This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you back for day five of our look through Matthew chapter 20.
And I want to begin today by reading our verses at the end of this chapter,
verses 29 to 34. As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd
followed him.

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. " The crowd
rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, "Lord,
son of David, have mercy on us. " Jesus stopped, and he called them, "What do
you want me to do for you?

" He asked. "Lord," they answered, "we want our sight. " Jesus had compassion on
them, and he touched their eyes.

Immediately, they received their sight and followed him. This is a miracle of
healing, and the truth is, Jesus is still working today to heal. He heals
physically, he heals spiritually, he heals emotionally.

And I want to, together, as we look at what happened in this miracle that Jesus
worked of healing, I want to look at how Jesus can work his healing power in my
life and in your life. Too many people live with hurts that could be healed. The
hurt of a failed relationship, or the hurt of a disappointment with another
person, or the hurt of a deep insecurity, the hurt of a bitterness about past
circumstances, or a secret from the past, or expectations that never came true,
or the hurt of doubts that bring fear, or the hurt of an unforgettable
humiliation, or a willful hurt that was caused by another.

Here, Jesus heals a hurt, and we see in this some of the questions you and I
need to ask. Ask of ourselves to see Jesus heal our hurts. In this case, he
heals the hurt of blindness.

There are stories in the Gospels of at least six separate individuals whom Jesus
healed of blindness. Now, he healed them all differently. Some of them he put
mud on their eyes here, he touched their eyes, some of them he just prayed for.

That shows that he is the healer and not the method. And that's what you have to
remember, it's not the method, it's Jesus you need to look to. Here, there are
two men that need to be healed.

Mark mentions just one of them, in fact by name, Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is one
of these two men. We don't know the name of the other one.

But they are together and they are shouting out that Jesus would help them. In
one sense, there's these two men who are waiting for healing. And I know, you
may be in that very place, waiting for healing.

If you're to be healed, you have to honestly answer some powerfully important
questions. If you can answer these questions, you can see God heal some of these
hurts that we just talked about a minute ago. The three questions are, where am
I sitting?

Who am I listening to? And what do I want? First you ask, where am I sitting?

This happened to be in Jericho. It was a great day of festivity in Jericho. The
crowds were lining up on the streets to watch pilgrims passing by, heading up
towards Jerusalem on their way to the Passover celebration.

And there sat Bartimaeus and his friend. What was he doing there? What he'd done
many, many days.

He was sitting by the road begging. Where am I sitting? One of the questions you
have to ask is, how is my hurt affecting my life?

Their hurt had made them into beggars. No one would hire them. It was the only
way they could eat.

However wise or strong or compassionate these two men might have been, when
people saw them, they saw what their hurt had made them, a beggar. But I wonder
what they saw of their own lives. Is that all they saw?

They must have seen more because they were willing to cry out to Jesus. Instead
of thinking, wow, there's a big crowd today. Maybe we can beg and get more
money.

No, they knew Jesus was there and they knew Jesus could do something for them.
How is your hurt affecting your life? Unless you come to grips with what it's
doing to you, you're going to just live with that hurt.

It's painful to think about hurts. Why dredge them up? The reason is because
they're often affecting our daily lives.

That hurt that you've faced, it could be affecting your level of confidence. It
could be making you into an angry person or a withdrawn person. It could deeply
affect the way that you relate to your husband or your wife.

From the most mundane of conversations to the most intimate of levels, it's
hurting all of those areas of your life. Now, I know as I talk through these
deep hurts of life that right now, some of you listening to this, we'd rather be
any place in the world but listening to this. You want to turn this off right
now.

I understand it is not easy to think about hurts. You've been waiting for
healing so long that something in you has determined it's probably never going
to come. You don't want to bring false hope, but one day in the life of these
two men, the reality of who Jesus is comes into their life and everything
changes.

They recognized what they needed was mercy, God's mercy. Be merciful to us. They
didn't ask for what they deserved.

They asked for the gracious mercy of God. What was it in their call that made
Jesus stop? I think it was this heartfelt cry for mercy.

Have mercy on me. They didn't demand that Jesus heal them. Jesus, we demand that
you heal us.

They just said have mercy. I'm hurting. God, I need your mercy.

Start with that prayer. God, I'm hurting. I need your mercy.

You can't order a hurt out of your life, but God in his mercy can heal that
hurt. So first you say, where am I sitting because of this hurt? Second question
is, who will I listen to?

These men, they began to cry out and immediately everybody started to quiet them
down. Jesus is too busy for you. He can't come over here.

He's on his way to Jerusalem. He's with his disciples. He's talking to other
people.

In your life, when you recognize a need to change, to be healed, then all kinds
of shouts will come into your life telling you to be quiet, both from the
outside and from the inside. Don't rock the boat. Be quiet.

Just leave things like they are. In this case, the crowd was saying quiet them,
but Jesus said call them. You've got to get through to Jesus because the world
is full of people who don't want you to talk about your hurts.

It reminds them of their hurts, their hurts that they don't want to deal with.
So they don't want you to talk about it. There are equally as many people in
this world who want to only talk about their hurts.

They play this sort of, can you top this game? Whenever you share a need, they
say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let me tell you what happened to me. Or that's
nothing.

Let me tell you what happened to me. Let me just invite you to let the promise
of hope drown out the pressure of the crowd. This crowd tried to make them feel
as if they were embarrassing themselves.

They were bothering Jesus when the truth is they were saving themselves. And
notice they said, they cried out, "Son of David. " The idea behind that phrase
is that this is the promised one of God.

Even in crying out, have mercy on us, they are indicating their belief that
Jesus is the Messiah. They believe that he can heal them because of who he is.
They recognized in Jesus Christ the promise of God for their lives.

So what did they do? They kept shouting out all the more. So you start by
recognizing where you're sitting, your need, but then you start to shout out to
the only one who can meet that need, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Then you're going to face the third question. It's the one Jesus asked them that
day, and that is, what do you want? What do I want?

What do you want me to do for you, Jesus asked them. It sounds like a silly
question, but the shocking truth is not everyone who is hurt wants to be healed.
Why?

Sometimes it's fear. It's fear of being hurt again. Sometimes it's pride.

It's the pride of admitting that we're hurt. I don't want to be healed because I
don't have to admit I was hurt in the first place. Or sometimes it's comfort,
honestly.

We've learned to live with our hurt. Think of the answers these men could have
given. What do you want me to do for you?

They could have said, well, we want a better spot to beg. Some of those other
blind men have a good spot to beg. We want a better spot.

They become comfortable with their hurt, and they're trying to make their hurt
feel better instead of being healed of their hurt. They could have said, well,
call down lightning on those who are ridiculing us every day in our blindness.
They could have lived in fear or pride.

What do you want Jesus to do for you? Do you want him to perpetuate your pain or
to heal your hurt? Do you want him to build a better house for you to be painful
in?

Or do you want him to heal your hurt? What do you want Jesus to do for you?
Rabbi, they said, we want to see.

We want to see. What do you want him to do for you? Let's take some time in
prayer today to talk to him about that.

And just in a heart of prayer, just say, Jesus, what do I want you to do for me?
How do I want you to heal this hurt? And you might need to pray one of these
prayers.

You might need to pray, God, I want you to restore my heart after a failed
relationship. That's what I want you to do for me. God, I want you to release
this disappointment that I have with another person.

I don't want to live in bitterness. That's what I want you to do for me. God, I
want you to empower me to move ahead in spite of my deep insecurities.

Maybe the prayer you need to pray is, God, I need to let go of bitterness about
my present circumstances. Would you give me the freedom and your love to do
that? God, I need to share with someone else and to be freed of this secret from
the past.

I want you to give me the strength to do that. That's what I want you to do for
me. Give me the person I can share with and the strength to share, but also the
freedom that only you can give.

Jesus, what I want you to do for me is I want you to help me to find faith in
the midst of those doubts that are bringing fear into my life. Or maybe you need
to pray, Jesus, I want you to help me to know the security of your love, even in
this unforgettable humiliation I've endured. Let me be secure in you.

God, what I want you to do for me is to give me the power to forgive this
willful hurt that was caused by another. Jesus, what I want you to do for me is
to heal this hurt. I don't want to live in the bitterness of it.

I don't want to be comfortable with the hurt becoming some kind of identity in
my life. I want you to be the one that I follow. And so, Jesus, I pray that your
healing would come about in my heart and my life.

By your power, I pray for this. In your name, amen. Well, next week everybody is
Matthew chapter 21 and we start the last week of Jesus' life, beginning with the
triumphal entry and the cleansing of the temple.