If you have a Bible, tonight we are going to be in Mark 10:35-52. Last week we read verses 36-45 and I had mentioned the idea of possibly coming back to these verses this week and after reading the two passages together, I thought we absolutely needed to look at them because their are some pretty big similarities happening in these two passages and I believe Mark intended for us as the reader to see these similarities. Now just a quick show of hands, how many of you have actually read the Gospel of Mark all the way through before? The reason I ask is because I have lost track of how many times I’ve read the Gospel of Mark and despite having read this book several times, I didn’t even notice some of the similarities until last week when I started working on our lesson for tonight. And I think that is one of the great beauties of the Bible. No matter how many times you read it, it is living and breathing and you will always find something to be amazed by. And I really hope that you approach reading the Bible in that way. This is in no way, shape, or form a boring book. You don’t just read this book, it reads you. You can’t tap the well dry when it comes to Scripture. So what we will see tonight are 2 requests, 2 questions, and 2 approaches. Let’s pray and then let’s read Mark 10:35-52

Mark 10:35–52 NASB95

James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to Him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. “But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” Hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John. Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. “But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Then they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. And answering him, Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the blind man said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.

Two Requests

So as we go through these verses, what are the two requests that we see in this passage? The first we talked about last week and that came from James and John. When we look at the other Gospels, we will actually see that their mother was also involved in the request to Jesus. They go to the Lord and they ask that Jesus would allow them to sit at his right and his left hand in glory. Now who remembers from last week what it is that they are asking? They aren’t asking to sit next to him at the McDonald’s after Bible study, no they are asking for a position of authority, they are asking for a position of power. To sit at the right hand of someone was to be in a position of command. Later on in the Bible, after the resurrection of Jesus and when He ascends to Heaven, we read that He sat down at the right hand of God the Father and this means that Jesus is in a position to rule and to reign over all things. It is a position of absolute power and authority. What James and John are asking then are that they would be placed at the highest position in the political ladder. They wanted an eternal position of power and authority. You remember from last week that Jesus says, “You don’t really know what you are asking for. You don’t really understand that we are building an upside down kingdom.” You see there is no glory without the cross. That’s what Jesus is saying to them. He’s saying, “You cannot gain without losing in my Kingdom.” Now let’s contrast this request with the request that we see from Bartimaeus. What is it that Bartimaeus asks for? He asks that he would regain his sight. This isn’t the first time in the Gospel of Mark where we have seen Jesus heal a blind person. We saw it back in Mark 8 and there is a big passage of Scripture in John’s gospel that is centered around the healing of a man born blind. So what is similar between these two requests? Let’s look at a quick positive from both James and John and Bartimaeus. Despite the problematic approach that we’ll talk about later from James and John, all 3 men do have the sense that only Jesus could grant the thing that they ask for. They have the sense to call out and go to Jesus. Now as Christians, we need to understand that God welcomes our requests. God wants you to go to Him. I think that sometimes we forget the kind of access that we have to Jesus as Christians. Sometimes we can fall into this trap that we can only bring big requests to God and that is absolutely not true. Does God only want the big requests? No, because what could be big in the eyes of God? Really all requests are small when remember what Jesus said last week in verse 27, all things are possible for God, which means God isn’t straining Himself when it comes to the big or small requests that you bring to Him.

Two Questions

Now let’s talk about the two questions that are in this passage. Now to be fair, there are multiple questions in these verses but there is just 1 in particular that I want us to look at. Now let’s play a quick game, I want to see how honest we are here. When we read through these verses earlier, by a show of hands, how many of you noticed that Jesus asked both James and John and Bartimaeus the same exact question? Did you notice that when we read it earlier? Cause I didn’t until last week. To both James and John and Bartimaeus Jesus asks the question, “What do you want me to do for you?” So really, when I say we are looking at 2 questions, we are actually only looking at 1 question from the mouth of Jesus. What does this question tell us about Jesus? Here is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Creator of all things, the Alpha and the Omega, should we not be the ones asking, “Jesus, what do you want me to do for you?” Shouldn’t that be our question? We owe Him everything and He owes us nothing. Shouldn’t it be us that are asking Jesus what we can do for Him? And yet here we see multiple times in Scripture the heart of the Savior. Here is the Savior that did not come to be served but to serve. And think about what Jesus is experiencing at this moment in Mark 10. Do you remember from last week where Jesus is going? He’s told His disciples that they are going to Jerusalem and what is going to happen there? He’s going to die and He knows this! Remember last week we read this in Mark 10:33-34. Jesus says:

Mark 10:33–34 NASB95

saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. “They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.”

He knows that He’s going to die! He knows that He is going to be tortured, He knows that the wrath of God is going to be poured out on Him in full force, He knows that in a very short amount of time that He is going to be denied, despised, and rejected. Sometimes we forget that Jesus was human. Sometimes we can forget that Jesus knew what it was like to be tired, to be hungry, to have emotions, though emotions that were not touched by sin. Here is the Suffering Savior marching on His way to die and His heart is on this blind beggar. His heart is on His disciples. You would think knowing what He knows that most people if they knew they were going to suffer and die would spend whatever time they had left looking to be served instead of serve but that doesn’t happen! Instead, His heart is towards the people and His heart is towards serving them. Shouldn’t that encourage us? Shouldn’t that encourage us that Jesus at what is likely one of the lowest moments in His life doesn’t get distracted with man’s problems but invites man to Him? Shouldn’t that encourage us now that He has gone to glory? Now that He is ruling and reigning over all things? Here is the Savior that loves us so much that even in suffering, even with full knowledge of what is about to happen, does not push us out, He brings us in! Jesus hears the cries of the hurting. I want you to also notice that Jesus takes the time to stop and call the blind man to Himself. In the 1st century, people that were blind, it was assumed did not have the favor of God on them. It was assumed that if you had this issue, you were not valued by God, you were cursed by God. Here was someone that was largely ignored by the population and as we see in verse 48, was largely hated by the population. Notice back in verse 48, the crowd tells Bartimaeus to shut up! Here is a guy who has been cast away, ignored, despised, and seen as cursed and who is it that has compassion on him? Who calls him to Himself? It’s Jesus. All through the Gospels we see Jesus as someone that looks at the crowds, that looks at the hurting, that looks at the rejects and we read that He had compassion on them. Last week when we read about the rich young ruler, we read that Jesus looked at him and Christ loved him. I think we need to be often reminded of the compassionate heart of our Savior. To be honest, I needed to be reminded of that this week. To be honest with you guys, this year hasn’t quite been my year. There have been a lot of ups and downs. Every time I feel like I have one thing about to start taking off, something else happens to cause a reset. Over the summer I lost 20 pounds and was starting to really make a positive change in my health and then I had to get a procedure done on my arm. About a week and a half ago, I found out that I’m gonna need to have another surgery on my arm next month and this is right around the time where I started being able to start lifting weights again and trying to get back into the swing of things. There has been a lot of discouragement in the past year. There have been a lot of swings and misses for me and it is really easy to focus on the negative and forget that I have a Savior that loves me and cares about me and that everything that I go through is grace. You might need to be reminded of that too. No matter what you are going through, there is a God who loves you more than you can possibly imagine. The words that the crowd told Bartimaeus, we can be encouraged by them too: “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” Then like Bartimaeus, do we hear those words and jump up and get to Jesus?

Two Approaches

Last thing that I want us to look at tonight are the two approaches that we see happen in these verses. What do I mean by that? How did James and John approach Jesus and how does Bartimaeus approach Jesus? We’ve sort of already talked about it and I know that we talked about it last week but what are James and John’s priorities when they come to Jesus with their request? They want power, they want authority, their priorities are completely backwards. What about Bartimaeus? How does he approach Jesus? First off he does it from a distance right? He hears that Jesus is coming by and he cries out to Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And he doesn’t let the crowd discourage him, he keeps calling out for mercy. He calls Jesus the Son of David, he recognizes that here is the Messiah! He doesn’t make demands; he pleads and cries for mercy. The difference between James and John’s approach and Bartimaeus approach is that Bartimaeus recognizes that he must go to Christ in weakness while the brothers didn’t. Bartimaeus goes as a desperate man while they go assuming that they could handle this position of power and authority. The way that this man goes to Jesus is the way that you and I must go to Jesus. We must go as spiritually needy and desperate people. Sinclair Ferguson said, “Bartimaeus encountered Jesus’ power, not on the basis of his strength, but in the context of his weakness… Bartimaeus brought nothing but his need. But in doing so he fulfilled a fundamental law in the Kingdom of God: there is no other way to come to Jesus but on the basis of our need and his adequacy to meet it fully.” Isn’t it crazy to think that if anyone should have recognized the way to approach Jesus, shouldn’t it have been the disciples? Shouldn’t it have been those that had spent 3 and a half years with Jesus? But James and John don’t do it like that. Instead, this blind man who to our knowledge only has a small amount of information about Jesus gets it and they don’t. Bartimaeus is the one that recognizes that the only way to approach this King is on our knees. Bartimaeus has the faith to go to the Savior as a broken and desperate man. Have you done that? Have you gone to Jesus with a list of demands or have you gone to Him as a beggar desperate for mercy? Understand that is the only way to go to Jesus. It is the poor in spirit that get it. So how do you approach Jesus? Do you go with pride, do you go with self-righteousness? Or do you go as a beggar that has found bread? Do you go as someone who recognizes, “all to Jesus I surrender?” If we want to be a follower of Jesus, we need to reject the need to be first and embrace the need to be a servant. Francis Schaeffer writes, “Christ taught His disciples that they were not to be called Rabbi or Master and that the greatest among them would be the servant of all. Doesn’t each of us tend to reverse this, following our natural inclinations as fallen men while ignoring the Word of God?” So think about your own life. Where are some moments that you can be a servant? Who can you serve better? This life is not about you. My life isn’t about me. I know that one day I’m gonna die and the world isn’t gonna stop because of it. It’s all about Jesus. May we be encouraged by what Jesus says in verse 52, “Go; your faith has made you well.” How was this man healed? How was this man saved? By pure faith. That’s all it was. That’s all salvation has ever been or ever will be. He didn’t earn it, he couldn’t, it was entirely because of Jesus and it was entirely because of faith. Let’s pray.