Sermon Tone Analysis

Series: Meet The Savior Who Was A Servant

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Sermon: Time For A Change

Mark 10:46-52

Pastor Ricky Powell

March 14, 2010

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Introduction:

An old man from the mountains took a trip to the big city.

For the first time in his life he found himself standing outside an elevator.

He watched as an old, haggard woman hobbled on and the doors closed behind her.

A few minutes later the doors opened and a young, attractive woman marched smartly off.

Amazed, but realizing the possibilities, the old man turned to his son and said, “Boy, go home and get your mamma so I can run her through that thing.”

Don’t you wish change was that easy?

And it is not others that we want to change.

We look within ourselves and see many things about ourselves that need to change.

We struggle with our addictions, our anger, our fears, our frustrations, our habits, our gambling, our drugs, our attitudes, our relationships, our language, our lusts, our pornography, our secret sins… The list goes on and on.

And often we say we want to change.

We may even try to change ourselves.

We say things like, “I am going to turn over a new leaf.

I am going to try harder.

I am going to pull myself up by my bootstraps.

I am going to get my life out of the ditch.

Things will be different this time.

You wait and see.”

But ultimately our best-intentioned attempts at change are fleeting and unsuccessful.

We find ourselves right back in the ditch of sin where we started.

This is where I have good news for you.

God’s Spirit has spoken to your heart and convicted you about your need for a change.

He has impressed upon your heart that your life cannot continue as it is without a radical change.

He has convicted you about all those ugly things in your life that bring pain into your life and into the lives of those you love.

He has even allowed you to fail at all your attempts to change your life on your own because He wants you to realize that He is the only one who can truly change you.

In Mark 10 we meet a man named Bartimaeus.

He was a blind man who sat on the side of the road in Jericho, begging for the meager and chance charity of passers-by.

He had long since given up hope on being able to change himself.

But that is when something wonderful happened!

Jesus came to Bartimaeus’ town.

Blind Bartimaeus knew it was time for a change and he knew Jesus was the only one who could make it happen.

Bartimaeus didn’t miss his chance for change.

Jesus came to Jericho, Bartimaeus’ community, and today He comes to Jacksonville, your community.

Jesus came to Bartimaeus and He comes to you.

He changed Bartimaeus’ life and He wants to change your life.

Don’t miss your chance to have your life radically changed today!

Follow the example of Bartimaeus and trust Jesus Christ to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior and He will transform your life.

Do what Bartimaeus did.

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1.Desire Change.

Bartimaeus wanted to see.

He had never seen the sunrise with His own eyes.

He had never seen the beautiful rose gardens for which Jericho was famous.

He had never seen the sweet innocent face of an infant.

He had never seen the roiling flow of a river.

He had never seen the stars of night.

He had never gazed upon the faces of his own loved ones.

Bartimaeus lived in a blackened world devoid of color and beauty.

No wonder when Jesus asked him what he wanted he replied, “I want to see” (Mark 10:51).

There is blindness far worse than physical blindness.

It is spiritual blindness.

You may have 20/20 eyesight and still be spiritually blind.

Helen Keller was once asked, “Isn’t it terrible to be blind?”

She replied, “Better to be blind and see with your heart than to have two good eyes and see nothing.”

The Bible speaks of those who are spiritually blind when it says there are people, “whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Spiritual blindness prevents one from seeing how serious sin is.

It blinds you to the brevity of life.

It blinds you to the fact that it is appointed for man to die once and afterwards stand before God in judgment.

It blinds one to the reality of Hell.

Spiritual blindness prevents one from seeing the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who alone can save from sin’s penalty.

Bartimaeus has a blindness rooted in a physical defect.

Spiritual blindness is rooted in the work of the Devil who does not want you to see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.

The Devil wants you to believe that Jesus is just another man.

A good man, perhaps even the best man who ever lived, but a man nonetheless.

The Devil has blinded the eyes of those who do not believe Jesus is God’s Son.

Bartimaeus was blind, but he did not want to stay that way.

He desired a change in his life.

I have discovered that not everyone wants to change.

There are people who enjoy their misery.

Like Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street, they like living in the garbage can of sin and misery.

Like a pig who wallows in the slop, some people continue, year after year, wallowing in sin.

I have found that most people do not desire real change until they reach the bottom.

No doubt there were others in the city that day who needed healing, but they had not come to a point of desperation where Jesus was their only hope.

Bartimaeus had reached the point where he knew Jesus was his only hope.

It is now or never!

It is Jesus or no one!

Have you come to that point where Jesus is your only hope of ever being in a right relationship with God and of ever having purpose and peace in your life?

Have you come to the place where you are tired of groping around for direction and happiness in life?

Do you desire a different life?

My prayer is that you will be like Bartimaeus and desire change.

But don’t stop there.

Do what Bartimaeus did.

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2.Stop Procrastinating.

/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./

Mark 10:46 (NKJV)

I love how R. Kent Hughes describes the scene in his commentary on Mark’s Gospel.

/As he sat there, just like so many days before, he listened to the city come to life—first a donkey loaded with melons for market, after that several women chatting as they bore pitchers toward the well, then the clomp of camels’ hooves, and the aroma of fish borne along to market.

Soon Jericho was humming, and the blind man was intoning his beggar’s cry./

/Suddenly Bartimaeus tensed and lifted his head, for his blind sensitive ears heard the hubbub of a great crowd approaching.

First came young boys running before the crowd with shrill cries, then more people hurrying past the gate talking excitedly.

Bartimaeus, brushed by a robe, reached out and asked what was happening.

The passerby, pulling his robe away, called back, “Jesus of Nazareth—the one who heals the lame and lepers and blind—the one some are saying is the Messiah—is passing by!” Everyone had been talking about this man’s exploits and words.

Bartimaeus had perhaps even heard a first-person testimony from someone who had heard him and had seen his miracles.

Bartimaeus had been doing a lot of thinking, and now he made up his mind.