The Way of Clarity

Introduction

One of the joys of being the preacher is that you know what you’re going to talk about on Sunday morning, and often it gives the song service a little bit different nuance, which I always enjoy. I appreciate Daniel’s good work in picking songs this morning and the thoughts that we sang, which happened to align quite well with a lot of what we’re going to talk about this morning from Matthew chapter 19 and 20. I want to begin in chapter 20 this morning, really at the end of this text, and sort of set the stage with what’s happening in this section by looking at the conclusion first. It says in verse 29, this is Matthew 20 in verse 29. And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him.

And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent. But they cried out all the more, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. And stopping, Jesus called them and said, What do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, Lord, let our eyes be opened. And Jesus and pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him. Amazing story. In fact, it is messianic in its flavor in nature. There are no other stories before the time of Jesus Christ of the healing of the blind. Not a single one.

There are other types of healings. There’s even people who raise people from the dead, Elijah and Elisha and other prophets, but there is this truly messianic sign told to us in Psalm 146 and Isaiah 35, other parts of the Old Testament, that when this time comes, when the Messianic age comes, it will be marked by sight being given to the blind. People who are born blind, who cannot see, suddenly will see, and maybe even more particularly will perceive. They’ll be able to see life around them and they’ll live so differently than they did before. Have you ever thought about how hard life would be if you couldn’t see? I think about this often, just I’m I would not be considered blind from an ancient perspective. Neither would most of you.

We may have some that struggle with their eyesight, maybe some even who would be considered blind in that period of time. But I sometimes just think about the reality that if I didn’t have glasses or contacts, life would be very different for me. What kinds of things would I be able to do and not be able to do? And their lifestyle was very different. And most of them were not literate in the ancient world. They were doing farm type work and things that didn’t necessarily require perfect vision. But you think about our life and how drastically different it is. Most of you at your jobs, you’re reading, you’re involving, looking at precise details. What if you just couldn’t see very well? How would that change everything about your life?

What would that mean for you? Well, much like these two men and others we see throughout the gospel stories, it would mean a life really separated from everybody else. A life that would be very different and in some ways unimaginable. These blind men, like others we find throughout the gospel accounts, are kind of on the outskirts. They’re marginalized. They’re outcasts. They’re subject of pity, but not really of much interest. People don’t want to pay much attention to them. In fact, when they start to speak, they’re told to be quiet. This is the nature of their life. And yet it is the very essence of this story that demonstrates what Jesus’ kingdom is all about. There’s so many layers to all of this and what happens through the Gospel of Matthew in particular.

If you go all the way back to chapter 9, in chapter 9, verses 27 through 31, we find another healing story of two blind men, which sort of sets off this occasion where now he’s going to begin this Galilean ministry. And now the end of the Galilean ministry is being marked, kind of bookends in the story here with two more blind men who are healed on his way to Jerusalem. And in many ways, chapters 19 and 20 are just expanding and sharpening, I guess, in some ways, some of what has already been said in the previous chapters. What we find here are stories and teaching situations with Jesus and his disciples and with the crowds that deal with things like honor and status, the problem of empty, human-focused religion, radical discipleship, right?

Giving up your life, taking up your cross and following him. These are the sorts of things that he’s talking about in these two chapters, just as he’s talked about before. What is forgiveness and mercy and grace look like in Jesus’ kingdom? These are the kinds of things that we find in chapters 19 and 20, and of course, messianic proof, the identity of who Jesus is himself, this person who can come and touch the eyes of people who are blind, and immediately they’re given sight. There’s something powerful about that. Something different about Jesus and about who he is. In most commentaries or writings on these chapters, you would probably see something about how Jesus is demonstrating the upside down nature of the kingdom, of his kingdom, in comparison to the world.

I’d like to turn that around a little bit and make us think that what Jesus is actually going to do in these two chapters is expose that human thinking or worldly thinking is that which is upside down. It’s warped. It is twisted, it doesn’t see things clearly. It makes life something that it’s not. And what he’s trying to do through these encounters with his own disciples and with the people who are around them is help them see the world from a more clear perspective. And how better to end this segment with giving sight to the blind as he’s leading his way into Jerusalem, his final week. Where his own disciples’ eyes are going to be open to the reality that the kingdom is nothing like what they imagined it would be.

One of the driving features of Matthew 18, or sorry, 19 and 20 is this line that is repeated frequently.

What we imagine or what we might think as people, as humans, the kingdom of God will be like, is quite different than what the reality of it actually is. And that’s what his disciples are seeing over and over again through each story and each encounter as we work through the stories in chapters 19 and 20. And so what I want us to see from this text, and what I want us to get, particularly focusing on the healing of the blind and them getting sight, is that what Jesus is trying to provide for his disciples and any who will listen is clarity about where his kingdom is headed and what this is going to mean for them, what they’re going to be called to, and a lot of it is very different than what they thought it would be.

Part of this then is kind of exposing some of the problems of the religious world around them. This whole section has had to do ultimately with the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And of course, these two blind men, they recognize who Jesus is. They can’t even see him, but they just hear he’s coming and they cry out, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. They know who he is and they know how desperately they need him. And yet it seems time and time again the people around him don’t see it the same way these blind people do. Which is a big part of the lesson of this section of Matthew. Peter confesses Christ, the disciples confess, they believe, and yet they still struggle with the realities of what this means in life.

1. Obedience Is Submission to Divine Intent

The first concept I want to pull out of this, there’s a lot of what I already said could be duplicated from previous chapters, but I want to sort of hone in on what’s a little bit different or what is sharpening a little bit more through these two chapters. The first thing I want us to see here in this idea of seeing more clearly or understanding or having a better vision of the kingdom is that what Jesus wants his disciples and wants others to realize is that obedience is about submission to divine intent. It’s about submission or putting ourselves under the heart of God, pursuing that, and not merely rules, not chasing technicalities and loopholes. He’s already dealt with this with the Pharisees in the past.

And the example that’s used here in the story with Matthew, the story he chooses to record for us is this encounter with the Pharisees, and which they come with ill intent, once again, to test him. They don’t have honest motivations here. They’re seeking to trap him, most likely to try to get him into their kind of debates about can a woman divorce for any reason, or does it have to be for specific reasons? And although I don’t put a whole lot of stock in rabbinical literature because it comes way after the first century, there certainly was this huge debate within Jewish thinking about the kinds of reasons for which you could get divorced. And so I want us to read this text and put a little thought into what Jesus does with this as he encounters these people.

It says, Now, when Jesus had finished these sayings, the previous discourse, he went away from Galilee, he’s leaving Galilees, heading to Jerusalem. A large crowd followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause? He answered, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

And he said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. From the beginning it was not so.

Adultery. The disciples said to him, If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry. But he said to them, not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.

The things I want, the things I value, the things I prioritize rather than submission to God into his will. So often we see this come out in a few different ways. One of those, maybe the main way, is seeking justification. And of course, this comes out by the nature of our questions. Often what our questions are asking, and sometimes there’s not ill intent in this, sometimes it really is a desire to know, but sometimes it’s maybe subconsciously a desire for self-justification. How far am I allowed to go? You know, where is the line? Because I’d really like to get up close to it and do the things I really want to enjoy, if I can just get up close to this line. Do you see the problem with that way of thinking with what Jesus is dealing with here?

Or maybe is this sin or not? That’s kind of another way of going down this same path. Now, sometimes we’re really dealing with difficult or nuanced situations that are hard to understand, and we want to understand whether it’s sin or not. So I understand that, but we have to really inspect our hearts. Are we really asking this because we are desiring the will of God and God’s intent? Or are we simply seeing how far we can go down the road of the things that we actually want to do, despite what God has revealed very clearly to us in Scripture. Another way of thinking this is kind of the minimum obedience requirements. You know, what is the least that I actually have to do to be okay?

This is pretty common in our way of thinking and our questions, that way sometimes we approach Scripture. If I don’t have to do it, then you can’t tell me I need to do it. This sort of mentality and attitude. Sometimes it’s caught up in the idea of status, a big problem that Jesus is trying to deal with here with his own disciples, with the religious leaders. Who’s on my side? Who supports me? What important people agree with the way I think. What are things appear to be holy, at least from the outside looking in? And sometimes all of our debating over rules and laws, often created by men, just like the Pharisees, cause us to miss what God is really after. And I don’t know that there’s actually a better example than the one that Jesus deals with right here.

In fact, in our religious culture, and if you’re not familiar with this, then you are blessed by God. But in our religious culture, there’s even abbreviation for this very thing. MDR. Do you know what that is? So focused on all the ins and outs and all the laws and rules. In fact, there’s a book that has the title just like it’s written here. Is it lawful? It’s a decent book. My dad actually has a chapter in it, so I’m not criticizing it. It’s got some good stuff in it. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t investigate these kinds of things, but it is interesting to me that in my life, I think I’ve seen about a hundred times more attention given to the rules and regulations about how you can properly divorce or not and whether or not that means you can get remarried, then I have actual good, diligent teaching on what makes it strengthens a good marriage.

That is missing the point. It is the very thing Jesus is attacking right here. Their question, no doubt comes from bad motives, because we’re told it does. But they’re saying, is it lawful? What are the rules? What are the technicalities? What loopholes can we find about all of this? To do the things that we want to do. I love Jesus’ response. He actually does this a number of times throughout Matthew, and later on I may come back and just do a sermon focused on this one phrase. But he says, have you not read? Your ideas are all caught up with your own ideas, the things you want and the things that you think. But have you not read? Have you not seen the bigger principles that God has given us in Scripture?

You’re trying to parse all these little details and figure out when you can and when you can’t, and when it’s okay to completely violate the covenant and the value made to your spouse. And meanwhile, what God is saying is from the beginning, that was never his intention. He made them male and female. He takes it back to creation to a big principle. This is not the law of Moses. These are not all the dictates that Moses gave them about how they can live and what they can do and what they can’t do. This is a big picture principle that comes from the very beginning. Leave father and mother, hold fast to your wife, the two become one flesh. That’s a big deal. And then he concludes his answer saying, What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

That’s Jesus’ answer. That is the principle. That is Jesus’ kingdom principle about divorce. The two become one, don’t separate. That’s the message. But the lawyers, those who are after technicalities and loopholes, are not satisfied with Jesus’ answer. Why did Moses then command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away almost like that’s a good thing? Congratulations. Here’s your certificate. This is what it seems like to them. Moses allowed us to do this. This is great. Jesus again attacks the very heart of the issue. He only did this. Here’s what he’s getting at to limit the damage you were doing to yourself. Because your hearts were so hard, you were doing this anyway. He was forcing this to happen a certain way to limit the problems and the sins that were coming from your selfishness and from your hard hearts, not pursuing the will of God and the intent of God from the beginning.

But be clear again, from the beginning, it was not so, verse 8.

This is the message on divorce. In fact, every single passage except for the very next verse makes this point without exception. And yet, as I mentioned before, almost all of the attention I’ve seen on marriage and the study of marriage is wrapped up in verse 9 with one little clause, except for sexual immorality. Now I get that divorces happen and they need discussion and we have to know what to do. But I would love to see a culture in which more attention is given to practical, real life biblical training and developing thriving godly marriages instead of when to allow or deny divorce and remarriage. Rather than that become the focus of everything we want to talk about and discuss because we need to keep the law the right way.

The focus be on we need to teach people how to have good, strong marriages that honor God, that recognize the purpose of what marriage is about for God and his intentions. And maybe a culture that thinks about that more than how we can get divorced, could start to limit the need for the other discussion. But at the very least, we would be honoring the very thing Jesus says to do, which is to think about what is written from the beginning. To see what God has actually told us that we are to leave and we are to hold fast and we are to become one flesh, and that is to not be broken apart. Marriage is not about going through the motions. It’s not just making it through.

It’s not just about doing stuff right on paper. I have my responsibilities and she has hers. That sounds really romantic, doesn’t it? In essence, it’s about two souls being united into one and giving their hearts to each other. And what I want you to see about that is that is what God wants from us. That is the message that’s being given to us about the idea of technicalities and loopholes and laws, as opposed to obedience being about seeking God’s intentions, having a desire to do his will. Just like hopefully we do with our spouse. It’s not just about doing the things that we have to do, but we really want to have this desire to connect and to be one and to please one another and to build a life together.

And all of this because we are giving our hearts to each other. And we do this in a way that we don’t do for anyone else. Do you see the connection? Part of the message of marriage is that we’re giving ourselves to each other in a way we would never give ourselves to anyone else. And that is the very thing God wants us to understand about our relationship with Him, that we give ourselves to Him in a way we would not give ourselves to anything else. There’s a message in marriage. And young people, that’s why you shouldn’t be giving your heart and your body to anyone else other than the person that you eventually married. Because the purpose of what God designed is actually meant to lead us to the understanding of who God is and what he wants in his relationship with each of us.

And so it’s not just about keeping some laws and rules. It’s about seeking God’s heart. Remember what we said about David? I mean, what is it that we honor about David? He was a man after God’s own heart. This is not about order, it’s about pursuit. He was a man who was pursuing the heart of God. That is what God wants from me, and it’s what he wants from you. And whether it’s about marriage, which Jesus is talking about here in divorce with these people because of their question, or really any other topic or issue we’re dealing with in Scripture, it is on us to seek the intention of what God wants from us. It’s a bit puzzling to me. Maybe to illustrate this a little bit more and a little bit more strongly in our modern day.

I’m very familiar with a situation in which there was a preacher heavily criticizing other people, even on this issue. And yet he was cheating on his wife. And now he’s divorced. You think he missed it? Oh, he could get up and talk about it, and he could preach and he could debate and he could condemn other people for whatever their views were on this and that, and yet he’s completely missing the point altogether. Destroying his family and his kids. Because it’s the heart that was missed. So are we asking, is it lawful because we’re actually seeking the will of God? Or is it because we’re looking for technicalities and loopholes? Are we looking for a way to put ourselves above others because we’re better than them externally?

These are the kinds of problems that Jesus was facing with the Pharisees and the way they were dealing with other people.

Well, following the rebuking of the people for bringing children to Jesus, is the what you are famously known, the story of the rich young ruler that you are fairly familiar with, which actually illustrates many of the same types of points with a little different flavor to it. He comes to Jesus and says, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? He’s not seeing things real clearly. He doesn’t understand. He’s very confused about this. He thinks it’s going to be some kind of big deed or action that’s going to ultimately secure the status or relationship with God. And Jesus sort of just quotes back to him the laws that are well known. Right? Keep the commandments. Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, honor your father and mother.

And then he slides this one in. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I think that’s fairly pointed to where he’s going next. And the ruler says, hey, I’ve done all that. You know, I’ve been doing this since I was a little kid. I think I’ve got it all right. I’m good. But like what good thing do I need to do? Is there some big thing I can do, Jesus? It was actually ironic about this is that Jesus gives him the answer he wants. He just doesn’t want to do it. Right? Because Jesus gets to the heart of the situation. It wasn’t just keeping some of the Ten Commandments and doing in a way that everybody else saw. What Jesus points out is, okay, you want to do a big thing, you want to do a really good deed?

Here’s what you can do. Get rid of all your possessions and go take care of your poor neighbors. Obedience is about the inclination of the heart. Not about just keeping rules and laws, statutes. Certainly those things can matter. They definitely matter when they come from God. But like the Pharisees, it’s very easy to get caught up in the rules that men come up with, the rules that men make, and think that is what makes us righteous. This is the very thing Jesus is attacking, and the Pharisees in particular. The Pharisees who actually have a lot of really good things about them. They are concerned about holiness and they’re concerned about honoring God, but they have just gotten mixed up in certain areas. They’re not seeing clearly, and he’s trying to help them see things in a little bit more clear way.

That’s what actually matters is that we’re seeking God’s intention, particularly God’s intention from things like the very beginning. Big principles that he laid down at the very outset of creation in life. And that we’re not seeking ways to dismantle that through our own self-justification and desires, our minimum desire for obedience, the requirements that we just have to keep so that we can keep a good standing with God. All of those things are poor ways to think about what it means to obey and to follow Jesus Christ and God the Father. So obtaining eternal life is not about quantity or magnitude of good deeds. It’s about a willingness to submit our heart to God. And what comes next in the story is actually more backing up that reality.

Peter and the other apostles are a little bit confused by all of this with the rich ruler. I mean, if he can’t be saved, who can? Again, ironic, because they’ve done the very thing that Jesus is looking for. You know, Peter, in his honesty, he says, hey, we left everything and we followed you. And Jesus said, Yes, you did. But kind of left unstated is the rich young man didn’t. He wasn’t willing. But they struggle. They have a certain perception of the kind of people who are righteous, the kind of people who are doing the right things. And if this rich young man, if he can’t be saved, I don’t even know who can be saved. They’re very confused by this. Jesus tells them it’s going to be the ones who leave everything and follow him.

2. Human Fairness Versus Divine Generosity

This kind of radical discipleship that we’ve already talked about in previous chapters, that’s what Jesus is looking for. Not half-hearted, not external, not doing things that look good to others. That’s not really what Jesus is interested in. He’s not interested in people trying to have status or be the greatest or any of those kinds of things, which the disciples are very caught up in still within the story. But people who will simply do for the Lord what they can do for the Lord. And that’s where the parable of the laborers on the vineyard comes in. We’ve got all these laborers out waiting to be hired, and the best and the brightest, of course, are taken first. They’re the ones who can work hard and they can get a lot done.

And so they get taken early in the day, and they’re going to do all kinds of work for the master. And of course, they expect what they have, the agreement that they have been given of what they’ll be paid. But throughout the day, others are taken in, and it’s probably the less desirable workers. Maybe they’re older or they have some sort of disability. It makes them harder to actually get a lot of work done. But they’re out there. They’re waiting. They want to be hired. It’s just no one’s hired them yet. Even up until the 11th hour, there’s just an hour left. And the master comes and says, Hey, why are you still standing here? And they said, Well, we’ve been here, but nobody would hire us.

And so he brings them in to the vineyard and they work for him. But the real story, of course, is at the end of this. It is the attitude of the people and how they react to the generosity of God. And so we have the reality that our obedience is about our heart and the inclination of our heart, not merely rule keeping, but also, the idea here is the importance of seeking justice and fairness as it relates to rejoicing in God’s generosity. Human fairness versus divine generosity is a huge problem. We make assumptions. Our vision is skewered, we don’t think straight. And so we have problems with God’s intent versus technicalities and loopholes, seeking the heart of God versus coming up with a list of rules we need to follow.

And then also the idea of human fairness, what I think is right or what you think is right. And isn’t it interesting how when we’re on the bad side of this, we really want equality? But when we’re on the good side of it, we’re like, I worked hard, I should get more than this other person. You see how unfair and unjust human thinking is. It’s very skewed by situations and circumstances. And what we’re seeing in this story with the laborers in the vineyard is that God seeks equality with all, but not in the way that humans would. God’s not interested in just the best and the brightest. Remember, this parable comes on the heels of the rich ruler. Who, though he was of great status and great wealth and power, noble, the kind of person that we would probably want on our side if we wanted to start a movement.

Yet he’s not the kind of disciple Jesus is looking for.

And in a way that humans don’t typically think. Humans, our minds, we are warped. We go in directions that are evil and wrong. We turn things upside down. We don’t think straight. It’s not Jesus that’s upside down, it’s us that’s upside down. We get things wrong. And what he’s looking to is not all the prominent people, the people of high status and power and wealth. He cares about the person who can’t do a whole lot of work but can come in at the last hour and serve and work and the ability he has for the master. He cares about those people just as much as the other.

That’s how his kingdom is different. It’s not about the quantity or the magnitude of what you can do. It’s about your willingness to serve him in whatever way you’re able to serve him. And that you are the kind of person who will rejoice in the goodness of God that comes to others.

And we look around and we see the good things happening to other people, and we think, boy, I wish those good things were happening to me. Of course, often they are. We just don’t necessarily publicize every single thing that’s happening in our life. But the things that we do talk about tend to be the good things on social media. And so it kind of, again, warps our thinking as humans. It adjusts our expectations in a way that’s not good. And we begin to compare ourselves to other people. Or maybe we see the things that we’re doing in the work we’re doing. We look at others like I’m doing all this, and I don’t see them doing anything. First of all, we don’t see everything that’s going on.

There’s a lot of things that we don’t know. But second, stop. Stop the comparisons. Stop worrying about what’s fair and what I deserve. And how much credit I should get for the things that I’m doing. The pronouns are all off there. The whole message is that Jesus cares about the one who comes in the 11th hour. He cares about the people that everybody else is telling to be quiet. And maybe you’re in your own self-perception, you think you don’t have a lot to offer. But what you do have to offer is a heart of dedication to the Lord, and that’s exactly what he wants. Don’t miss the point for all the details, for all the human ways of thinking. Don’t get caught up in that of elevating yourself.

This is part of the message, too, to the Pharisees. I have a problem if I want to deny God’s generosity and grace to others, that I really want it for myself.

This is sort of marked in every section. Right? Like the things that we think we should be able to do, like in chapter 19. Like, if I’m not happy, I should be able to do what I want to do. You know, this is actually the message of the world, even particularly about marriage. But then also you have the next story here in 13 and 15. People are trying to bring little kids to them, and the disciples, we’ve already had this story before, right? I mean, they already brought the kids once, and they said, get them out of here. And he said, No, this is the people who received the kingdom. But they miss it again. Right? They’re still blind to what this kingdom is like. And so they rebuke the people.

Hey, Jesus is too big for this. Get these kids out of here. No, don’t waste his time with little trivial things. We need to stay focused on the things that really matter. Don’t you see? He’s arguing with the Pharisees and the big shots. We don’t have time for little kids. This is human thinking. This is the way we imagine the world should be and how important we are, particularly as adults. And Jesus keeps honoring little children and their value and their importance, even though they have basically no status in society. And so the disciples are rebuking people about them bringing kids to Jesus. Then they’re complaining in the parable about the master’s generosity. Right? This is not fair. I should be getting more. I worked more hours.

Right? This is this is all the world’s concepts of status and justice of what is right. The disciples keep seeking places of honor. And being angry that someone else gets there first or has some kind of advantage. I would like to know more about this story about the mother of the sons of Zebedee. I don’t know if James and John put their mom up to this. Maybe she is in her own way, trying to seek what she thinks is best for her boys. I don’t know. It’s hard to know what’s actually going on here, but it is very strange. She comes to Jesus and she has this request. You know, all these people are being healed, and they have diseases and problems, and Jesus is teaching important messages from Scripture, and she has this request.

I’d really like for my boys to be honored on your right and on your left hand. This is a really big deal to me. It seems James and John are involved to some degree. And no doubt the disciples have been arguing already about this numerous times. Because in verse 24 it says, when the ten heard it, ah, she got there first and she made this request before us. They’re all indignant. They’re mad at the two brothers. The message of the world is to get yours. To think of self first. To demand your place. To get the things that you deserve. This is the message the world pumps to us. And yet, in Jesus’ kingdom, he says, just be happy for the things others get. Don’t begrudge my generosity and how I take care of other people, just like I take care of you.

God is not poor. Maybe we lose sight of that sometimes. I think the mentality, much like the things we deal with in the physical world, is if they get something, I don’t. God’s not poor. He can be generous to all of us, and he is. And just because he blesses one person doesn’t mean he’s not blessing me. Just because he’s going to give reward in a certain way to somebody else doesn’t mean he can’t reward me. God is big enough to reward all of us. In fact, this is the very thing he tells the disciples when they ask him about all of this at the end of verse chapter 19. And he tells them anybody who follows me, anyone who gives up everything in this new world that I’m creating, if you follow me and you give up everything, then I’m going to have a place for you in my kingdom.

3. True Greatness Comes Through Service, Not Status

It’s not just for a few, it’s for everyone. And so the mentality is that we should be the kind of people who rejoice in the goodness of God. And then I think maybe the climax of this whole story and the point being made here is this final concept, and that is true greatness comes through service and not status. Avoid self-promotion. And look for sacrificial service and self-sacrifice.

You ever been in that scenario? I know some of you have because I’ve seen it recently. You know, you kind of run to the front of the line, try to get there first. Kids, what happens when you do that? You end up at the back, all right. Yeah, you’re you’re hungry, you’re more hungry than anybody else. And so you run to the front, and then your parents say, ah, go all the way to the back. Why is that?

It’s because you’re only thinking of yourself. And they’re trying to teach you a lesson that’s much like what Jesus is saying here. When you’re trying to be first, when you put yourself first, and you’re trying to promote yourself and elevate yourself and exalt who you are and all of that, you’re gonna be last. But if you will live with humility, which is the sort of point Jesus has been teaching for chapters and chapters now, if you are the kind of person who humbly serves the master whatever he needs, then ironically, you will be first. Remember the story of the wedding guests, sit toward the back? How embarrassing is it when you kind of you come forward and they’re like, you’re actually not that important. You’ve got to come back to the back.

We have someone else we want to honor. Honor and shame is a big deal in the ancient world. It’s why he tells these stories. But he says, if you sit in the back, what kind of honor is it when the family comes in and says, hey, you’re too far back. You need to move up. Same sort of principles are being applied here. Principles that have to do with selflessness, with sacrifice, with humility, with valuing other people, particularly people that the world does not value, the world does not think are important. God thinks those people are important and they matter to him. The rich young man, this is the problem with him. In the eyes of the world, who is worthy of more honor than this rich, powerful ruler?

We know he’s a ruler from Luke’s account. Of course, he’s important. The disciples are probably embarrassed that Jesus kind of sent him packing. How could you send this guy out and not take him in as one of your disciples? But this is the world’s way of thinking. And Jesus is saying, that is upside down. What actually matters is loving your neighbor as yourself, and this guy’s unwilling to do that. He’s not willing to sacrifice for the cause of the kingdom. And so he went away. He walked away disappointed and without joy because he wasn’t willing to do that very good deed he asked about, which was giving his heart to Jesus Christ and following him. Greatness today is not about titles. If you’re an elder or a deacon, thank you for your work.

Greatness is not caught up in those titles. You can be a servant, a humble servant, doing what you can do without any kind of title. It’s not about skill.

Conclusion

Submitting to the will of God. Imagine hundreds, maybe thousands of people are following Jesus as he walks through Jericho. We’re told it’s a great crowd. We’re told in Luke 12, thousands of people are following him. I don’t know how big the crowd is, but it’s great. It’s big.

He’s been in Galilee, he’s making his way to Jerusalem. He’s got a big week ahead, which we’re going to get into here, where the plan of God is going to be enacted. He’s going to accomplish these huge plans that God has had since before the foundation of the world, and he’s making his way there. The crowds are following him. They’re all seeking his attention. He’s single to enter Jerusalem in royal fashion, glorified by people, sitting on a colt. People are laying their garments down, and the palm branches are there. This is the person that everybody’s been waiting for. And thousands are surrounding him. And then these two insignificant nobodies off on the side of the road are crying out, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David.

Hey, be quiet. I’m trying to see Jesus. Stop talking. You know, the crowds are pushing them back. You’re not important. This guy’s important. Don’t you know who he is? And they cry out again, refusing to be silent. And this is amazing to me. All of these people, thousands of people following Jesus. And you know when he stops? When these insignificant, poor outcasts cry out to him for mercy. He stops and he turns. Everybody else told him to be quiet, but he’s interested in them. He says, What do you want from me? Lord, let our eyes be opened. That’s the message. The story is not about the blind men. It’s about all of us. Are we comfortable in our blindness? Seeing the world through unclear lenses, or can we say with the blind men, Lord, let our eyes be opened.

Let us see things in your way. Let us have spiritual vision. Seeking truth, pursuing what is good and right, not what magnifies myself and brings myself glory and honor, but what brings you glory and honor. And these two poor guys who nobody cares about in the world, most likely. Jesus touches their eyes, he gives them sight, and you know what happens next? They just get up and follow him. It’s that simple. They’ll go wherever he goes. Because they know he’s the answer. Maybe that’s where you are this morning. Maybe you know that Jesus is the answer. And what I ask you to do is to let him open your eyes. You come to Him. Don’t worry about all the other questions. You know Jesus is the answer.

There’s all sorts of things you can ask. You can ask an infinite amount of questions about an infinite number of things. But you know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He’s the Son of David. He comes with healing and he can heal the sin in your life. And if you know that, you can come and you can be baptized into Jesus Christ and have your sins washed away and you begin following him, just like these two blind men. That’s what Jesus wants from you. Can we help you? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing?