Good morning, everyone. If you're joining us online or you're new to us in the room, thank you so much for being here. My name is Jamie. I'm the lead pastor. And I can tell you I don't want to be anywhere else than right here with you right now.

I don't care where it is. I mean, you know how much I love the beach. I'd rather be here with you right now, opening up this word so that we can have a moment to feast on what God wants to say to us. Did you know that God can do incredible things in your life? Do you know that God wants to do incredible things through your life?

We've been talking through this series about, of course we're talking about our core values. But two weeks ago, I challenged you to think about this. If you want to be a part of what God is doing, change your view. Change your view of how you see God. Change your view of how you think God looks at you.

And in doing that, change the way you see other people. Because a lot of times in our self righteousness, we inflate ourself, we elevate ourself, and we look at other people with judgmental eyes and eyes of comparison, and we tend to raise ourself up and scorn them. But the invitation that he's given us is to change that view. When I come to Jesus, humbly, it changes the way I see others. And that's why we talk about relationships being so vital and important.

And I just believe some of you, if you really grab ahold of that truth, you're gonna meet your next best friend. You just haven't met them yet. But when you change the way you see others, it's gonna open up a whole new world for you. Last week we built on that. And I challenged you and said, if you want to be a part of what God is doing, change your volition.

Remember, volition is the thing that moves us to do what we do inside. It's motivation. And we talked about the rich young ruler and the idea of being good. Because hear me say this, discipleship is not being good. Discipleship is followship.

And so we talked about how the only good one is God himself. And everyone falls short of that. Good is more than just keeping a bunch of rules, but good is following Jesus with a focus on others. And good is only possible. Good is only possible if I know God who is good.

And so my volition, when it changes, when it changes, it challenges me to set Jesus as my goal, that he is what I'm pursuing. And that's what the essence of discipleship is about. It's following Jesus. And when I do that, when I invite others to come to be with me, and I invite others to come follow with me, it encourages that walk. You see, if I change my view of people and see them the way that God sees them, then I have the right kind of motivation to want to help them in their life.

Jesus said that I need to remove the log out of my eye to help get the splinter out of someone else's eye. I have to change the way I see them, and I have to change the way that I see myself. In fact, if you look, we're going to be in Luke 18 again today. But put it there. Put your finger.

Turn there. Put your finger there and turn back to Luke chapter seven. Because in that chapter there is a lot of contrast. It kind of paints this picture even deeper. In Luke chapter 7, starting around verse 34, Jesus makes this statement.

In fact, I want you to back up just a little bit from there. I want to look at verse number 32, because Jesus says, to what shall I compare the men of this generation talking about the Pharisees, talking about that religious system that was there? And see, Jesus wasn't going to sing their tune. Jesus wasn't going to dance their dance. He wasn't going to go along with that religious system.

He's the king of the universe. He came so that that system would follow him. But the Pharisees did not want to let that go. And so in verse 32, he says, they are like the children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another and say, we played the flute for you, and you did not dance, and we sang a dirge for you. You did not weep.

And then Jesus says, for John the Baptist came and did not eat bread or drink wine. And you have said, he has a demon. But then he says, but the Son of Man has come eating and drinking. And you say, behold, he's gluttonous and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, two men who would be considered righteous in the eyes of God. But to that religious system who's calling out, you need to sing our tune.

You need to dance our dance. You need to get in line with us, not us in line with you. Jesus then says this. He says, yet wisdom is vindicated by her children. What in the world does that mean?

Again, here's the Pharisees, they have this system. They're playing a song, they're playing a tune. And that tune is, we're the good ones, you're the bad ones. If they're really, really bad, you don't go around them. You don't touch them.

They're sinners, they're unclean. Don't touch them. All of us in this room have come across people who are what we call marginalized. They're ostracized. They're the people really don't want to be around.

I mean, I remember a kid in our class growing up, and he didn't take baths, and they were poor, and he'd get on the bus and everybody would kind of move seats away from him. That's the kind of idea that the Pharisees had back in the day, that for them to maintain their goodness, they couldn't go around people that had badness because if it rubbed off on them, that would make them unclean. But Jesus said. Jesus said, yet wisdom is vindicated by her children. And so, starting around, you know, verse number 40, excuse me, about verse number 38, we see this story.

We hear the story of a woman. And we don't know much about this woman other than the fact that she's called a sinner, which in those days probably meant that she was a prostitute. She was probably divorced. She probably was going around selling her skills, are selling herself so she could make money and survive. But she was deemed by the system, playing the flute, asking people to dance their dance.

They would say, but she's not invited. Somewhere along the line, this woman met Jesus and she heard about Hope. Jesus is invited to come to a supper by a Pharisee. His name was Simon. And Jesus is in there and they're eating a meal.

And this woman abruptly comes in. And all of a sudden everybody goes into response mode, like, oh, man, she's in my house. She's unclean. Now my whole house is unclean. They're worried about this religiosity in this system.

But she didn't care because her adoration of the Savior was greater than her wanting to please men. And she comes in and she drops to her knees with a jar of alabaster anointing oil. And she begins to anoint his feet. And she's crying. The Bible says that she's wiping his feet with the tears that were coming from her eyes and kissing his feet.

And we go like, that is weird. It was weird when David took off his garments and danced before the ark of the Lord, wasn't it? But they began to judge her even then, like she still wasn't good enough. Like she comes in, lavishing worship on the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. But they didn't see Jesus that way.

Remember, these Pharisees didn't see God the right way. They didn't see how God saw them. They didn't see other people the right way. And here's this lady in there, and she's pouring out this expensive ointment on his feet, and she's making a spectacle of herself. In verse 39, it says, now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, Luke wanted to make the point that he was a Pharisee.

He said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is and who is touching him, and that she is a sinner. In his mind, he's thinking of him as a. Is he a prophet? Because if he's a prophet, I need to listen to him. But now I've got evidence to discredit what he says, because he's let a sinner touch him.

But remember what it said in Luke 16, last week, two weeks ago. He knew their hearts. He knows your heart. God knows exactly why you do what you do. You can't hide your motivation from the Lord.

He knows it. Jesus answered him and said, simon, I have something to say to you. But listen to what he said. He said, well, say it, Teacher. Remember, in his heart he's trying to question whether Jesus is a prophet.

So he calls him a teacher. He tells him a story. He says, a money lender had two debtors, and one owed 500 denarii and the other 50. A denarii would be about a day's wage. So one owed him about two months worth, and one owed almost two years worth.

When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. How would you like it if somebody came here today and said, hey, I know you got two more years on your car loan. It's all right. Can you be honest with me? What would you do?

That's right. You would be jumping up and down. So which of them do you think loved him more? Did you catch that? He said, who would love him more?

And Simon answered, common sense, I suppose. The one who was forgiven more. And he said, well, you have judged correctly. He turned to the woman and he said to Simon, now watch this. Do you see this woman?

Yes, I do. I see her. And I don't like what she's doing. I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet. The Pharisee who was so concerned about cleanliness, did not offer him anything to clean his feet with.

But she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. She wasn't care. She did not care about her cleanliness. You gave me no kiss. But she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. She lavished it as the song that Cece Winan so beautifully sang. She lavished some of you on Valentine's Day. You lavished your girlfriend, fiance, or your wife, didn't you? Flowers and chocolates and all that stuff that's here.

What she's doing is here. For this reason, I say to you. Her sins, which are many, have been forgiven for. She loved much. But he who has forgiven little loves little.

See, she was the one who owed 500, and the Pharisee, even though he didn't realize it, owed 50. But either one of those, at any moment, could have appealed to the mercy of God and said, God, give me mercy. I don't deserve anything. But the response, it's the response that came after that. For many of you in this room, you may have been a Christian one year, five year, 10 years, or 50 years, I don't know.

But have you ever lavished your praise and your glory on Jesus Christ? Have you been willing to go to the nth degree and, like David, be willing to put all your shame on the table just so that you could magnify and lift high the name of Jesus Christ? Does it excite you to know that you know the King of the Universe? Does it excite you to know that you know the giver of life? And if it does, how then do you pour that out on a good God?

You see, he doesn't need our worship. In fact, we need it more than he does. You see, you and I, we come in here today, and you came in here for whatever reason. But you know what I hope for you? I hope you come in and worship inspires you.

Why? Because. Because we've lifted high the name of Jesus Christ and we magnified him. And I'm telling you, your worship will be a greater testimony to the world that's dying and going to hell ever than your own story? Why, your story usually focuses on you.

The Gospel focuses on him. And if we want to get in line with what God is doing, if we want to get in line with what God wants to do in our life, then we need to change our vantage point. A lot of you came in here today, and you are in some kind of a situation. Maybe you're in a desperate situation today. Something's happened in your life and you go, I just don't know what I'm gonna do.

I'm desperate. Maybe some of you came in here and you're in a persecuted weight on your shoulder kind of. Kind of situation where people are pressuring you to be a certain way and think a certain way, and it's got you in bondage. But whatever that situation is today, can I tell you, if you would look at your situation from a different vantage point, say like, I love. I told you.

I love going to the beach, you know, and I love staying front. Like, I love to stay on the beach. I love to watch the waves. I love to hear the waves. I love to in the morning.

I remember years ago, I had gotten to the beach late that night, and my family was already there. And I got up the next morning, there was two people on the beach, and they were doing something on the sand. And so I ran down there and they were digging up turtle eggs and taking it to the turtle hatchery. I don't know what to call it. Rescue center.

And just how beautiful of a scene it was. But you know what's even cooler than that is when you go up about 10 stories and you're looking down and you can see the. What they call the bait line, where you see that darker line that's a little bit off the beach, and you can sometimes see wildlife swimming in there. Or maybe you're standing there and you see. I think I saw a video this week where a couple of right whales went into the Destin Bay in Florida.

And people were just so. Just like, wow, this is awesome that there's a whale in the bay and it's swimming and it's topping and blowing the water spout. And then the big tail comes up out. Guys, I'm telling you, it's gorgeous. But you know what?

Sometimes you won't see that unless you change your vantage point point. And today, if you want to see what God's doing in your life, maybe, maybe, just maybe, you need to get out of this victim mentality. You need to break out of whatever it is that's pressing on you. You need to break out of this. I can fix it myself kind of mentality and put it on our savior and change that vantage point and see what he might do in your life.

I wonder today, how are you passionate about our savior? Not if I didn't ask you if you are. I Mean, you might be like, is it Ben Stein? Who? I can't remember his name now.

The guy that used to do the dry Red Eye commercials. You know how he talks like this? Or like, eeyore. Are you happy, Eeyore? No.

Are you like that in your spiritual life? Because you know what? I want to see God get such a hold of your heart that nothing would hold you back from praising and adoring our God. Because when you've got that kind of passion and zeal and you walk out of these doors, people want what you have. I remember years ago, and I've told the story once.

Let me just kind of tell it as a refresher, that after I became a Christian, I became very zealous in some ways, to a fault. I had this Pharisaical kind of mentality. And I called up this young lady, whom I knew before I was saved, to talk to her. And at this point, I was no longer that reserved, shy kid who didn't say a bunch. I'm just vomiting words.

And she got real quiet on the phone, and I said, hey, are you still there? And she said, yeah. I said, are you okay? Did I say something to offend you? She said, no, I just want what you have now.

That's not a pat on my back. I'm just telling you. I was excited about Jesus. I was excited about what God was doing in my life. And it compelled her to want to have that same kind of joy in her life, because she had none.

And you are encountering people every day who just need some glimmer of hope and excitement. And you come in this room and we sing songs and we pray and we look at the word of God and we do all of these things. But we do it because you and I both need to be inspired by the worship we experience so that when we go out of these doors, we have been spurred. Just like you're on the back of a horse and you dig a spur into the side of that horse's hindquarters and it takes off and runs. That's what we want to happen in our lives, that we're spurred on to do love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.

We don't do church. So we say, yep, I'm a good Christian. I came to church today. We. We do church so we can run out of these doors excited and on fire for a savior who saved us from our sins and has given us new life.

So I want to invite you to stand with me because I will chase a million rabbits today if I don't jump on into this message I want us to pick up in chapter 18, verse number 35. This is the story of a blind man. Luke does not identify him, but Mark thankfully identifies this man as a man named Bartimaeus. Two of the gospel accounts, Matthew's and Mark's, reports that Jesus did this healing as he left Jericho. And Luke says he did it while he was coming in.

Like, how does that work? Well, you remember in Joshua that the Israelites obliterated Jericho. Like, the walls fell down. Remember that? God told them to march around the city and the walls fell down.

So that's old Jericho. Sometime under the rule of Herod the Great, they built a new Jericho. So there's two cities. And what we're going to find out next week is he's going into probably New Jericho and he's going to meet another man. Y'all can sing the song.

Be practicing this week. If you grew up in Bible school, singing the song of Zacchaeus, just go ahead and practice it this week. It's a good song. It's the best. But pick up with me in verse 35 so we can find out exactly what happened and how that Bartimaeus represents what to do when you're in these situations to change your vantage point.

As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road, begging. Now the crowd. Now hearing the crowd go by, he began to inquire what this was. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he called out, saying, jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

That's key. He didn't say prophet. He didn't say teacher. Those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet. But he kept crying out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to him. And when he came near, he questioned him, what do you want me to do for you? And he said, lord, I want to regain my sight. And Jesus said to him, receive your sight. Your faith has made you well.

Now watch this last verse. Immediately, he regained his sight. And what does your Bible say he did next?

What did you say he did?

Interesting. And glorifying God. And when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God. Let's pray, Father, as we dig into this text. Lord, we need you.

Open our hearts, open our minds, that we can see you clearly for who you are and what you're calling us to do. In Jesus name, Amen. How many times throughout the gospel Accounts do we hear this repeated over and over again? People crying out in faith and exaltation to Christ, pleading for a miracle and Jesus did it. At the same time.

We know that there's probably hundreds of thousands of people that probably cried out and didn't receive that miracle. But does that discount the goodness of God? Does that mean you didn't believe enough? Like, if I believed like one more little bit, would that have made the difference?

But that did not diminish the character of Jesus Christ. In fact, John the Baptist sends men to Jesus to ascertain about whether or not he's the Messiah, even though John the Baptist grew up knowing who Jesus was. In fact, his mother Elizabeth, when Mary came to visit him, declared Jesus in her womb, her Lord, mother of my Lord. But he tells the followers of John the Baptist, go, report to John what you've seen and heard. That the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor had the Gospel preached to them.

Blessed is he who does not take offense at me, on one hand because of what he's doing, or on the other hand because of what they expected him to do. And he didn't. Jesus didn't come to meet our expectations. He didn't come to sing our song. He didn't come to dance to our music.

He came that we might get in line with his song and his music and his direction. The greatest loss of evangelistic opportunity that we have is in our daily lives showing our fidelity and commitment to God in gratitude and praise. Now, I'm not trying to diminish your testimony. Your testimony is good. What you were like before Jesus saved you, what happened when Jesus saved you, and what your life has been like since.

And if any of those categories are missing, you may not have been saved if you made a profession of faith as a seven year old at a Bible school. But you haven't lived for Jesus since. You might want to check your faith. Something's missing. But in our life, since Christ, or if you don't know Christ, things happen, don't they?

Troubles come and conflict happens. Things just don't always go the way they're supposed to. But when you're in those circumstances and you find yourself desperate enough, you'll turn to the Lord. When you find yourself in a situation where you can no longer depend on yourself for the answer, you will turn to the Lord. Because you've realized you've exhausted all your resources, you've exhausted all your ideas.

You can't go Another step, you've said, you know what? I'm done. I can't do this anymore. When you're in that situation and you change your vantage point, let me tell you what it allude. Number one, that point of desperation is a moment that you can express deep faith.

You see, before he started asking Jesus anything, he cried for mercy. Sounds familiar. Or it should. If you go back to the beginning of chapter 18, we found out that, you know, the tax collector, the Pharisees taunting his own good self. The tax collector, who wouldn't even come all the way to the altar, who wouldn't lift his eyes to heaven, said, have mercy on me.

The sinner, he wasn't trying to get an appointment with Jesus. He couldn't press into the crowd. He couldn't see. This man had been sitting there begging for money and coins and different things like that. He appealed to the mercy of God.

He didn't appeal to his own righteousness like the Pharisees were doing. He appealed to the Lord on mercy. See, a lot of times you and I get discouraged in our faith because we'll go to the Lord and say, you know what, Lord, I've been in Church for 15 years and I've given money every week and I read my Bible every day. But yet you're letting this happen to me. Why are you letting this happen to me?

I'm a good person. Mercy doesn't know that kind of goodness. Mercy doesn't see that mercy is God acting benevolently to those he loves to work on their behalf. And they did not earn it. You see, long before he stands before the Lord to ask what he's going to ask him, he's already expressing his faith.

Where did the word son of David come from? Son of man? This reference to Jesus being the promised one who would come. Psalm 110, verse 1 starts out by saying, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool. The Lord Yahweh says to my Lord Adonai.

And why is that important? Because that was the promise of someone that would come from David's line, who would sit on the throne of Israel. The Messiah would be a son of David. God promised that to David himself when he said, no one would stop or cease to be on your throne. But what he meant by that was someone who would be eternal Jesus Christ.

See, we find a lot of points of desperation in the Gospels, like the lame man who was laying on a mat and they couldn't get into the house to See Jesus, so his friends, in desperation, cut a hole in the roof and let him down in front of Jesus and he's healed. Or what about the Syrophoenician woman who was not even a Jew, whose daughter was possessed by a demon? She was helpless and desperate, and she pushes in in front of Jesus and begins to ask him, please help me. And basically, Jesus calls her a dog, but she said, yeah, but even the dogs long for the crumbs that fall from their master's table. And in that faith, Jesus says, go, your daughter's healed.

Or what about the man whose son was mute and demon possessed and comes first to the disciples while Jesus is on the mount of transfiguration and they can't get the demon out? And in an incredible story about submissive faith, Jesus heals this young man and casts the demon out and says all things are possible to him who believes. This man came to Jesus because he believed. Or what of Jairus daughter, synagogue leader? His daughter is sick on her deathbed, and he runs to find Jesus and says, come on, you gotta come quickly.

You gotta come. She's dying. Please come. And as he's going, Jesus gets interrupted because as he's walking down through the crowds, there's a woman who has an issue of blood, which means she's never stopped bleeding. And she comes up, and in her mind she thought, I'm desperate enough that if I could just touch his coat, be healed.

And she touches it, and Jesus feels the virtue leave his body because an uncleanliness, uncleanliness has touched him. And he's like, somebody's touched me. Did Jesus know who it was? He absolutely knew. He asked the question for their benefit.

He let an unclean woman touch him, and he was still righteous. But wait a minute. Where was he going? He was going to Jairus House. And all of a sudden, in the story, we hear of the people coming and saying, listen, it's too late.

She's gone. But Jairus, in that desperate moment, Jesus says, take me to her. And he raises her back from the dead. You see, when you and I are in desperate moments, it's not a moment for you to see yourself as a victim. It's not a place and a moment for you to sit there and go, well, you know, God's just trying to get out to get me, or, you know, I just can't seem to get ahead in life, or it always seems like this stuff happens to me.

Bartimaeus didn't say any of those things. He heard that Jesus was coming and what did he say, have mercy on me? His desperation was the moment that he could express deep faith. And he started by identifying Jesus as Messiah and king and then cried for mercy. I wonder today, how desperate are you to want to see God do a work in your life?

Now, that's not going to change God's mind, don't get me wrong. But desperation, listen to what it says. Desperate people have a power that other people lack. They have the ability to go all out and put all of their efforts to a task without any reservation. Maybe like a woman who's been so touched by the mercy of God that she comes in to a Pharisee's house with a jar of alabaster oil and pours it on Jesus feet and kisses his feet and wipes his feet, wipes the tears that she has shed on his feet with her hair.

How desperate are you to want to see God move in a moment like that? So when you're in a desperate situation, what do you do and to whom do you go? Maybe, just maybe, our response should be to cry out for mercy first. Because then that leads us in to a second situation which is a point of resistance. Because even though he's in a desperate situation now, he's going to meet resistance.

And these are opportunities for you and I to persist against discouragement. A lot of you have people in your lives that will correct you or tell you what you're doing is not good or wrong or you need to try something different. I remember when it's been 10 years ago that I ruptured the disc in my neck and I was waiting surgery and I had gone and I had decided on which surgeon I was going to use and was talking to a family member. And that family member said, oh, you know, you don't need to use him. He messed so and so's neck up.

And I'm like, really? And for a moment I thought, well, maybe I shouldn't go through with this. Maybe I shouldn't go to this doctor. But I began to buy into their naysay. Think picture this.

Here's blind Bartimaeus. He's sitting, he can't see. He just hears people and he's like, hey, what's going on? Who is that? And they say it's Jesus the Nazarene.

Jesus the Nazarene. Hey, hey, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And the people in the front of the crowd that are leading him, you know what they're doing? I think, hey, Jesus, don't pay attention to him. I've got a need I need this wart taken off my nose.

Hey, Jesus, I've been good till last week. And then last week I didn't have the money to Jesus, Jesus, I need, I need. And they're leading him. The crowd is leading him. Don't think they were all just sitting there going, woo.

Jesus is awesome. Jesus is cool. They're asking him for stuff. Let's be real for a moment. That crowd followed Jesus because they wanted stuff.

And they're trying to shut him up because they wanted to go first. There are gonna be people in your life that want to shut you down from the faith response that you know you need to make.

I remember Francis Chan talking years ago at a conference after he decided to leave his church and become a missionary. And they asked him the question, why in the world would you do something that radical? Why would you leave what you've been doing for years and years and years to potentially put yourself in a poor situation? And he said, you know what he said? He said, because when I look to this book, where would my name fit?

He said, like, you know, you see, like, Paul's going around the world, he's preaching the gospel, he gets stoned, and Francis goes to Thailand. Where would you fit in this book? Where would you fit? And here's the thing. If we let the naysayer have the power in our life, we won't be focused on crying out for the mercy that Jesus is already ready to extend to you and to me.

Sometimes we need to revert it and say, hey, wait a minute, no, you need to be quiet. Jesus, have mercy on me. He wasn't touting his righteousness. He wasn't even asking for him to be healed. He was saying, give me mercy.

And you know what that means? That means, God, whatever you have for my life, I will receive it. I'm not going to sit here and make a list of things that if you don't do, I won't believe in you. That's not faith. Faith is saying, God, have your way with me.

God, send me wherever you would have me go. Lord, have mercy on me. It's the same cry as the tax collector who wouldn't come to the altar, who wouldn't turn his eyes to heaven. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner, in a moment of resistance. Are you ready to persist in your faith so that you can see a breakthrough in your life?

I ran into a guy that I used to go to church with many years ago, and he made a very, very strong confession to me at that point in my Life. I was in a family kind of driven church. And this young man confessed to me. He said, you know, the only reason I came to church every Sunday was because my daddy was there. That's it.

That's the only reason. He said, but I'm going to tell you what I was doing on Friday and Saturday night. He confessed to me that on Friday and Saturday night, he was at the bars and he was coming in basically hungover every Sunday morning. No involvement in a group, no growth in his life. He just showed up and he would leave.

The only motivation he had was he wanted to be there for his daddy. Now, that's not a bad motivation. I want to be there for people, too. But from a spiritual standpoint, he definitely wasn't there for the Lord. So time passed.

They dropped out, and they started going to a different church because of his kids. And when I ran into him years later, something had happened. Something had changed in his life. You know what it was? He met Jesus Christ, and it changed everything about him.

And so he comes up to me, we're at a funeral home. He's like, man, you won't believe what's happened to me. And he recounts that story. And then he said, you know what I'm doing now? He said he was a redneck as redneck could be.

He said, you know what I'm doing? I said, what? He said, I'm working in the kids ministry. He said, would you ever imagine seeing me down there going, shine, Jesus, shine? I mean, he was like.

He was just so full of joy. And I'm telling you guys, it's contagious. Yeah. We went to church Sunday morning. Couldn't get to the restaurant because it was already closed by the time we got there, and it's too full.

Listen, I want you to come in on Sunday morning and leave this place ready to storm hell with a water pistol.

And, you know, you can't put the fire of hell out but be so naive that you could take a water pistol and go quench the fire. That's what I want in your life. I want you to be so inspired by your time with the Lord that you want to go out. And it doesn't matter what circumstance you're in, it doesn't matter who's coming against you, that you're ready to go, that you're ready to give it your all, that you're ready to go out and tell the world about the goodness of our God, our Savior, our King. That's what I want you to have.

See, because here's what happens? He comes before. They bring him before Jesus, and he comes to a point of dependence. You see, this is the change of vantage point when you take your eyes off yourself and stop depending on yourself. Because you can't fix your spiritual problems.

Only the Lord can. I told our pastors this morning that one of the things that's resonated in my heart and mind recently is the passage in Ephesians where he says, and be strengthened in your inner man. That to me, and probably some of you received a text from me this week, said, hey, I'm praying that God would strengthen your inner man. Why? Because we need that inside, which will drive us to want to be connected and close to God.

Don't forget the words of Isaiah where he says, do not call to mind the former things or ponder the the things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, guys. I want that something new. I want something renewed. I want to see God at work in my life every living day that I take breath.

Don't you? I mean, sometimes I wonder if I came in here on a Sunday morning to get you all riled up and I wore a pink tutu and some pom poms, y'all would laugh like crazy. But don't you forget what David did. Strip down to his undergarments and dance before the ark of the Lord.

Maybe you need to get desperate enough to worship that way. See, I don't think you could. I don't think we understand the power of collective worship. Yes, we worship in our private lives, but. But when we're together, you'll never be in a room like this again with the people that you're with.

But I'm telling you what. When you begin to not just mumble the words. Callie challenged us a little while ago. Listen, don't just sing these words. Think about what you're singing.

I love you, Lord. Your mercies never fail. Some of you came in this room and you're so downtrodden, you can barely drag your foot in behind the other one. And you go, I love you, Lord. Your mercies never fail.

And if his mercies never fail, then why are we not crying out for mercy? Bartimaeus comes before Jesus. He still hasn't asked him anything. And Jesus said, what do you want me to do? If you were standing in front of Jesus right now and he asked you that question, what would you ask?

I want to see. And this blind man who wasn't pushing in with the crowd to try to ask Jesus something is giving sight.

I think we need Our spiritual eyes opened and our ears opened that we can hear and that we can understand. He said, receive your sight. Your faith has made you well. He didn't ask him to make a decision. He didn't ask him to walk an aisle.

He didn't ask him to sign a decision card. He expressed his fate from the moment he said, son of David, have mercy on me. That was the moment he applied faith. And then Jesus brought about the answer before he even asked it. Guys, what kind of faith does that look like in your life?

This kind of giddy, childlike faith. You don't know what God's gonna do in your life, but you know God's gonna do something good. And if bad stuff happens in your life, God is still good and he'll carry you through that. Or God's gonna lead you to something where he's magnified and he's glorified. And I hope that's a hunger that you have in your heart and in your life that you would want that.

Because here's point number four, points of reality. You see, a lot of times we don't even see what God's doing because we're not looking for it. But points of reality are invitations to glorify and to worship God. Look at what the text said again. He said, excuse me.

Immediately, he gained his sight and began following him.

Rewind the tape, if you would. Follow me. Go sell all that you have. Give it to the poor.

The camel went through the eye.

What was impossible for man, God made possible. He didn't sign a card. He didn't start singing. I am a church I am a C H I am a C H R S T I N and I have C H R S T M I H E A R T and I will L I V D T E R E N A L O Y'all wanna know the song? He followed him and he glorified him.

He thanked him, he exalted him. He lifted him up. He magnified him. And then because of that, they saw a miracle. And the same ones that were telling him to shut up are now going over there saying, oh, my gosh, this man can see.

But he wasn't going, hey, look what God did for me. I'm so good. Oh, what was it? God. Thank you.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Glory to God in the highest. Glory to God. Glory to God.

I don't know what he said. It seems kind of weird for me to just keep saying, glory to God. Glory to God. But if I Was blind and then he made me see. I would say it till I couldn't speak anymore.

Has God impacted your life so much that you can't help but sing it?

Because I think sometimes our lack of worship and our lack of sharing is because we're actually insecure about the truth of Jesus Christ. We hold back because we think we know it's true, but we don't really live as if it's true. If I'm living for the praises of man, then I won't sit and try to glorify God. I'll be like, well, hey, don't let me offend you. Well, don't be offensive.

Don't be a jerk about it. But there's nothing wrong with you saying, you know what? God has been so good in my life. I went through this terrible time a few weeks ago, and God was with me all the way through it. And that friend may look and say, man, you just lost your car.

Yep. But I'm trusting that God's got a different path for me, and I'm thankful for this mercy and grace because he may redirect me in a different way. I would have never gone unless I'd lost that car. Are you so submitted to the mercy of God that you say, lord, I'm in your hands. Use me and lead me wherever you would have me go?

You see, here's the truth. My vantage point changes when. When I see the need to celebrate Jesus. Previously in this book, Jesus heals 10 lepers and one comes back who was not even a Jew, by the way. He was a Samaritan.

To thank Jesus.

Would you be of the nine that just keeps on going because you got a little handout? Or would you be the one that comes back and say, lord, whatever you have for me, I. I want to do it. Celebrating. You see, the invitation is this.

Come celebrate with me. Come celebrate with me. Years ago, I picked up a book by Matthew Barnett called the Church that Never Sleeps. He wrote it about the Los Angeles Dream Center. And in this book, there's a young teenager who's in a gang, and she's at a youth service.

And the youth pastor's preaching and saying, you know what? I'm inviting you tonight. If there's something that you need to give up and that you need to put behind you, I want you to do so. So this young gang member comes to her youth pastor and says, hey, I know what I need to put behind me, but I don't know if I can do it. You see, because the gang that I'm in.

The only way to get out of the gang is if the gang beats me for a minute.

And she said, would you go with me to make sure that they don't go over that minute? This youth pastor agrees, and he goes, and this young teenage girl stands in a circle of other girls as they're pounding her to death.

I want you to hear what he writes about it. They kept their minute.

And it said, with blood trickling down her face from the cuts from the beating, she looked like an angel as she told the girls that now she belonged to Jesus.

Can I ask you really, really just eyeball to eyeball for a moment, have you lost your worship? Have you lost the gratitude? Have you become so cynical in your spirit because God didn't answer the way you wanted him to that you're sitting here going, you know what I asked him before? He didn't do it for me. But what if you took a different vantage point?

Whether you're in a point of desperation or you're in a point of resistance. What if you looked at it differently and saw it as an opportunity to thank God anyway? When Paul and Silas were thrown into the prison, they began to worship the Lord. My question to you today is, have you lost your worship? Because I'm telling you, God is good.

And you saw the transformation it took in Bartimaeus life. And all those people who were probably pressing in to ask Jesus something, now they've joined his chorus and they're singing his song. Glory to God. Glory to God. God be glorified.

So as we sing, we're going to sing a few more songs. I know we're a little long. That's okay. That's all right. I hope that God's word nourishes you.

But more than that, now we have the opportunity in chorus to sing praises to the God who sent his son to die on the cross to save you from your sins. And if you don't know that Jesus, you're sitting here today going, you know what? You are speaking a different language that I don't understand.

Jesus Christ came to die for you and die for me and die for the whosoever will would believe in him that if you come to him in repentant heart saying, I want to turn away from my sins and trust Jesus to take my sin away. How can he do that? Because he died on the cross. The sinless lamb of God, Jesus Christ, died on the cross so your sins could be covered, taken away. Guys, that's not the end of the story.

That's why we celebrate Easter. They put him in a tomb because the wages of sin is death. He died the death you deserve. But he didn't stay in that ground, did he? He busted that grave wide open.

And because of that, he lives forever and ever and ever and ever. Every religious system has dead prophets. We don't serve a dead prophet. We serve a risen savior. His name is Jesus, and he's sitting at the right hand of God.

And if you're lost today, if you're joining me online or you're in this room and you're lost, you don't know Jesus Christ. You. If you don't have a personal relationship with him, you don't have the confidence to know. If you left here today, would you be in heaven with him forever and ever, ever? If you don't have that confidence, don't hesitate.

You come down and see one of us right now. Fred's over here. Randy's over here. Kevin's over here. Crosby's here, but Crosby's doing ministry.

We're here for you. And if we're tied up, you got Steve Pace, and you got a hoard of ladies and other men that they will tell you how to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. But maybe today you need to come down to this altar and say, you know what, Lord? I'm like that young lady who was in a gang, and there's something in my life that's just holding back my praise, and I want to worship you. I want to worship you.

So I need you to take this from me. He said to cast all your kids care on him, right? Because he cares for you once. You do that, and I'll remind our church again. No one comes this altar alone.

You come down and you put your hands on their back, say, God, whatever it is they're laying down before you today, take it in Jesus name, and for the rest of us, sing it good sound. Would you stand with us as we.