HelloFresh. You've met this person. Someone else just whispered HelloFresh. You know who I'm talking about. And evidently, he was there to sell HelloFresh. So he was a salesman. So he wanted to keep me at the door. It was stifling heat. And I said, do you need a drink or something? And he'd known he had a drink. That's fine. And I said, look, you've got an English accent. Where are you from? Bristol. Oh, I've stayed in Bristol for a while. He goes, oh, really? So we struck up a conversation. He wanted to sell me HelloFresh, which I know nothing about. That's Amy. She's an expert in HelloFresh. So I called for Amy and then Knox joins us at the door and the rest of the kids are there. He wanted to sell HelloFresh, but I wanted to talk about Jesus. So I mentioned, Oh, we're Christians. You know, just sort of slide that in there somehow. Segues like changing gears out of the clutch. And he was very interested. Now, whether he was being a salesman or wanted to keep me in the conversation, but we had a conversation at Christianity and that's where it really got started. It was fascinating. It was exhilarating. But in the end for him, the big idea was he kept contending because he had noticed that there were a lot of young men coming to Christianity these days because they liked conservatism. So he said the Trumpism, it's the whole conservative nature, you know, fight the system kind of thing. A lot of young men are going to Christianity. And you know what? He's actually right. He's right about two things. They are, you can read about this. There are blogs about this and articles. That's true. But he's also right. He said it's not particularly because of Jesus. He's also right. It's not because of Jesus. It's because some sort of political ideal people have. So here is. What looked to me like a 17 year old man, but he said he was in his twenties, whose finger on the pulse understood what was happening socially. But what he really missed and he didn't want to really engage with was the real Jesus. He missed the real Jesus. And so we prayed for him and he went. The sad thing is he's spiritually blind. And the only way that he can see is, of course, is if the spirit of Christ does something in him, that's what we prayed. But it reminded me, and I think it showed Knox and our kids, we are all spiritually blind. All of us. We all need to recover our spiritual sight. And the great reality is friends, just like we saw in that reading where at the end Bartimaeus could see, but he actually could see spiritually. We need to see the reality of the glory of Christ today. Now you can't change that for yourself. You can't make yourself spiritually see, but you can actually put yourself in the road of Jesus like Bartimaeus did. You can go to Jesus. You can go to hear his word. you can do what you're doing now, hear his word preached. That's why I prayed that after the next little while, you would actually follow Jesus along the way. And you see there's Jesus on the way to Jerusalem and there are people following him. In fact, we see in that passage, there's a great crowd going with him to Jerusalem because Jesus is walking towards Jerusalem with great intention. So you can look in your Bibles there. Notice this, Jesus is walking towards Jerusalem. Mark writes he's a little way ahead of the rest. Everyone else is going to just going along where Jesus is going. It's Luke that tells us how intentional Jesus is. We read in Luke 9 51, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face towards Jerusalem. Just like we sang, see him going to Jerusalem. This is no stroll for Jesus. It's no walk in the park. He's not going to see the city lights. Jesus is going to be the sight of sights at Jerusalem. He's going to be the gladiatorial spectacle in front of people, the one who's thrown to the cross. He's going to Jerusalem to die. Now Mark tells us the feelings in the passage here. Mark tells us the feelings of the people on the road as they follow along with him and what they saw. We see the disciples, they, that's the they in that text, are amazed, but the rest of the crowd that followed, Mark writes, are afraid. There's all these feelings as people follow Jesus. So Jesus, with all these feelings, and we see the text says, again, the little word again, turns to everyone, particularly the 12, He turns to them and he says, for the third time again, what he's going to do in Jerusalem, rather what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem. And you look at the verbs there, trace the verbs, the doing words, the actions. If you had a pencil in your Bible and you underline the actions, look at the action verbs. They're going to, the chief priest and the scribes, hand him over to the Gentiles, it's going to be past Jesus' around time, for fun. They're going to do this. And as they do this, They're going to mock, spit, flog, and kill. Trace those verbs. It's a slaughter fest. And it looks like a defeat. Except Jesus does include again that little phrase, after three days he will rise, we see in verse 34. Now, For whatever reason goes through the mind of James and John, they think the timing is right to ask their key question. Jesus has just said for the third time what's gonna happen. They think, oh. So James and John, you can imagine the scene, Jesus a little way ahead, they pick up their pace. Let's ask the question now. Now that the timing's right to ask, we wanna ask Jesus our big question. So they walk up and the other side of Jesus, hey Jesus, we want you to do whatever we ask of you. Now, if you feel like you've heard this question before, you have. In a different way of sorts, it was only a few moments ago in Mark's gospel, the disciples had been arguing what? What were they arguing? Who is the greatest among them? And now, here with Jesus going to the cross, they think the timing is right to ask it. Could we even have the great seats? Best seats in the house? What they need to see is Jesus' life of service and sacrifice. That's the question. Are they going to be like that? So of course we see in verse 36, they've already asked the question and the patient teacher in verse 36 slows the conversation down. You know, this is a good tip. If someone mocks you or says something to you, the best thing to do is actually repeat it. You mean to say, repeat the words they said? When you say it out loud, it doesn't sound so nice the second time, does it? So Jesus is kind of slowing it down and he's repeating their words. What do you want me to do for you? And their answer shows just how much they still do not understand Jesus. Moreover, they want everything to be about them. For their request is to sit at the immediate right and left hand of Jesus when he's in glory. Now here's the question. What do they expect Jesus' glory to look like if that's their request? See, James and John think Jesus is going to be in Jerusalem as a political liberator and Lord, and they're gonna sit with him on the Jerusalem throne set. We see this language gives it away. for even if they recognized a process that Jesus is gonna die, they perhaps think that when he reigns, oh, we know what'll happen, Jesus is physically going to reign in old Jerusalem, on earth, on a throne, and we're gonna have seats either side. But see Jesus and Saint, verse 38. Jesus is showing them they don't understand what His glory is about. Do you see verse 38? They don't understand what the glory is going to happen to be in Jerusalem. Verse 38, Jesus said to them, you do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism which I'm baptized? And they said to him, we're able. Even in their answer, we were able, they just don't get it. Perhaps they think they can fight alongside Jesus in some sort of kind of political post-millennial-esque revolution where they will take over and have seats of power. We're going to do that. We're going to take over the city and make it a Christian city. And then will be glory, power, authority. They want positions of power. They have no idea how God establishes power on earth. Jesus explains, verse 39, here's how it happens. Here's how glory comes. It comes, yes, for them in the lives they'll live, it comes through suffering. Suffering is where the glory is in this life on earth. So Jesus explains, he says, you are not able to share in this unique glory that I'm going to have in Jerusalem, not this one. You'll have your own later, your own suffering, but this one is unique. This one is not about you just suffering at the hands of evildoers. The unique glory that Jesus is going to experience and have in Jerusalem is one that changes everything. What is it? What is the glory that Jesus will be seen in all this glory in Jerusalem? What it's gonna see is this. It's what we saw in our cross-reference readings. We can understand this. We have this cross-reference readings, Isaiah 51, Job 22. See, Jesus says, can you, and we see it there in the text. He says, can you drink the cup that I will drink? Will we baptize or the baptism that we baptize with? What is Jesus saying? There's two things here. There's a cup and there's a baptism. What is the cup? We know from the rest of scripture that I picked Isaiah 51, it was one place to go to. In Isaiah 51, the cup is the cup of God's wrath. His white hot anger. Isaiah 51 describes people are drinking the cup of God's wrath when they just want to live for sin and they consume themselves with God's wrath, poisoning them. deserved justice. But Jesus is saying, Isaiah 51, I'm coming to drink that cup. So that people don't have to. I'm coming to drink the cup of wrath, yes, deserved against sin, God's white hot anger. Jesus is saying, I'm going to drink it. Can you? Can you drink the cup of God's wrath and survive? No, we can, sure. You don't understand. What about the baptism? Job 22. In Job 22 describes a flood of waters overcoming someone in darkness. It describes a baptism by fire of a flooding fire. And Jesus is saying about his baptism, remember what John the Baptist said of Jesus? John the Baptist said, I baptize you with water, he will baptize you with, follow the sentence? the Holy Spirit, and fire. Jesus is saying, picking up the language of baptism from the Old Testament, saying, I am going to be baptized with fire. You will not survive that, and I'm doing it for you. Friends, in a nutshell, what is the glory Jesus is going to experience in Jerusalem? It's the glory of the cross. That's where he's enthroned. That's where the king is at battle. That's where he wins. His glory is in his glorious suffering for our sins. Jesus is the one who will drink the cup of wrath, be baptized in the fire of judgment because he gives his life as a ransom for many. You want to see Jesus' glory? Look to the cross. That's the glory of Jesus. Now in that moment, As Jesus explains that, Jesus says, it's not up to me to place people to my left and right in that glory. In fact, someone else is going to do that. The father, he alludes to, it's the father's choice who is going to be my left and right in glory. And by the way, Jesus says that's already been appointed. In fact, we know it is because when Jesus is on a cross, who is at his left and right? Two men deserving of justice, deserving of death, deserving of the cup, deserving of the fire of baptism. Two men are appointed to be at either side between the one who does not deserve it but takes your place. The glory of the cross. It's Jesus who will pray to his father in heaven that that cup would be removed from him, asking for the cup of wrath to be gone, but then willingly as a servant, he sacrifices himself, the son of man as a son of God, drinking the cup and being baptized in death. And James and John, you are very much unable to endure that. What do they want Jesus to do for them? What they need is Jesus to teach them this, for they cannot do what Jesus come to do. Now you look at verse 41, when the 10 heard it, they became indignant at James and John. They're like, oh, oh, how could you say that out loud? How could you ask that? But really they're indignant because James and John, well, they thought of it first. They're the ones that put themselves out there, you know? Hey, I desire this, Jesus, can you give it to me? It's bare-faced desire of these blokes reveals what was on everyone's personal ambitions and jealousy. And they need to hear, listen to Jesus again. He says in verse 45, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. You are not to lord it over people like the Gentiles. You are not to desire leadership like the Gentiles. What's going on here with these disciples? They've been with Jesus for some time, what's going on? Well, apart from having the lowest EQ in the world, you know, EQ is emotional quotient. So if you've got like IQ is intelligence, EQ is being able to read the room. Come on, read the room guys. Read the room. Jesus has just been teaching about his servant-hearted, sacrificial death by execution for the sin of the world. His life is a ransom for many. He's been saying this on repeat. They don't read the room. They can't seem to see because the biggest thing in the room for them is, do I get my personal preferences met? Jesus has just told them how the gospel is going to play out. What do they care about? Who gets to be MVP? All they care about is who gets to be the most valuable player. Now reality, what's going on there is also happening now in our society and it's sadder when it's happening in the church. I think things like, and you may have heard of it, Christian nationalism is actually evangelical, if not reformed, prosperity gospel. It's this expectation that Jesus is going to make us great again. Jesus is going to make the church great again, powerful in the world. We want Jesus to make us powerful. We want Jesus to make us important again. We want Jesus to give us status again. And the sad thing is, things like Christian nationalism put that on steroids, hoping that we can muscle our way into bringing the kingdom in on earth and making us little kings now. Yet what is sadder still? If it's in the church, people are jostling to be great, to be seen, to be important. to be seen as the most valuable player in the church? Friends, Jesus does not come to rule in the way the world does. That's the world's way. The world's way is to grab power. Hear what Jesus is saying. Now, Jesus doesn't deny human authority. He highlights how sin turns human authority into human abuse by people who think they can use Jesus as an excuse. And we in our sin without Jesus, what will happen? You take Jesus out of our lives, we'll naturally start self-serving. We default to selfishness. But when we go to Jesus and you see the glory of the cross, you realize glory is laying your life down for others. In fact, your personal preferences do not matter. And you can give up things seen or noticed even as you love others. Because Jesus' leadership is cruciform. It's cross-shaped. You could even say it's cruciforming leadership, if you wanted to. A humble servant leader will be strong in God-dependent character and increasingly weak in self-importance and self-reliance. And in this way, you see who Jesus really is. He's one who has mercy on you. On their road trip near Jericho, we meet a man in verses 46 to 52, so the third point in the outline, who is in direct contrast with the disciples at this point. Here's one of the other Ds we keep talking about in Mark's gospel. You've got the disciples, you've got the don't like Jesus, and you've got the desperate. He's one of the desperate. And the desperate, his name is Bartimaeus, and he's a blind beggar, and that tells you everything about him as you meet him. It tells you he has nothing about him that he can do for himself. If he is a blind beggar, all he's got is the handout of others. He relies on the drive-through compassion that passes by. And he hears that it's Jesus who's coming along the road that day and he calls out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Now to call Jesus the son of David reveals that Bartimaeus knows something. He knows this, Jesus is not just the son of man, He is not just the son of man who is human, who is God receiving, the man who is God receiving all power, but he's the one who is the anointed one. He is the Messiah, the Christ. That's what that language leads us to. Bartimaeus is calling out for mercy from the Christ. Look at the contrast. What did the disciples ask for? Glory. What does Bartimaeus ask for? Mercy. There's a gulf of difference. Now you would think at this point, the people closest to Jesus would get it. So Jesus had several talks, look at me guys, look at me, look at me in the eyes, he's saying, don't seek for glory, just serve people, love people. And they were like, uh-huh, uh-huh, yep, yep, yep, yep, got it, got it, we're all good now. Team disciples, all good, team 12, the first 12, ready to go, here we go, off to do our job. You've got this person calling out for mercy, what do they do? After hearing Jesus speak several times and teach about how the little ones, the lowly, the least of these, the lost, should not be lorded over and instead be loved and welcomed, what do they do? What happens? Verse 48, they rebuke him, telling him to be silent. What in the world now? You see, people who seek for glory have no time for the humble. And it's an absolute shame when churches have cultures that are like this. Now we know every church will at times have people who are annoying. So, there's a guy in our church and his name is Russ. Like, he's okay sometimes. You know that guy. There's so much about Russ that is annoying, isn't there? Let's be honest. When we have people in our churches that just call out, or they're just a bit annoying, we tend to think, well, that's that type of person. We just rather get away from the annoying people, because, you know. But here's something for us that's beautiful to see. How can you tell a church actually loves people? You can also use this same measure for society, by the way. It's where the unlovelies, the lowly, the weak, the little ones are so welcome. that they can run up to the people who are leaders, and those people have all the time in the world for them. Because we love Jesus and love the church and we love the lost, of all the places in the world where annoying people are welcomed and loved, where is that? Where can all the marginalized and all the unlikable people be most welcome? Where is that? It's in the church! That's the beautiful thing about the church! So Jesus stops verse 49 and says, call him. And they called the blind man saying, look at the verbs, take heart, get up, he's calling you. And Bartimaeus responds to Jesus by going to Jesus. And Jesus asked the same question for James and John, what do you want me to do for you? Do you notice that? It's the same question. The same question for James and John is the same question for Bartimaeus. What do you want me to do for you? And Bartimaeus says one thing, I want to recover my sight. And here's this beautiful moment. Jesus heals him. Verse 52 and says, go your way, your faith has made you well. Now that the phrase made you well is translated from a word sodzo, which means saved. You have been saved. Your faith has made you well. You trust in me. Jesus recognizes this trust. The physical is pointing to the eternal. It's not so much about where he recovered his sight, but it's now what he spiritually sees who Jesus is. And here's the beautiful moment. Jesus tells Bartimaeus, look in verse 52, right? It's the last verse. Jesus tells Bartimaeus, right? Because his faith has made him well, Jesus says, go your own way. What happens in the very last words? Bartimaeus does not go his own way. What does he do? He followed Jesus on the way. If you've ever recognized that Jesus changed your life, why would you chase after or follow anything else? Wouldn't you want to join him with Jesus and his church and follow Jesus on the way? What else makes sense of life? What else could you possibly live for? What else could you possibly love and follow that has that kind of power, that kind of glory, that kind of mercy, love? Friends, what do you want Jesus to do for you? We could list a number of things, I'm sure. If you do have real needs, that's why we have multiple elders who shepherd this congregation. Come and talk with Ryan or Cam or myself, and we will pray with you this morning. What do you want Jesus to do for you? This little mini-series in Mark chapters 8-10 is bookended by two men, two blind men. One at the beginning of the mini-series is the blind man from Bethsaida where Jesus recovered his sight and now we've got Bartimaeus son of Timaeus at the end. Now why would Mark write Bartimaeus son of Timaeus? Why? Because anyone reading this as first readers, as a circulator among the churches, goes, yeah, we know Timaeus. We know Bartimaeus. They're in the church. They're members of the church. Their lives got changed by Jesus. And so they turned to him and followed him and joined the church so that others could too. We know them. That's why. Because when this biography of Jesus was written, the beautiful thing is you could meet people. You could meet Bartimaeus. Now we don't have Bartimaeus with us today for obvious reasons. And we'll get to meet him in the new heavens, new earth, for obvious reasons. But look around you. There are people, brother of, sister of, in Christ of, that have had their lives changed by Jesus. Because we have all received mercy. Because anyone can be like Bartimaeus. No pretense, no show, just a person asking Jesus for help. That's it. We can all be that person. What do you want Jesus to do for you? For us this morning, as we meet Jesus, get to know Jesus, as we see him go to Jerusalem, see that he goes to Jerusalem for you. What's on Jesus' mind as he goes to Jerusalem? You, you are. The one the scriptures tell us that since before the beginning of the ages, he had in his mind to rescue the church, his people, to drink the cup, to take the wrath, you're on his mind. He goes to Jerusalem for you. Jesus' glory on the cross is so that he can have mercy on us. Do you see we don't have to face a cup of God's wrath? Do you see that when we get baptized, we identify with Jesus, but we're not saying that we're receiving the judgment because he got baptized with that judgment for us. Of all the things in the world you could possibly want Jesus to do for you, isn't top of the priority is that he gives you mercy? These words of Bartimaeus, you can say them. I want mercy, Jesus. I need mercy. Whatever it is for you in this last week, whatever it is in life, it might be mercy and forgiveness. It might be mercy and help in something you are facing. It might be mercy in the situation you cannot see yourself out of. It might be mercy in a relationship crisis or something that you just like, I can't fix this, but you can call out for mercy and help to the one who can. He is able when you are not. He is able. and just admitting that you are not able, that's called starting to pray. That's what prayer is. Prayer is admitting, I can't do, I'm not able, help me, Jesus. Look at those words in verse 49. There's words Bartimaeus heard, we can hear them now. Jesus is saying to you right now by his word, take heart, get up, he's calling you. He's calling you. We're all spiritually blind beggars. We're not able to get through the day without Jesus, let alone face judgment day without Jesus. We're not able to get through life and understand it without Jesus. We're not able to spiritually see without Jesus. But we're able to say this, I'm not able. Help me, Jesus. Have mercy on me, Jesus. Whatever your need is, you can go to Jesus. And Jesus calls us, speaks to us tenderly like he spoke to James and John tenderly, gave them mercy too. But just like them, just like Bartimaeus, you can receive mercy from Jesus or he will never turn you away and you get to join in following him on the way. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we would be yours alone. And so live that all might see, the strength to follow your commands could never come from us. Father, use our ransomed lives, use reforming church in any way you would choose, that our song forever would be, and our only boast is you. We pray in the glorious name of Jesus. Amen.