Journey Through Matthew: Do You Want to See?
Journey Through Matthew • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 6 viewsThe two men Jesus encountered on the road asked for one simple thing. To receive their sight. They didn't ask for favors but rather just to see. So many Christians today are blinded by the world that they forget that the only thing they need to do is focus and see Jesus.
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome back!
If you would start turning in your Bibles to .
Last week we finished up Jesus’ teaching, rebuke, preaching; or however you would like to term it, on the subject of the “First being last and the last being First.”
The last part of that was an education and rebuke to two of his disciples and their mother who had brought them to Jesus asking for them to essentially be #1 and #2 in the Kingdom of Heaven.
And Jesus followed this up with just as strong a rebuke to the other 10 of his disciples for their act of jealously and anger with the two over their misguided intents on “getting ahead” of everybody else.
The most important part of all of that though was Jesus’ teaching about servanthood to us all.
Just to recap, in verse 26-28, Jesus tells them . . . .
26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
And we didn’t have time to go into this a whole lot last week, but listen to what Jesus is telling them.
They are all concerned about greatness and being #1 in the Kingdom of Heaven, just like everyone was and is concerned with being #1 here on earth today.
And Jesus tells them that if they want to achieve “greatness” in God’s eyes, they must become servants.
But, servants of who?
Servants of everyone else.
Actually consider others, their feelings and their needs.
And not only consider their feelings and needs, but to do something to help meet those needs and expose them to the love of God.
And the problem we have run into over the years in the Church world is that too many people have decided that instead of developing a servants hear to help others and coming to church to learn and practice the development of this servants heart, they come to simply be served.
They come to hear a catchy song or snazzy easy on the ears sermon that makes them feel good for the moment but has no substance.
They do not like to be challenged to step outside their comfort zone and actually develop the mentality and the skills to be servants.
And the result is the statistics we hear that 20% of the people do 80% of the work in the church.
And honestly our percentages are better than that here.
We probably average around 40-50% of people doing something.
But we can do better.
God’s intention is for 100% of his people to be involved someway.
So we cannot let up.
And the first step is doing just what Jesus is saying here, becoming a servant…being a slave.
And not a slave to people, but a slave to God.
Following God’s commands and God’s directions.
Serving God, by serving others.
And doing it in the way that Jesus did . . .
28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
And Jesus is not telling us to all go out and get killed, but rather for us to die to self so that we may live for God.
To put God’s way and God’s will first and then let everything else fall into place behind it.
Which is tough in our world and our society.
There are so many things pulling us in every single direction.
But Jesus says, this is what it takes.
So, armed with this Jesus is going to now demonstrate that for his disciples and everybody else around them.
Which is where our passage this morning will be picking up.
So, if you have found in your Bibles, I’d invite you to stand with me as we begin reading in verse 29, looking at the subject of Do you want to see?
Matthew writes . . . .
Scripture Focus
Scripture Focus
29 As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. 30 Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 31 The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 32 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 33 “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.” 34 Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.
Matthew 20:29-
Lord Have Mercy on Us! (vs 29-30)
Lord Have Mercy on Us! (vs 29-30)
So, lets set the scene up a bit here.
Jesus and his disciples had been in Jericho for a little while now.
And while there, Jesus not only spent time teaching but also healing people, performing miracles, and dealing with rowdy Jews a bit.
And it came time for him and the disciples to leave and move on to the next stop in their “tour.”
However, Jesus, as he always did everywhere he went, had amassed a large following of people and here is no different.
As they were leaving this large crowd began to follow them out of the city.
And we can only imagine the noise and the hustle and bustle of a huge crowd of people trying to move about following behind Jesus and his disciples.
But on their way out of the city though they were going to encounter some new people who were waiting on them.
Again verse 30 tell us that . . .
30 Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
Now, these blind guys couldn’t get to Jesus because, well, they were blind.
They couldn’t see him or even see where to go for that matter.
To be honest, they were probably like many people who were trying to get near Jesus, they couldn’t because they didn’t have anybody to help them get there.
And their idea was to sit down at the city gate, where they knew Jesus was going to have to pass through and wait on him to get there.
So, this is what they did.
They found a spot on the roadside and they waited on Jesus to come by.
Waited on God to move, if you will.
Which is really the first lesson we need to learn.
Many times we want to get whatever the problem we have fixed immediately and fixed the way we want it.
And we forget that everything is done in God’s will, on God’s timeline.
We many times lack the patience to wait on God to move.
And when we do that enough (and I know by experience), sometimes God slows us down and forces us to wait, because we have no other options.
And I am not saying that God struck these men with blindness to make them wait on Jesus.
What I’m saying is sometimes God is silent while we run around trying all the options and things play out until we realize we can’t do anything else but wait.
Which is difficult to do.
Especially when things are not going good at all.
But these guys didn’t have a choice but to wait.
So, that’s what they did.
They waited on Jesus to come by, which also demonstrates the actual faith they had in Jesus to help them.
Which brings us to another point.
Sometimes God tells us to wait and what we do is say, “okay God, I got the message, I’ll wait” and then we try to fix things while we wait.
We try to hurry it up a bit by trying to do an end-around God.
And, this never works.
This is particularly true when we have some sort of decision to make or we are waiting on a decision of something that impacts us.
We wait, but we try to do everything we can to influence the decision or reduce the wait.
These guys didn’t. They simply waited.
And when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
This was their chance.
Things were lined up and now it was time to get Jesus’ attention.
And notice what they asked.
They didn’t ask for a million dollars.
They didn’t ask for a new house.
A new donkey.
They didn’t even ask for their sight to be restored at that point.
All they asked for was for Jesus to have mercy on them.
To show them some love and some compassion.
That was it.
Which is really what most people need.
Just some compassion, some love, some support.
Never Give Up! (vs 31-32)
Never Give Up! (vs 31-32)
But, by the reaction of the crowd it was obvious that these guys were not used to very much compassion on the part of others.
31 The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
Basically, “shut up, go away, leave Jesus alone....He has too much more important work to do than to deal with you two.”
And the crowd reacted this way because these two were blind and in societies view they were worthless.
They couldn’t get jobs and couldn’t support themselves.
They were probably dirty, they were beggars, living only off what others would give them.
The attitude of the people was that they were disabled because God was punishing them for something, so they were “throw away people.”
And we look at that and think “that is awful,” but how similar is our society today.
Now, we do have people who are professional panhandlers who are fakes, but how dismissive are we to the disabled in our society.
How close do we want to get to the homeless, the dirty?
Do we bring them to Jesus or do we dismiss them, reason in ourselves that it’s somebody else’s job?
How many shelters have we visited lately?
How many hospitals, nursing homes, jails?
How many people have we reminded that Jesus loves them, that God hasn’t forgotten them?
But what I love about these guys is that regardless of how dismissive the crowd was of them, they didn’t give up.
They had their mind made up that they were going to get Jesus’ attention and regardless of whether or not Jesus healed them, at least they were going to do everything in their power.
So, as the crowd tried to shut them up, they shouted louder, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’”
Which is exactly what we should be doing when society tries to shut us up by the way.
Society has a way of trying to quiet those who make them feel uncomfortable.
But we can’t give in to the pressures of society.
We have to rise above that.
Our goal is touching Jesus.
Our goal is eternal life.
Our goal is sharing the gospel with other people, sharing the hope that is found only in Jesus Christ.
And when others tell us to “shut up, be quiet, don’t rock the boat,” we should be shouting louder and louder.
Because what that means is that the Holy Spirit is working and moving.
People are hearing the truth.
Souls are under conviction and they are wanting that conviction to stop, so they get louder and louder.
But we can’t stop. The stakes are too high.
They don’t know it but we are trying to save their soul.
So be persistent.
If God has put it on your heart and you are seeking God with all your being, then don’t give up, just shout louder.
Jesus Rewards Persistence (vs 33-34)
Jesus Rewards Persistence (vs 33-34)
Jesus Rewards Persistence (vs 33-34)
Jesus Rewards Persistence (vs 33-34)
And when we are persistent, we get God’s attention.
32 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
So, even through all the noise of the world, Jesus heard their cry.
He heard their plea.
He heard them calling out to him.
And he responded, what do you want me to do for you? he asked.
He already knew, but he wanted it verbalized so everyone around could hear what the need was.
He was getting ready to perform a great miracle and he wanted it known what was getting ready to happen.
So he asks them what they need, and they respond . . .
33 “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.”
Matthew 20:
Simply, they want their sight.
They want to be restored.
And Jesus doesn’t hesitate . . .
34 Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.
Matthew
And that’s the thing, when Jesus touches us it is immediate.
When our eyes are opened, it is immediate.
And I’m talking about our spiritual eyes.
When Jesus touches our spirit, when he has compassion on us, when he saves us, delivers us, it is immediate.
Jesus doesn’t tell us to go home and wait for it.
His touch is immediate.
That’ is also true when he calls us.
Jesus doesn’t call us and tell us to go home and think about it.
When Jesus calls us he expects us to reply .
But we often don’t.
We often think about it, and quite often reason ourselves out of it.
Altar Call
Altar Call
That’s a dangerous game, because it gets into the realm of disobedience to God.
Remember God called us to be servants, not to be served.
He graciously saves us when we cry out to him, but he also calls us to share that hope with others in a variety of ways.
And this morning we have a mix of people here.
Some need to cry out to Jesus for salvation.
Some need to cry out to Jesus for sanctification.
Some need to cry out to Jesus to lead them back home. To rescue them again.
Some need to cry out for direction in their lives, either to receive their call or receive the strength to step into that call.
Others need a touch.
Some a physical touch.
Others a spiritual touch.
Others an emotional touch.
But there are many here today that have a need.
And Jesus can meet that need, if you are willing to cry out to him.
To be persistent and gain His attention.
Are you willing to do that this morning?
Are altars are available, will you use them today?