Turn to Mark chapter 10 if you
would. I like to think back on the day
that the Lord first had His gospel preached to me by one of His
ministers, by one of His servants as Gabe so eloquently brought
out from Paul's letter to Titus this morning. I like to think
back on it. I was just talking to Mark Leakey
a moment ago about the troubles that the Lord might bring us
through to come to Him. We pray for our
children. We have fervent prayer that our
children will come to the Lord, to come to know the same God
that we know. I did that for five years with
Kathy. It was five years between the time the Lord called me and
called Kathy. And I remember the difference that all of a sudden it made
in my life. His calling. That's what I want
to talk to you about this morning for just a few moments. His calling. The calling of the Almighty God. Because that's really the beginning
of salvation. When the Lord comes into our
lives, and He does it in various different ways, I don't want
to pinpoint one way. He tells us in His Scripture
He does it through the preaching of His Word. Here in Mark chapter
10, Before I get to that, I want to ask you, some of you might
remember things like this. Remember a day when we were,
Kyle probably don't remember these kind of things, but maybe.
Remember the days when we were young and we'd be outside playing?
That's not very common in today's world either, is it? Most of
them are playing on their computers and stuff like that today. But
back in my day, we didn't have those things. So we played a
lot outside. And as it got dark, see, there
was one rule about going out and playing in the street, that
when it gets dark, you better be coming home. Or you would
hear mom, kids, calling out. The call. And if you didn't come,
we all tested this, didn't we? If we didn't come, eventually
when we made it back home, we would find out why we should
have come the first time. Yeah, everybody's smiling. Oh
yeah, I remember those days. So, that's the call of power. Especially
if the power says, you just wait until Dad gets a hold of you.
That's the calling of power. It depended on what was for dinner,
how fast we came in. If it was liver, we would take
our time. Today I want to discuss with
you the calling of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at
verse 46 of Mark chapter 10 with me this morning. And they came
to Jericho, and as He went out, now the Lord was teaching and
preaching. They were preparing for the Passover. He had spoken about the treasures
in heaven. He says back in verse 33, Behold,
we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be delivered
unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn
Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles, and shall
mock Him, and scourge Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall
kill Him. And the third day He shall rise again. So the Lord's
been teaching the gospel. And here in verse 46 we read
this, "...and they came to Jericho. And as He went out of Jericho
with His disciples and a great number of people..." So He's
got quite a crowd. Now, the Lord Jesus attracted
a lot of crowd. When you're doing miracles, when
you're causing people to walk who you know they've been lame
since they were born, when you're causing people to feed from just
a couple of baskets and you're feeding thousands, These are
things that would attract us today, aren't they not? So he's got this large crowd
around him. A great number of people, it
said. Blind Bartimaeus, the son of
Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. He couldn't do anything
else. This is all he could do. He'd
been blind I think if I remember right,
he was blind from all of his life. But here, he's got nothing
to do but beg, and he's sitting by the highwayside begging, and
when he had heard verse 47 that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he
began to cry out and say, Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy
on me. Oh, that God would cause my children
to cry out as He did me, as He did my wife that very day. Verse
48, many charged Him that He should hold His peace. Look,
the King of kings is coming. The majesty of all majesties
is coming down the road. Hush yourself! Hush yourself! But he cried the more a great
deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood
still." He stopped. Do you think that was a description
that we should just pass right over? Just a little adverb there
to kind of accentuate. No! The very One who caused the
blindness upon this man, who caused him to cry out. As children of God, we know that
He caused us to do the same, didn't He? As I spoke with Mark
and told him, sometimes that's a pretty painful thing to go
through, but aren't you thankful the Lord brought us through it?
Aren't you thankful He didn't leave us to ourselves? that He
caused us to cry out. And when we did, you know, there's
a statement He says in His Word. He says, all that the Father
giveth Me shall come to Me. But He says something that's
so important after that. He says, and all them that call
upon Me, I shall in no wise cast out. Blind Bartimaeus, he was
calling. Lord, I need mercy. It wasn't
just a one-time call. It was a call that all of His
children call out every day. Lord, I wake up. Lord, I need
Your mercy today. Your mercies are new every day
to me. He stood still and commanded Him to be called. Christ stood still. and commanded
him to be called. And they called the blind man,
saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee." If you've never heard the Word of
God, today I pray that the Lord is speaking to you through His
Word. He's calling you. If you belong to Him, If He shed
His blood for your sins, and I don't care if you've heard
this message a thousand times, He's calling you today. Come
unto Me. We struggle so much in this world
with the flesh, with the pride, with all the thoughts. How about
our wisdom? Did you ever stop to think about
that? You know, maybe I know all this stuff about driving
a truck, but you know something? My wisdom about driving a truck
is nothing. I can't even trust that truly. There's only one thing in this
world that I can trust, and that is my Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. Looking to Him. Looking to Him. Have mercy today upon me. Be of good comfort, they said. Rise, he calleth thee, and he,
casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus." Notice it
didn't say that they guided him. Noticed it doesn't say that they
held his arms. I got off the airplane. I sat
down next to a guy on the airplane coming down here, and it turns
out he was blind. And the stewardess comes over
to me and she goes, excuse me, mister, would you mind helping
us? This man next to you is blind. Would you mind helping him in
case of emergency? No, of course not. As we got up to get off the airplane,
He said, can I hold your elbow? And guided him off the airplane.
Now, I'm not sharing that with you. I'm sharing that with you
that nobody did that for blind Bartimaeus. They didn't need
to. He was leaning on the everlasting
arms. Isn't that a wonderful song?
I'm leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms. He didn't need a man. He had Christ, the One who was
calling him, the One that God's preachers stand before the people
and say, Come, be of good comfort. He calleth you. That's what He's
doing right here in His Word this morning. That's the message
that Gabe was talking about. We're going to talk a little
bit about Titus, but he's not the picture. Christ Jesus and
His bringing His people together. Every time we come down here,
we spend time talking, and He shares new information about
how the church has gone through this, how the congregation has
gone through this, how Mark and He came together. All the different
things that He shares with me. And we were talking about this
yesterday around the pool. Isn't it amazing how God works
things out? how you see his hand and this
and that. I could tell you the same thing
about Mike Smith, Michael Smith. It was amazing how God worked
that out. I have no doubt today and I'm
not using this as an example to speak anything bad about Mike,
but he made it clear that he would have sold the property
and went off and moved into something smaller that we couldn't, we
weren't a congregation big enough to take care of that kind of
a property. He was wrong. And the way God worked everything
out, look, rescue's still together. The way God worked everything
out, look! San Diego's still together. Isn't
that wonderful? Oh, that blesses my heart. I'm
not the only one who's blessed by that. Drew Dietsch sent me
a note thanking me for coming down here and to let you folks
know how much he's blessed by the fact that you're together
worshiping God. What a wonderful thing. I don't
even know Drew, to be honest with you. He just, we exchanged
bulletins. I think I've talked to him once
in the years that I've been a pastor. But that was wonderful. He just
reached out. People are watching you folks. People are watching. God's people are blessed by what
we know of San Diego. Very blessed. So don't think
you're the only ones. All right, let's go on, shall
we? And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that
I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him,
Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him,
Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately,
immediately, he received his sight and followed
Jesus in the way. I find it interesting that Christ
commanded those that were with Him to let the man know that
Christ was calling him. You know, one of the things that
we all know if we've had any time to sit with blind people
is we know that their senses are heightened. You know, your
sense of hearing when you can't see, your sense of smell, all
kinds of other things. They try to make up for the sense
that you're missing, you're psyched. And I was talking about that
with the man that was sitting next to me. And I just realized
something. You talk about the purpose of
God. This just hit me. He put that man on that airplane
because he knew I was going to be talking about this. I had this all prepared two or
three days ago. Isn't that something? Well, I
love it when we see things like that, don't you? So the guy tells
me, he goes, oh yeah, my hearing is way better. Because I can
hear a pen dropping where I couldn't before. He's not been blind all
of his life. He's only blind for about the
last 10 years. And he's 66 years old. So his senses Do you think
there's any chance that maybe blind Bartimaeus had some heightened
senses as well? And yet here they had to tell
Him, He is calling you. Isn't that interesting? The Lord uses men, sinners, who
are saved by grace to tell sinners who saves by His grace. That's what it talks about. That's
the same thing that goes along with Romans 10, verse 13. For
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? I was thinking about
this this morning. Talk about it. You guys might
decide it's a good idea. How about if we put a sign out
there next to the street? I was standing out here looking
at these different signs. You got that real big one, and
kind of lost in the middle of it, even though it's bigger letters,
there's CHURCH. Church of Grace, or Grace Church,
something to that effect. What about one of those other
signs like the others that are put down next to the street out
here? Here's a good thing you want to put on a sign. We got
this up at Rescue. Brother Mike Loveless came up
with this. You put a little sign up above
the walkway as you're walking into the church that says, If
your God is trying, your pastor is lying. Come hear the truth. You've got a lot of traffic out
here. You think that might catch some people's notice on that?
Might be worth a try. I don't know. The whole thing
is, how are they going to call upon Him whom they've never heard?
How are they going to preach except they be sent? As it is
written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the
gospel of peace and bring glad tidings. God uses sinners to
tell other sinners about Christ. We have the honor to stand before
those who God has arranged to hear His gospel to preach, but
it is God who applies this gospel, His gospel, to the hearts of
His people. Many hear the Word of God, but
flesh and blood cannot reveal it to the heart. Only God can
deal with the hearts of mankind. Turn over to Matthew chapter
4 for just a moment. We'll leave Mark behind. Go over
to Matthew chapter 4. I've got to be careful here. Matthew 4. In verse 18, we read these words,
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren,
Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into
the sea, for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men." And straight away, there
we see that word again, straight away. That means immediately.
That means a heart was turned from the carnal view of the world
to the spiritual view. Life was given to a dead heart. And we're going to spend a little
more time talking about that in our next service. But here
we go. Let's go on, shall we? And they straightaway left their
nets and followed Him. And going on from this, He saw
other two brethren, James and the son of Zebedee, and John
his brother, and a ship with Zebedee their father, mending
their nets. And he called them, and they..." What do we see there
again? Immediately. That's almost the
same word. It's got the same meaning. Straight
away. "...left the ship and their father, and they followed him."
So they walked away from everything. They walked away from their income, Their life, their careers, they
walked away from their father, their family, and followed the
One who said, Come, follow Me. Straight away, without hesitation,
they stopped what they were doing and they followed Jesus. Turn
over to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. We're considering
His calling. The calling of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We love that, don't we? Those
of us who have been called, we think to ourselves, well, I'm
sure thankful the Lord called me, because I know I would have
just continued on in this life as I was when He called me. I would have just kept right
on going, just like those two men would have as well. They'd
have kept right on going. They'd have kept right on fishing.
They'd have kept right on being with their dad. But no, they
got up. and walked away from all that
just as you and I have got up and walked away from the world
that we once were in. You know, Mike Lovelace did that.
He got up and walked out on a religion that he was in for years, steeped. He would go door to door knocking,
come to the church, come and let us tell you about our God.
For years he did that. And he just got up and walked
away from it. The power of God had come. Scriptures declare this in Matthew
20. You don't need to turn there. Many are called, but few are
chosen. You see, folks, it takes the
power of God, the power of His calling to reveal this Gospel,
this good news. As a pastor of a church, I see
often those who are called. I use the Word of God to call
them every time I stand before someone. Every time I'm able
to stand in this pulpit or any other pulpit and speak, I'm calling
you to come to Christ. But my voice can't do anything.
I have no power. I'm nothing. Nothing but a sinner,
but the One who has all power in heaven and on earth. He's
got the power to talk to their hearts. He's got the power that
was used to call us out of darkness where we once walked. Here in
John 11. Look at verse 39. John 11 beginning
at verse 39. Jesus said, take ye away the stone And Martha, the sister of him
that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh."
Folks, this is our description. This is a description of you
and I. Don't think of the name of Lazarus. Think of John, Deanne,
Willie, Sarah. Think of yourselves in this very
thing. Our friend is telling the Lord,
no, don't take that stone away. They stink. We do in our natural
self. We are dead in trespasses and
sin, and we've been dead our whole lives. And we all know
what a dead thing smells like, don't we? Don't take away the
stone, he stinketh. For he hath been dead four days.
And Jesus saith unto here, said I not unto thee, that if thou
wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God. Folks, the glory of God stood
right there in front of her. He stood right there in front
of her and reminded her that if you would just believe, you
would see the glory. Verse 41, Then they took away
the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus
lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou
hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest
me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said
it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead
came forth bound. I want you to catch that. I want
you to notice something. You know, when I first heard
this story as a kid, I remember thinking to myself, well, he
must have, you know, just got up and he walked out of the grave.
No. When they bound somebody in those
days, they didn't have the embalming fluid that we have now. They
just had different kinds of spices and herbs. They wrapped you in oils. from head to foot, like a tomb,
like a mummy. He was bound. Hand and what? Foot. Do you realize that? That
means he's... I don't want to step away from
the camera for those folks there at Rescue, but that means that
he couldn't do anything but this. Watch. Here's the power of God. And he that was dead came forth,
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
about with a napkin. Jesus sayeth unto them, Loose
him, let him go." Oh, that Christ would come to you today. and
that you would hear these words, loose Him." Well, how? How do
we loose Him? By looking to Christ. He did
this so the people would know that this man was sent of God.
That's what it told us in verse 42. Christ has the power to give
life as we see in John 17, verse 2. He has all power in heaven
and earth and under the earth. God humbled Himself and became
a man. Jesus Christ the Lord. When He
calls, it comes with the effectual power, the power of the Creator. Who could resist His will? All
things are at the feet of Jesus. When the Lord calls, it says
in John 10, verse 28, My sheep hear My voice. Do you hear that,
world? Those who have never heard this
Word, this Gospel before, when Christ who has all power speaks,
His sheep hear His voice. We had no choice. The first time
we heard the Gospel, the Lord opened up, cut away that old
stony heart that said, I will not have this one rule over me.
And now we cry with a new voice, a new song, a new heart. Lord willing, we'll come to that
new heart in our next service. Lord bless you folks.