Good morning and welcome to our Anchored in the Word morning reflection. I hope that you've had a good week. And I know that yesterday I wasn't able to record with the holiday and having traveled. I just wasn't able to get in the office and do that. But I will plan to put out five episodes this week. So today will be episode one. But Lord willing, I'll get all the way to Saturday and just hope that you're doing well and looking forward to digging into this passage of scripture. Luke chapter 18 verses 35 through 41. Today we're going to focus on one aspect of this passage that I think is a heavy emphasis in this text, and this is how the blind man saw Jesus. And I know that sounds funny to say a blind man seeing Jesus, but how he perceived who Christ actually is. So let's go ahead and turn our Bibles to Luke chapter 18, verses 35 through 41. I'll read the text with you, and then we'll listen to a short excerpt and then dig into it together. It says, And it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside, begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. He cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried so much the more, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him. When he was come, he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? He said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight. Thy faith hath saved thee. Immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God. Let's listen to this little section together. When he says, Jesus, thou son of David, he's indicating that you are the promised one, the one that was promised to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to David, to his descendants. You're the promised one. You cannot be saved until you see who Jesus is. He's not just an ordinary man. He's the savior. He's the one and only savior. He's Emmanuel, he's God in flesh. This is such an important concept for us to consider, and it's really at the center of this passage. I'm not going to get into this extensively today, but when we look at where this particular miracle falls in the narrative, this is the fourth of the four miracles that Luke records that are going up to Jerusalem. And there is a progression there. And in this miracle, the man who is blind, he hears this group of people coming into Jericho, and he says, hey, what's going on? Why is there all this commotion? And they say, well, Jesus of Nazareth is here. It's interesting that they refer to him as Jesus of Nazareth, and the blind man, when he cries out to Jesus, refers to him as Jesus thou son of David. Those are two different ways of looking at Christ. One sees him as simply a man who is a carpenter from Nazareth, a portion of Israel that was not a very nice area, not a place that you would think of royalty coming from. The other is a reference to him as the Messiah. When he calls him the son of David, he's indicating that this is someone who he believes is actually the promised one. And so the reason that he can perform these miracles and the reason that he cries out to him and says, have mercy on me, is because he already believes that Jesus is Messiah. You could almost put it like this. He is an Old Testament believer. He's an Old Testament believer like Simeon, who was waiting for Israel's Redeemer. Or he's kind of like Zacharias, who he talks about how Christ is going to come and he's going to redeem his people from their sins. Or he's like John the Baptist, who says, behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Here is a man who was blind physically Yet spiritually, he saw who Jesus was. He understood he is the Messiah, the son of David. And this is at the heart of this passage of scripture. This is what motivated the man to say what he did. And interestingly, this is why at the end of this interaction, Jesus says, your faith hath saved you. And the reason for that is this is a man who was already redeemed. It's not just that he was healed. is that he was a redeemed man who was healed. And so that leads us to the question, how do you see Christ? Do you see him as simply a man who was interesting to talk about, a good man? Or do you see him as God in flesh, Emmanuel? Do you see him as the one and only Redeemer, the one who went to the cross, who died for your sins, who rose from the dead? who is the only one that can provide salvation for you. Well, it gives you some things to think about. I hope that as you process this, the Lord will work that into your heart. And for those who are believers, which is probably most of you who listen to this, these episodes, take great comfort in the fact that here's a man that though he was infirmed He had an inability to see, he saw. He saw the most important things. He saw who Christ was as the Messiah, his Savior. Well, that gives us some things to think about. Have a great rest of your morning and Lord willing, the rest of the week, we'll be putting out Anchored in the Words and I hope that you will benefit from those and that they will be a blessing to you. Have a blessed day. Bye now.