It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for, Lord, that could not be. Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Niver. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
die. That was His purpose in coming
into this world. He came to die. He was called the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. And the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world has to come in time to die. He came for this purpose,
to die. We read in Mark chapter 10 verse
32, and they were in the way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus
went before them. Now this is shortly before his
death. He's lived 33 years here upon
the earth, perfectly obeying God's holy law, the only perfect
man to ever live. And the time for him to die has
come. And the scripture says that the
disciples followed him and they were amazed and afraid because
they knew there would be trouble waiting for him at Jerusalem. And he took again the twelve
and began to tell them what things should happen to him. saying,
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 they
shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him,
and shall kill him. And the third day he shall rise
again, rise from the dead. Now, the Lord told the disciples
exactly what was going to take place. And he's on his way to
Jerusalem. to be crucified. His hour had
come. And the scripture says that He
had set His face like a flint. This is why He came. The hour
has come. The time to die. Now, on His
way to Jerusalem, He had to pass through the town of Jericho. And as He was going out of Jericho
with His face set like a flint, He was going to do the Father's
will. Something stopped him. He stopped
in his tracks. I've entitled this message, When
Jesus Stood Still. What is it that stopped him? Well, I'd like to read Mark chapter
10, verses 46 through 52. And as they came to Jericho,
And as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great
number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the
highway side begging. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him that he
should hold his peace, but he cried the more, a great deal,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still. Now, he'd set his face like a
flint to go to Jerusalem to be crucified. He was going to accomplish
his mission. And here he's going. Nothing
can stop him. But the cry of this one man caused
him to stop in his tracks. Now, what is it that would cause
the Lord to stand still? What is it that would cause the
Lord to stop and to listen and to be affected by something someone
was saying? Well, we read of a blind beggar
by the name of Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. Timaeus means
pollution, the son of pollution. Now, it would be difficult to
be blind living in the lap of luxury, but to be a blind beggar. What a horrible existence. Blind
Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. He was blind. He was plumb blind. He could not see. And he was
a beggar. He could not work. He had no
power to provide for himself or enrich himself. He was completely
dependent upon the charity of others. Now, Bartimaeus pictures
you and I, the son of pollution, blind, unable to see the kingdom
of God, unable to see the gospel, unable to understand, spiritually
blind, unable to see And unable to work, unable to merit heaven,
completely dependent upon the charity of God. Blind Bartimaeus,
the son of Timaeus. Now, this is a bad place to be,
blind and a beggar. And it's a terrible place to
be if you're that way and you don't know it. But you know,
the Lord made this statement in John chapter 9. There's something
good about being blind. He said, for judgment, I'm coming
to this world that they would see not might see and that they
would see might be made blind. Now, what in the world does that
mean? He says, I've come for judgment so that those who cannot
see will see. And those who say we see, they'll
be made blind. Now, those people. Who can see
why God would save them? He saved me because I believe.
I decided to let Him save me. I did so as an act of my free
will. I repented. I turned my life
around. I'm doing my best. I'm seeking
to serve Him. I believe all the right things.
I believe the right way. I can see why He saved me. My
friend, you've been made blind. If that's your response, you're
as blind as a bat spiritually. You have no spiritual sight. You're far from the kingdom of
heaven. But if there is one who cannot see in themselves why
a holy God would ever look their way or have anything to do with
them, You can't see why He would extend His saving grace to you
since you're so sinful and unworthy. You really believe that if He
saved everybody but you, it wouldn't be an act of injustice on His
part. If He had mercy on everybody but you, it wouldn't be wrong
or unfair. Whatever He does is right. You
believe yourself to be so sinful, you can't find a reason in yourself
as to why He'd save you. Would that be you? You're the
person He's going to save. You're the person He's going
to give sight to. He's going to teach you the gospel.
Now, that person who can see why God would save them, you'll
pass them by, leave them to themselves. But someone who sees their sinfulness
and sees God's justice and their need of grace, and they can't
find a reason in themselves as to why God would save them, God
made you that way. There was a time when you didn't
see that, but you do now. And God has given you that sight
in order to show you and teach you and reveal to you the gospel. The gospel is for sinners. That's the person whom God is
going to give sight to. That blind beggar sits there,
begging. He cannot see. Verse 47, And
when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth He began to cry out. Now, he's just been sitting there
begging. He hears a commotion. He says, what's going on? And
somebody tells him, Jesus of Nazareth, passeth by. And he begins to cry, Jesus,
thou Son of David, have mercy on me. Now, the first thing that
strikes me is that blind Bartimaeus knew something that the crowd
didn't know. What do you mean by that? Well, they said Jesus
of Nazareth passes by. All they knew of him was Jesus
of Nazareth. All they knew of him was that
he was a man, perhaps a good man, perhaps a great man, but
merely a man, perhaps a powerful man, a man who could work miracles,
but merely a man, Jesus of Nazareth. Bartimaeus knew him to be the
son of David. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. Bartimaeus knew him to be the
Messiah. God's promised Christ, the Son
of David. The crowd knew Him to be Jesus
of Nazareth. Bartimaeus knew Him to be the
Son of David, God's promised Messiah. Now, I don't know if
Bartimaeus knew at this time that he was a believer, but he
knew that Jesus Christ was the Son of David. Now, how did he
know? They had faith. That's the answer
to that question. He had true God-given faith. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. Now somewhere along the line,
Bartimaeus heard. He heard the Word of God. And
no doubt, day after day, he had heard gossip about Jesus of Nazareth. He had heard about the miracles
that he had done, and the He'd heard all kinds of things about
Jesus of Nazareth, sitting there by the highway side, begging
every day. People would come by and he'd
hear them talking about Jesus of Nazareth. And I'm sure that
Bartimaeus also had some familiarity with the Old Testament Scriptures.
I suppose that perhaps On the Sabbath day, somebody would lead
him by the hand and set him in the temple, and he'd hear the
Scriptures read. And he knew that from hearing
the Scripture, from hearing the Word of God, that the Christ
was the Son of David. Whoever the Son of David was,
that's who the Christ is. That's the Messiah, the promised
Messiah. Now, I have no doubt that he
heard the book of Isaiah read during the course of his lifetime.
And remember, he was a blind man. He was a blind man. Three
times in the book of Isaiah, we read where the Messiah will
open the eyes of the blind. Don't you reckon that meant something
very special to Bartimaeus? Now, somebody else might have
heard it and said, well, if I'm ever blind, that'll be good. But oh,
when the blind man heard this, he knew that whoever the Messiah
was, he would open the eyes of the blind. Now one day, he heard,
in hearing these people pass by, he heard that Jesus of Nazareth
gave sight to one who was born blind. And at that instant, he
knew that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. Only the Son of David
could give sight to one who was born blind. Now at that time,
I had no doubt that he became a secret disciple of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, he had not come into contact
with him, but here's his faith. He knew he was the son of David. He might have heard others scoffing
at Christ and calling him an imposter or making fun of him,
but he never scoffed. He knew that Jesus Christ was
the Son of David, the one who opened the eyes of the blind.
And I have no doubt that he said to himself, if he ever passes
by, oh, how I'm going to cry out, Jesus, thou Son of David,
have mercy on me. Now, here he sits by the highway
side, begging. But the time has come. He hears
a commotion. He asks, what does this mean? What's this ruckus all about?
And somebody said to him, this is what Luke's account says,
Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And immediately he began to cry
out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. Now, what faith this man demonstrated,
he was a man of great faith. You know, Bartimaeus is one of
my heroes. I look forward to meeting him in heaven. You and
I would probably have to hear that he'd stopped and called
us by name personally. But not Bartimaeus. He simply
heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by and he began to
cry out. Now, listen to me. Right now,
Jesus of Nazareth is passing by in the preaching of the Word.
Oh, would to God that you and I could be just like Bartimaeus.
crying out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. Now, what was it that Bartimaeus
desired? Mercy. Now, when you want mercy,
there are two things that you're completely aware of. You don't
have any problem with these two things. When you're asking for
mercy, first thing you're aware of is that your sin is all your
fault. You can't blame somebody else.
You can't blame the sovereignty of God. You can't blame your
circumstances. You can't blame your environment.
You can't blame your raising. Your sin, your sin is all your
fault. The only one to blame is you. You see, if you've not taken,
if I've not taken, personal responsibility for my sin. It's all my fault.
I'm not asking for mercy. I'm asking for payment. I think
I'm entitled to something. If I don't see that my sin is
all my, it's really not my fault. It's somebody else's fault. It's
my parents' fault. It's God's sovereignty. You don't
ask for mercy that way. You're expecting God to do something
for you based on you've got it coming to you. Now, you can't
come to God like that. You cannot do that. No, you come
needing mercy. Your sin is all your fault. Now, that's the first thing you
understand. When you truly ask for mercy, it's all my fault,
guilty as charged. And when you ask for mercy, you
understand that it's His to give or to withhold. It's not an entitlement. It's not something that He must
give you. You know it's His to give or withhold. It's just like
when you ask somebody forgiveness. You don't say, now you have to
forgive me. Nobody's going to forgive you when you come across
like that or if I would come across like that. You have to
forgive me. It's your responsibility. Forgive me. No, you don't say
that. You say, oh, please forgive me. It's the same thing in asking
for mercy. When you ask for mercy, you know
it's His to give or withhold. You know, when I see people arguing
against the great doctrines of the Gospel, like the doctrine
of God's sovereign election, He chooses whom He will to be
saved, and His choice was made before time began, or Christ's
effectual redemption for His elect, how He died and accomplished
their salvation, and somebody responds, well, that's not fair.
He ought to be doing that for everybody. You've never asked
for mercy. Not really. You only ask for
mercy when you know you're in the hands of a sovereign God
who can save you or damn you as He's pleased to do. You come
like that leopard did. Lord, if you will, you could
make me clean. You don't come saying, Lord,
you need to do this or you need to do... No. When you ask for
mercy, you come knowing it's in His sovereign hands to give
or to withhold. Now, evidently, as Bartimaeus
cried, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. At first, the
Lord didn't respond. Why do you say that? Well, let's
go on reading. Verse 48, And many charged him that he should
hold his peace. Now evidently, he was saying,
Jesus, our son of David, have mercy on me. He was screaming
it out from you, and I can't imitate what he must have felt
as he was crying for the son of David to stop. But the Lord
kept on walking, and he kept screaming, and the crowd said,
be quiet, Bartimaeus. I mean, give it up. Obviously,
it's not going to happen. Give up, Bartimaeus. Now, the
crowd will tell you to give it up. It's too late for you. You're too sinful. You've sinned
against the Holy Spirit. You're not one of God's elect.
You're too big a hypocrite to be saved. Give it up, Bartimaeus.
But what did Bartimaeus do? I love this. Verse 48, many charged
him that he should hold his peace, but he cried the more, a great
deal. Thou Son of David, have mercy
on me. Now, I know this. If your only
hope is mercy, you'll never stop crying for it until you have
it. Now let me repeat that. If your only hope is the mercy
of God, you will never stop crying for it until you have it. He
cried the more, a great deal. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. And then we read in verse 49,
and Jesus stood still. He stopped. He heard. He responded. Now, if you cry
for mercy, he'll hear you. Somebody says, well, I've cried
and he didn't hear me. You didn't ask for mercy. You tried to bargain
with God. You made some kind of empty promises
about what you'd do if he'd do this. That's not asking for mercy.
No, if you ask for mercy, He'll hear you. Jesus stood still. Here He is on the way to the
cross to do what He came to do. But this is what stopped Him.
This cry for mercy. Oh, Lord Jesus, Thou Son of David,
have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still. And what's it say next in verse
49? He commanded him to be called. You know, the Lord never requests.
He commanded him to be called. Now, so the crowd answers, be
of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. Verse 50, and he, Bartimaeus,
in his blindness, casting away his garment, rose and came to
Jesus. Now, why this detail, casting
away his garment? There's great significance to
this, and here's why. All who come to Christ, without
exception, all who ask for mercy, cast away the garment of their
own self-righteousness. They get rid of that thing, and
you come to Him naked. You come to Him exposed. You come to Him in honesty, with
nothing but your shame, needing a covering of His providing. Now, that's the way Bartimaeus
came. He cast away that old filthy garment. Perhaps there was a
time when he felt security and warmth in that garment, but now
when he comes to Christ, he casts that thing away. Doesn't Isaiah
chapter 64 verse 6 say, our righteousnesses are as filthy rags? He took his filthy rags and he
cast them away and he rose and he came to the Lord Jesus Christ
in honesty, in his shame. in his sin. Have you ever thrown
away your covering? Have you ever thrown that away
that you got security from? But now you see it's nothing
but filthy rags, your own righteousness, your own religion. You throw
it away in order to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's
look what is said next. He rose and came to Jesus. And
Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should
do unto you? What a question. What do you
want, Bartimaeus? What do you want me to do? Now,
notice he didn't say, what do you want me to enable you to
do? He said, what do you want me
to do? What wilt thou that I should
do unto you? Now, listen real carefully. Salvation
is what Christ does for you, not what you do for Him. He's
got to do something for us and He's got to do something to us. What wilt thou that I should
do unto thee? Now, He's got to do something
for me to be saved in my blindness. He's got to do something for
me. He's got to do something about my sin. There's nothing
I can do about my sin. There's nothing I can do to make
up for it. He's got to do something for me about my sin. He's going
to put my sin away so that it is no more. And that's what the
Lord did on the cross. He washed away the sins of everybody
he died for. Hebrews 1.3 says he by himself
purged us of our sins. And not only do I have to have
my sins washed away, I have to have a perfect righteousness
before God. And He gives me that. My sin became His sin. He washed
it away. And He takes His perfect obedience
and gives it to me. And now it's mine. That's what
He does for me. But not only do I have to have
something done for me, I have to have something done unto me. I have to have something done
in me. I need to be given a new heart. My old heart's no good. I need to be given a new heart,
a new heart that believes, a heart that repents, a heart that loves
God, a heart that continues. I have to have Him do something
on the inside, not just for me, but something to me. I have to
be given a new nature because my nature is completely evil.
I need to be given a new nature. He says to Bartimaeus, what wilt
thou that I should do unto thee? And Bartimaeus says, Lord, that
I might receive my sight. He knew what he needed. Lord,
that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, verse
52, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. Now, in his
experience, he still hadn't seen yet when the Lord says this.
But he says, go your way, you're set free, your faith has made
you whole. Now, what was his faith? He believed
that Jesus was the son of David. He believed he was God's promised
Messiah, God the Son, the Savior, the Christ. That's what he believed.
And Christ said, go thy way, thy faith has made thee whole. Now, Luke's account says, thy
faith has saved thee. Now why does the Bible use language
like that? Why faith? Why not reverence? He had that.
Why not knowledge? He had that. Why not earnestness?
He had that. Why not humility? He certainly
had that. Why not importunity? He had that. He just kept crying. Why not
repentance? Our Lord says, thy faith hath
made thee whole. Why does the Lord put such honor
on faith? Romans 4.16 says, therefore it's
a faith that it might be by grace, to the end that the promise might
be sure to all the seed. You see, faith and grace go together. There's either works and law
or faith and grace. It's a faith that it might be
by grace. Salvation is by sheer, pure, complete grace. Jesus said unto him, Go thy way,
thy faith hath made thee whole, you're set free. And immediately
he received his sight. And what was his way? He followed
Jesus in the way. That's what he wanted to do.
The Lord said, go do what you want to do. Go your way. You're
set free. And what did he do? He followed
Jesus in the way. Oh, what to God is the Lord Jesus
Christ, the son of David passes by through the preaching of his
word. Someone will cry with Bartimaeus, Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. Now, we have this message on
CD and DVD. And if you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Nyberg praying that
God will be pleased to make himself known to you. That's our prayer.
Amen. To request a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send your request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.