Faith, Healing, and the Pursuit of True Needs

This text begins ominously. In verse 31 as Jesus and his disciples had made their way south from Galilee and are now coming very close to Jerusalem, for the third time, Jesus talks to his disciples and tells them what is soon to take place. The message that he gives is a grim one and as I said, this is the third time he has told them these things, but they don't get it. They don't understand it or whatever they do understand about it, they don't believe. [00:00:10]

But Luke tells us, they understood none of these things for this saying was hidden from them and they did not know the things which were spoken. Now, there's something strange about this text, isn't it? Jesus tells them what's going to happen and Luke tells us they don't understand what he said and then Luke tells us the reason they didn't understand what Jesus has just told them was that it was kept from them. [00:02:09]

It was only after the scales were removed from the eyes of the disciples that they remembered these things. After the fact. "Yes, he said that he told us this. Three times, but we didn't get it." After this brief interlude of mentioning this third announcement that Jesus give, Luke goes on to describe the events as they come near Jericho. [00:03:36]

So hearing the multitude passing by, he asks someone what it meant. So they said to him, "Bartemaeus, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." Now you notice what Bartemaeus doesn't say, he doesn't say, "Who's that? Jesus of Nazareth, never heard of the fella." No, no, no. By this time, news of Jesus had spread across the whole country. [00:08:15]

You can imagine that in his darkness he would have his dream. "Someday, just someday maybe, Jesus of Nazareth will pass this way." The only hope this man had on this earth to receive his sight was rested in Jesus of Nazareth. He knew there was no cure, but he had heard the stories. And now the thunder of the rushing multitude coming nearby, he hears it. [00:08:55]

So he cried out just like the lepers had before that Luke told us about. He cried, he yelled, he screamed, "Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me!" When he starts screaming like that, he was upsetting everybody. The whole decorum of the place was ruined. And so those who went before Jesus warned him, said, "Shh, Hush. Be quiet. You're making a scene." [00:09:50]

Now, we have here at Saint Andrews, a philosophy of ministry and it's not the same philosophy that is found everywhere else. In fact, it's not the same philosophy of ministry that is the prevalent view of ministry today. We are totally committed to expository preaching from whole books of the Bible as we've following through the gospel of Luke and before that we did Matthew and Mark and John and Acts and Romans and so on. [00:13:16]

We depend upon what we call the Ordinary Means of Grace, the Sacraments of Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, of prayer, of fellowship, of witness, of mercy; but we are deeply committed to studying the things of God. Both in our sermons and in our adult Sunday School. Now that flies in the face of the whole current view of philosophy of ministry that we find all around us. [00:13:50]

If you've left because you know that you need your soul to be fed and your family to be prepared for eternal life with Jesus Christ, and you didn't feel you needed that, you need to go back there; because there's a distinction frequently between felt need and real needs. I had a pastor once say to me, "My goal as a preacher is to scratch them where they itch." [00:15:33]

I said, "But the people's greatest need is to find out who God is and how they can be reconciled to him. But they don't feel it all." I don't know how many people have said to me, "I don't feel the need for Jesus." I say to them, "There's nothing you need more in all of the universe than Jesus." You may be inured to the feeling of it, but feeling what you need is not always the same as understanding what you really need. [00:19:46]

If Jesus came to you and said, "What can I do for you?" You've had time to think about it. Do a little wool gathering, take a vacation from my sermon. But I invited you to do that. What would you say to him? Lord I lost my job, I need a new job. Lord, my marriage is in trouble. I need to be healed in my marriage. [00:20:37]

If Jesus has given to you what you need the most, then is it not the sensible thing to follow him and to glorify God? Let's pray. Father, give to us not what we feel we need, but what we really need. Your righteousness for our salvation. For we ask it in your name, Amen. [00:24:37]