[0:00] Good morning, everyone. Great to see you again on a beautiful, sunny, Squamish day, right? We're still stuck in winter.
[0:11] Anyway, turn with me in your Bibles to Luke. Luke chapter 17, Luke chapter 17. If you're new visiting, what we are doing as a sermon series is you are now joining us as we are examining the life of Christ.
[0:29] There's two goals within this series that I have. One, that through the series and understanding and getting to know the humanity of Christ, how he walked here on earth, it would fulfill the second part of the goal, which is to see how wonderful the Gospels harmonize together, which demonstrate to us what a wonderful, powerful historical document the Gospels are as we look at, let's be honest, the greatest man who ever walked the earth, right?
[1:01] Both fully God and fully man. So last week, we began looking at the Passion Week, and we began with the triumphal entry. As we get into this time, I want you to see that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, is not, how shall I say, drawn into the events of history, but God actually draws out history.
[1:26] And what I mean by that is that Jesus Christ isn't an accident of circumstance, that things just happen to go that way, and he decided to go with it.
[1:38] But I want you to see how clearly Jesus, for lack of a better word, manipulates the events of the culture, the people, in order to bring about the results that he's after.
[1:53] Are you with me on that one? I want you to see that God, and what's incredible about what we're going to see here is that Jesus Christ, in bringing the results that he desires, is not using the deity part of his existence.
[2:08] And what I mean by that is it's not like he's controlling people to respond to him in a certain way, but using his perfect wisdom and his perfect knowledge by being God, but in his humanity is able to move them like an expert chess player would move the pieces around the board.
[2:27] You with me on that? I know it's kind of confusing, and that's because of me, not what I'm trying to say. All right? So what happens is by doing this, I want you to see the glory that he brings God, but also how Jesus Christ ultimately fulfills the Old Testament prophecies regarding himself.
[2:45] Now, this is going to come clear to you in the next couple of weeks, but today I want to attack what I began last Sunday. If you remember, we were in the triumphal entry, and we talked about how that was just an incredible, massive event.
[2:59] As Jesus entered in Jerusalem, people were taking off their jackets, and they were laying palm leaves, and they were singing. In fact, John 12, 12 says the large crowd, the multitudes of people, had come to the feast, which was Passover, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
[3:18] And they shouted out in worship, and Matthew kind of gives us more of an understanding of the situation. He says, most of the crowd spread their croaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
[3:31] And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed who he who comes in the name of the Lord.
[3:44] Hosanna in the highest. And when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the crowds, and notice it uses plural crowds, the crowd said, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.
[4:06] In fact, I pointed out to you that idea of stirred that Matthew used is like agitated, and not in a negative sense where people were annoyed, but agitated like almost an earthquake was happening.
[4:19] The ground was trembling with the amounts of people that Jesus was coming in into the city. And it was a massive event. And from that, I want to answer two questions.
[4:33] How did it happen that way? Why was there so many people willing to cry out, Hosanna to the son of David.
[4:44] Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. How did that come about? Why was the crowd there so immense? And why were they fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies?
[5:00] And that might not seem like an obvious question to you, but if you understand the Gospel of John, you would know as according to John 11, 53, the Jews, the Pharisees, and priests who made up the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling authorities planned to put Jesus to death.
[5:21] In fact, John 11, 57, the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if any knew where Jesus was, he should let them know so that they might arrest him.
[5:34] For lack of a better word, if you were to pass a post office during that time, you would have seen a picture of Jesus Christ on there, most wanted in Israel.
[5:46] Right? That's what he was. He was a hunted man. And in fact, John tells us in John 11, 54, So how does that happen?
[6:12] How does it happen that Jesus on one hand is basically hiding from the authorities to the next is a part of the great shout of acclamation that he's king?
[6:27] You ever wonder that question? That's what I want to answer for you today. So remember we started last week. One, the first reason we knew that Jesus was going to do this is or one of the things that Jesus used is the reason the crowd was so big is we had Passover.
[6:42] The largest, greatest feast for the Jewish people, marking the time when God rescued his people from Egypt way back when. And they'd been practicing this feast every year.
[6:55] Scholars estimate that the city would have swelled from anywhere from an extra 200 to 2 million people. Some state that at any time, from 10% to 50% of Israel's total population would have been in Jerusalem at this event.
[7:15] So that provides for us an understanding of why so many people are in Jerusalem. The second reason that I provided for you last week was the resurrection of Lazarus.
[7:27] Remember Lazarus? He lived about two miles outside of Jerusalem in Bethany. And Jesus did this healing where he raised him from the dead. But what was interesting that stands out about this healing is Jesus kind of made it a spectacle.
[7:43] He did it in a way that would get him the most amount of tweets. Right? In a way that would trend.
[7:54] Remember he hears that Lazarus is dead and he waits two days to go. So, and as I explained to you in a Jewish funeral, the pinnacle point of the funeral is after they put the body in the tomb on the third day.
[8:07] The fourth day is the time where you truly come together for that funeral. And that is the day that Jesus showed up and he raised him from the dead. So not only did he do it with the max amount of people that was there, but just even the spectacle of event.
[8:21] Remember? They moved the tomb. He tells Lazarus to come out. Remember how Lazarus came out? He came out hopping. He still wrapped in the linen of the scented, spice scented strips that were around him.
[8:36] To the point that everybody was so shocked and amazed at this event, he had to say, hey, cut him out, right? Get him out of there. So then the text tells us later, when this was going on, it tells us John 12 said, many believed in Jesus on that day.
[8:56] Verse 12 says, many were waiting to see Jesus and were now in Jerusalem, heard that he was coming to Jerusalem. And verse 17 of John 12 says, and the crowd that had been with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to bear witness.
[9:19] So what the text is telling us is between those four to six weeks before Jesus arrived on that triumphal entry, all these people who were at the raising of Lazarus kept talking about it.
[9:34] Why wouldn't you, right? This is the most amazing event you had ever seen. And the people kept talking and talking. So as we said, just to conclude these points, we see the Passover telling us that there is a massive crowd that would have gathered in Jerusalem on that day.
[9:54] And the second reason, we understand that the miracle that Jesus did was on the, how do I say that, was on the lips of everyone there. They talked, they exclaimed, they shared about it.
[10:07] And today I want to talk to you about the third reason. And I believe the third reason is strong enough to help us understand why oh why that they shouted out the great prophecies of the Messiah's coming.
[10:24] So let's take a look at Luke 17 and we're going to beginning in verse 11. Notice it says, on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along Samaria in Galilee.
[10:47] If you're paying attention, that's kind of a curious type of statement because we know he's in Ephraim. Does anybody else know where Ephraim is?
[10:58] All right, that's why we got a map. Ryan, we're going to show map number one. No, that's map number two. You spoiled it. Sorry. All right. Can you guys see that all right?
[11:09] Look at what, all right. I got a pen. So here we got Ephraim. So just so you guys know, and I'm not going to do this all the time, but this is obviously, this is where Galilee is, around the Sea of Galilee. This is Samaria, the purple part.
[11:22] And this is Judea. And last couple of weeks, we are down in Perea. So that's where Jesus would have been. So right here going through is the river, Jordan.
[11:34] So where is, so he's in Jerusalem, Jesus is in Jerusalem, and now he's down in Ephraim. So when it's saying in 1711, he went to Jerusalem via Samaria, he's talking about Jesus doing a circuitous route, okay?
[11:51] And I'm going to explain to you why in a second. So first of all, just to give you guys a little better of a sense, we got Jerusalem, Bethany is where he raised Lazarus, Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
[12:03] This area, remember we've talked about this, this is the way of the patriarchs. And this is the way the patriarchs of old would come from the northern part of Israel down to Jerusalem.
[12:15] But now because there's Samaritans there, they don't want to be there. So I'm going to have you go to map number two, which Ryan called map number one. Okay. This, can you guys see the contours of the land okay here?
[12:29] This is really interesting. So I'm going to tell you basically what Jesus did here. Jesus is leaving Jerusalem, which is right at the bottom where you have the Jordan, the Dead Sea. Or it's actually right up here.
[12:41] Notice how rugged this terrain is. Here is the Jezreel Valley. You guys familiar with the Jezreel Valley? So what would happen at the time of the festival, all the people that would have been in northern Galilee, remember we talked about there was probably as many as six million Jews were living in that place as well as other people.
[13:01] And to come down through for the festivals, you can't go through Samaria because the Samaritans would cause havoc. They would rob you, try to stop you from attending the feast.
[13:11] Great hatred going on. But what you would do is you would travel the longer route. Now notice how flat and low this land is. So they would come down to where the river is.
[13:22] They would go down here and then they would crawl, I would say crawl, climb up the mountain. And from here to there, it's probably a thousand meter elevation that's going on.
[13:32] And just so you know, that river valley is the lowest point on the face of the earth today. Okay? Okay? So, all Jews at that time from this area, you would congregate in the Jezreel Valley.
[13:45] It's nice, it's flat, it's beautiful. You would cross down into the river valley, go down, and then back up. So why am I telling you this? Because the rest of what we're going to read and cover today happens during that trip north to south.
[14:03] You with me on that one? So Jesus is first going to Galilee. He's in that Jezreel Valley and they'd usually travel with your friends, family, your tribe, as they would call it.
[14:13] And then you would go down in mass. So that trip would usually take anywhere from four days to a week, but if you've got kids, elderly, and some of the other people, it's going to be a lot longer.
[14:27] Some noted at that time it would have been like going about 120 kilometers. And you would be going down to about 427 meters and then you'd climb up to Jerusalem, which would have been 700 meters above sea level.
[14:45] All right. You all with me on the geography part? If you're not with me, I'll really explain it because it's going to come into play here in this text. But I want you... Do you guys like this geography part of Israel? How would you guys like to take a trip to Israel?
[14:58] You guys want to do that? Okay. What you're going to do is we're going to be sending out a form and I'm very serious about this and I kind of led you there. One of my professors that I had the pleasure of serving while I was in university does trips to Israel.
[15:12] So he told me if we can get about 30 people together, he will do a special trip just for us. So what we're going to do is we're going to send out an email from here and let us know if you would like to go, what your intention, how many people in your family.
[15:29] If you've got an extended family, let us know and then he will start putting the trips together and then we can let you know affordability and all those things. But I'm going to imagine it'll probably take about a year out just to give us an opportunity to save for a trip like that.
[15:43] But he is one of probably, in order to get in Israel, it's kind of interesting. You actually need to have a designation in order to do tours and you usually have to come from Israel.
[15:56] He's actually one of the few licensed people that can do that outside. So if you're familiar with the Master's Seminary, we have a Master's University and they actually have a campus over there and he's one of the guys that started the campus.
[16:10] So they're involved in archaeology and a whole bunch of things. Anyway, the promise is he's a great tour guide and he's willing to take us. So once you get that email, send it back, we can start gauging and making plans for something like that to happen.
[16:22] You all right with that? All right. So let's look at Luke 17, 12. Luke 17, 12. So as you all know, Jesus here right now is part of the trucker's convoy, right?
[16:36] Is that too soon to be cracking political jokes like that, right? But that's generally what they do. They start, they move down, different people join the caravan. Safety in numbers, especially we get that, traveling through Saskatchewan, you never know what's going to happen.
[16:49] So anyhow, he's a part of this convoy and he's surrounded by people as they're making his way to Jerusalem. Of course, he's got his disciples and other people.
[17:00] And it says, while on the way and as they're going, they're passing through several villages, Jesus is met by 10 lepers who are crying out from a distance.
[17:12] They lifted up their voices. The text reads, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Of course, Jesus being, Jesus says, go and show yourselves to the priests.
[17:24] And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving thanks.
[17:39] Part of why I'm giving you the whole geography outline and everything that's going on, it's because it compounds the power of the text and the words that it's saying to us. So here we have this caravan.
[17:50] And the text writer, Luke, it's not accidental that he says they lifted up their voices. It said, they praised God with a loud voice.
[18:03] And the text also says that they fell at the feet of Jesus as an act of worship. Not everybody in the caravan is a follower of Jesus Christ, right?
[18:16] They're just moving along and all of a sudden there's this miracle that is almost so instantaneous in its actions, but people are calling attention to Jesus, right?
[18:28] They're yelling, people would have been asking, what are you yelling about? That sort of thing. Jesus heals him. So there's this, this event is beginning to take place not in a small gathered group, but in an area of people that are both in front of Jesus and in the back of Jesus.
[18:46] Take a look at verse 17. Then Jesus answered, were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? The man was a Samaritan.
[18:57] It's almost there's this point of irony. The reason you were going down this road was to what? Avoid Samaritans, right? The dirty, filthy people that they are.
[19:09] But here he is, the one person who's showing this grateful heart to Jesus. And there's going to be this theme that we see by everything that Jesus does. And what I'm going to do today is I'm going to point out these, just these small minute details which give power to who Jesus is.
[19:28] So he simply, as then Jesus were not ten cleansed where the nine, the man was a Samaritan. And he says, was no one found to return and give praise God except this foreigner?
[19:43] Now remember two weeks ago when we were in the rift country of Perea, Jesus taught several parables. Remember we learned about the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin.
[19:57] Then there was the parable of the great banquet. And the parable of a great banquet is a great parable. It's recorded for us in Luke 14, but the parable essentially is the master sends out this great banquet and he invites his closest friends and family to the banquet.
[20:14] And they refuse to come. One says, I got work to do. Another, I got to go get married. I've got to do all these things. So the owner says, just go and get everybody else. Bring them in from the streets and all these people.
[20:27] And remember I told you, there's this subtle shift in the message of Jesus. It's not so much for the Jews anymore. It's for the Gentiles.
[20:39] And because he's been preaching to them now at this point for three years, over and over and over, and they're rejecting him. Now just think, you're in this caravan traveling with Jesus and guess where you're going?
[20:55] To a religious feast, right? The feast which marks the delivery of slavery, sin, death, all those things. And here's Jesus giving them this illustration of the Samaritan that's coming before him.
[21:12] So Jesus begins to call out these details. If you remember, the greatest faith that he'd ever seen was from a Roman centurion earlier.
[21:24] But what he's telling them is that being a Jew, simply the son of Abraham was not enough to save you. So we have this miraculous hearing, bone-jarring observation that Jesus makes.
[21:40] So here, from Luke 17 through to Luke 19, all these records of events of the teachings happen on this week-long trip. Okay?
[21:51] You with me? This is important for our context and understanding. And as Jesus goes, the crowds become larger and larger. All right, so let's go to move on to Luke 18.
[22:05] Luke 18. So far in the trip, Jesus is teaching on the coming kingdom. He teaches this parable of this persistent widow and this story about the Pharisee and the tax collector, which I will read for you.
[22:22] Jesus 18.10. Remember, he's traveling up to Jerusalem and he says, two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
[22:38] Guess what these people are going to be doing in the temple? Praying. Okay, do you get what he's doing here? He's like sticking a knife into the religious righteousness of these people who are going to up to the temple to do their religious things.
[22:57] And he says, another tax collector, which we know in Jewish society was the scum of the scum. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
[23:18] I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.
[23:30] But he beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful on me, a sinner. I tell you, Jesus says, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
[23:43] For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. So these parables and teachings that Jesus is doing, the timing of which is no accident.
[23:57] It is a direct attack on the religious system of the day. And he's purposely doing this as he continues to head into the Passion Week.
[24:08] Dave this morning read the parable of the rich young ruler. Some of those people would have been very wealthy, would have been hearing all those things, and would have been thinking about those things.
[24:18] You know, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? So now I want you to turn to Luke 18.35. So up to this point, we're at the end of the journey.
[24:35] We're at the bottom of Jerusalem, and Jericho is kind of an interesting town. Now, Jericho isn't the city where the walls came down during the Old Testament. It's another city called Jericho, and it's actually an oasis, and it marks the beginning of the trek up to Jerusalem.
[24:53] So it's kind of an interesting city in where it is. So it says, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant.
[25:10] They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he cried out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
[25:21] And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. What's interesting about this story is that the Gospel of Mark includes it as well.
[25:38] Mark actually tells us that this man's name is Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. And what is significant about this is in the Gospel of Mark, he's the only person ever named who was healed by Jesus.
[25:52] Scholars believe the significance of this is he became a follower of Jesus and became well-known in the church of the day. So remember Mark writing to the Romans, they would have known him.
[26:03] Whoever Bartimaeus was and what he was doing, he would have been a well-known person. That's why they're calling him out. So here's this man, he usually would be near the city gates to beg, but I believe this is Passover time.
[26:18] And I believe Bartimaeus, as we're going to see, is a pretty smart guy. Why would you go into the city to compete with other beggars to beg when you can kind of get a little bit of the headway, right?
[26:29] And remember, most Jews in Israel live to the north, so anybody who's coming for the festival has to go by Jericho. So he's kind of getting some length between them and the rest of the beggars and he's sitting here and he's begging.
[26:47] Notice verse 36, it says, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. Now I want you to think for a second. This is Passover, there's already crowds going by, but there's something more significant about this crowd.
[27:04] And we've already seen it, right? He's already healed, the lepers. He's been teaching that time. And just think, if you're teaching, if you guys have ever been on a bus or a subway, we would see this.
[27:15] Some people get into an interesting conversation. You try to move towards them, right? So here you have Jesus for that whole week doing the things that Jesus does, teaching, teaching, teaching, blowing people's minds with what he has to say.
[27:29] The crowd would have been this much bigger. And they told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And obviously, right away, he knows the significance of this.
[27:42] And he cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Now notice what's next.
[27:55] And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. What has Jesus been doing for the whole week?
[28:12] Do you get it? He's been teaching biblical, godly truth to the people. And he starts off his voyage healing the Samaritans, teach, teach, teach, and here's this man who's got this incredible need, crying out, and they rebuke him.
[28:38] That doesn't tell us what callous hearts look like. I don't know what does. Now, there could be a reason for this.
[28:50] And in the Jewish culture, Samaritans were hated. Do you know who was hated more? Blind people. Seems kind of weird, right?
[29:02] Tell you why. Maybe hate's the wrong word. Remember in John chapter nine, and we talked about this briefly, and I preached on this before, Jesus, disciples, they're going into Jerusalem, there's a blind man, they said, hey, who sinned, the man or his parents, right?
[29:17] You guys know that story. And the reason was because they believed that for someone to be blind meant he was cursed by God. God. Okay? So the first group of people which are lepers, outsiders, even a Samaritan outsider as a leper was more acceptable than a guy who was cursed, right?
[29:36] Wouldn't you think that way? If you knew someone was cursed by God, are you going around him? No, right? You don't want to go anywhere near him. So here they are, whether or not they think they're doing the right thing or not, and they're stopping him.
[29:53] But this man cries out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.
[30:06] So despite them hearing the story of the kingdom of heaven, despite them even hearing the story that David read, they would have heard, Zacchaeus the tax collector, about that's not the story, but just how Jesus met with the tax collectors will be saved, rich men will struggle to reach eternal life.
[30:26] There's this distinction that Jesus starts to bring out. There's religious outsiders, and there's religious insiders. And this religious outsider cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.
[30:44] that word cried out. Mark uses the same word that is used for a woman giving labor in the screams of birth pain is the word cry that was, it's pretty easy, right, giving birth, right, you know.
[31:10] what do they say, you know, to the top 10 pain? It's a nine. The only thing they say is, I think, breaking your femurs, the other most painful thing that you can do.
[31:22] Number two is giving birth, unless, of course, you're giving birth with a broken femur, but that's another issue, right? But there's a desperate cry.
[31:34] The same cry is recorded in Matthew 5. Remember when Jesus takes the apostles and there's the demoniac who's possessed by legion? And in the middle of the night, he's taking the stones and he's cutting his skin.
[31:49] And it says the whole town could hear this poor man crying out. That is the type of cry that this blind man is given on this day that Jesus crosses his path.
[32:03] It is a desperate cry. Let me ask you a question. If you were experiencing pain to such a degree and you knew the absolute answer to your prayer or solution would be to cry out, would you do it?
[32:27] If you know the one person that could cure your cancer, cure your broken relationship, cruel, your destitution, would you cry out or remain silent?
[32:46] Now as I said, this man is somewhat smart. He does something that no other Jew does. He says by calling Jesus the son of David, he is affirming that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.
[32:59] By calling Jesus the son of David, he is affirming that Jesus is the deliverer of his people. By calling Jesus the son of David, he is affirming that Jesus is the one and only one that is greater than David.
[33:12] By calling Jesus the son of David, he is affirming that Lord Jehovah saves. Amen? Of all the problems that the Jewish people have, he recognizes it's crossing his path that very day.
[33:28] And what is his response? He doesn't say, hey, I may be blind, but I'm a really good guy. Right? I can't always find the temple because I'm blind, but I give my money to people who will take it to the temple.
[33:45] Right? I really didn't do the sin that led to this blindness. No. He doesn't claim anything for himself.
[33:58] In fact, he just simply says, have mercy on me. What he is saying is not only I destitute physically because I'm blind, but I am destitute spiritually because I'm cursed.
[34:16] I am a sinner. I am an outcast. I am the lowest of the low. So please, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me for everything that I am not.
[34:37] This is how this man begins the greatest conversation with the greatest man who ever walked the earth by saying the most absolute truth. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
[34:52] verse 40 of Luke 18, and Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. When he came near, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you?
[35:08] He said, Lord, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, recover your sight. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God.
[35:24] And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. Do you notice the similarity with the man who was possessed by the demons?
[35:36] And I told you that story. What was the first thing that the man wanted to do? He wanted to get in the boat and follow Jesus. Amen? You see, that's the result of when Jesus opens spiritually blind eyes.
[35:50] When he opens spiritually blind eyes, you understand and recognize that the only thing that you can say is, Lord, have mercy on me. And when he gives you salvation, the only thing that you want to do is follow him.
[36:04] If there is somewhere in your spiritual understanding or worldly understanding of what it is to follow Jesus, means doing things on your own time or becoming saved but not following Jesus, you've missed the whole biblical message entirely.
[36:21] To be a Christian is to be sold out for Jesus Christ. It's to make every element of your life, whether it be your job, your marriage, your raising of your kids, your relationships, the first priority is bringing Jesus into all of them.
[36:35] There is no such thing as a biblically based Christian who has something over here that is completely separated from God. God. And the reason why so many people struggle that are Christians today is because they keep doing that.
[36:50] You with me on that? They, hey, Jesus, I'm a believer, I'm following you, but yet there are these other elements of their life they refuse to bring Jesus in and then they always come for counseling.
[37:04] Hey, I need counseling in these relationships. The first question that everyone will ask when you're in a relationship counseling situation is, you always explore forgiveness. Because that's usually the root of most relational problems.
[37:19] It's the inability to forgive or to accept being forgiven. To ignore Jesus in any element of our life is inviting destruction in that area of our life.
[37:36] The gospel of Mark says it in a much different way in Mark 10, 48, he says, and Jesus stopped and said, call him. And they called the blind man saying to him, and I love this word, someone says, take heart, get up.
[37:50] He is calling you. I wonder if it's one of the other people that we've been reading throughout the gospels that Jesus had healed, that was traveling with Jesus, who loved Jesus, who knew the things, said, take heart.
[38:06] He heard you. Get up. He's calling you. And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
[38:23] You see, the result, when we experience salvation, it's almost as if once the cloak is taken off of our eyes, we understand who we are in light of the Savior.
[38:35] We're to spring to him. Amen? Because we understand he's the only answer, he's the only one who offers true salvation. And the understanding is only Jesus Christ offers it.
[38:51] Verse 52, and Jesus said to him, go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed Jesus on the way.
[39:03] You see, my friends, this is Jesus responding to a very desperate plea. This is the way that Jesus responds to us.
[39:17] And usually, Jesus only responds to us when we are desperate, when we've reached the bottom of ourselves, when we realize there's absolutely nothing that we offer that can earn his mercy.
[39:32] that the only way to come to Jesus Christ is to say almost like the song, it's not almost as if the song says, but Jesus who has nothing, the king who has nothing, empty hands we bring.
[39:44] Amen? Amen? It happens when we're willing to give up our goodness, when we're willing to give up our idols, when we're willing to give up our righteousness. You see, when Jesus truly reveals himself to you, the only response is, have mercy on me.
[40:10] So then we look at Luke 9, 1. This is Jesus and Zacchaeus. Jesus and Zacchaeus. Dave read the story for us today.
[40:22] I'm going to read it very briefly. He entered Jericho. So the blind man is before Jericho. This man is in Jericho. He entered Jericho and was passing through and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.
[40:35] Remember when we talked about Matthew? He was a tax collector. This guy is way beyond Matthew. And on the level of scumminess, this guy is raging about a 10 out of 10.
[40:46] Because there's nothing worse than a Jew who's taken advantage of other Jews for the Romans, right? It's everything they absolutely hate. The whole reason why they keep getting Jesus mixed up is they want a worldly Messiah that's going to overthrow the Romans, right?
[41:02] That's what they want. But at the same time, you've got Jews working for the Romans. Like how twisted is that? So he says, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.
[41:13] He was a chief collector and was rich. Obviously, who's he getting rich off of? His people's own work. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he could not see because he was small.
[41:23] So let's go right down to verse 9. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham.
[41:40] You with me here on this one? The Jews believe that salvation only came to those who were the sons of Abraham. That the only requirement you needed to be was born a Jew.
[41:52] That was it. What was there to repent? You could do some good works and some other things, but the fact that you were a Jew was all that you could be. Now notice the theme going on in this trip.
[42:04] First person saved, leper, who thanks him, a Samaritan, right? Next, a blind man who they would have considered cursed, gets saved.
[42:16] And now just before Jesus heads into Jerusalem, he calls probably the most hated man in Jericho, he is a son of Abraham.
[42:32] Jesus is accepting the lepers, the Samaritans, the blind, the cursed, and the tax collector. Do you see how everything that they're doing at that moment, on that trip, hoping to fulfill the temple, Jesus is turning it all upside down.
[42:51] And there's Pharisees with him, there's rich, there's leaders. Take a look at verse 28.
[43:03] And when he had said these things, so he teaches a little bit more, he went up ahead up to Jerusalem. Now this is the Friday. Verse 29, and when he drew near to Bethpage and Bethany, now remember Bethany is two miles outside of the city walls of Jerusalem.
[43:23] John's gospel tells us that this is now Friday before Passover. So the journey is done. And instead of going into Jerusalem, Jesus spends the night in Bethany.
[43:39] In Bethany, he stays and practices, waits out the Sabbath. And then guess what happens? He shows up on Sunday with the crowds raging, crying out, Hosanna.
[43:56] This is Jesus Christ, the King of Kings. Do you think any authority was willing to arrest Jesus at that point? Right?
[44:07] Could you imagine seeing that? All those people, that mass of people going on in Jerusalem, text actually says they went on ahead. So when we start reading in the next passage that Jesus entered into the triumphal entry, this answers the question to us.
[44:27] One, it was Passover. Many people, that Jesus used the healing of Lazarus to create the greatest amount of discussion.
[44:39] And three, for a whole week, Jesus teaches and does these incredible miracles so that before he even gets to the city gate on the Sunday, they are declaring him the Messiah.
[45:00] The question that I have for you is, if Sunday, why did they kill him four days later?
[45:14] He went into a king's entrance. In fact, we haven't looked at the prophecy and we're going to look at it next week. I believe Daniel 9 tells us the exact day that Jesus Christ had to come into Jerusalem on that day.
[45:29] Jesus had to make that day happen no matter what. When we read the stories of the last six months, remember the disciples, could they have proven themselves, how will I say it, any worse?
[45:48] Right? Remember when Jesus tells them that he's going to die, the first thing is, Jesus needs to rebuke one of them because, you know, get thee behind me, Satan. Right? Peter is saying, that's not going to happen.
[46:00] Jesus says, oh, yes, it is. Then later on, remember James and John, they're arguing to Jesus, hey, when you're sitting on the kingdom, can I sit at the one hand and you, can my brother sit at the other hand?
[46:12] Do you think they're getting who Jesus is? Like, the question that I had that I was asking this week, guys, was I was preparing this, and when I was looking into the prophecies, I always asked myself, why did Jesus have to go die on this Sunday or on this holiday?
[46:30] Couldn't he have waited another year? Because, let's be honest, the disciples needed more training, didn't they? Like, they kept messing up everything. Even when they were going through the last feast, they were going through Samaria, the one town didn't host them, and they're asking Jesus to rain fire and destroy on them.
[46:49] Imagine if that was us back then, right? Jesus sets the moment, they still had that attitude, and everybody who didn't accept the gospel, fire rained down. I don't think we would have ever been saved.
[47:04] But as we know, Jesus knows much better than ourselves, and that's why we worship him. Amen? Let's pray. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, just as we put these pieces to the puzzle together, I pray that we would truly be in awe of who you are.
[47:20] Be in awe of your wisdom, O Lord. Just how you have preached and taught and healed with a purpose. That the records that we have for us in these gospels are not by accident.
[47:35] They're not just random events of you healing people, but there is a purpose beyond these healings, these teachings. And it all leads up to this final week, this passion week.
[47:52] Lord, we give you thanks that we, the outsiders, the non-Jews, are now counted as sons of Abraham, as daughters of Abraham because of your great love for us.
[48:10] Not because there was anything great in us to behold, but simply because we were able to say, have mercy on me, son of David. To the only one who can save me from my sin, who can save me from the rain of destruction I have put on my wife or my life or my children, is you, Jesus.
[48:34] Jesus. So on this day, I ask if anybody is confused about the heart of Jesus, I pray that they would see that Jesus is indeed the God of the outsider.
[48:46] The one who had no chance in life. Who was broken and destitute by every measure of this world. And in that same way, we are all called to follow you and to give our lives to you.
[49:03] Because we are now in service of the king. The great king. The one who is greater than Daniel. So Jesus, on this Sunday morning, I pray that you would open our eyes to the awe that is found in your word.
[49:17] And the awe that is found in your actions. So that our hearts might be broken of ourselves and we find them rebuilt in a love for you. We ask these things in your most gracious and wonderful name.
[49:30] Amen.