found me.

A new day broke out all around me, for then I met the Master, and now I belong to him. That's Bartimaeus' testimony. I met the Master. Now I belong to him. Jesus has a claim on our lives.

He'll lead us where he wants to lead us. That may be a cup of suffering, a baptism of suffering, but he has claimed us. He has ransomed us.

He took the suffering, the pain, the punishment, the wrath of God that we deserved.

And now we're his. We belong to him. Since we met the master, we're no longer the same.