Sermon Transcript
August 23, 2026
All right, we are in Luke 18:35–43. And if you are a first-time visitor to our church, we follow a little note thing on the back—I mean, a sermon leaflet inside of your bulletin. You will see that that’s to help encourage you to stay on track and not get distracted during the sermon. So, let’s stand and read, since the slide’s already there. We’ll stand and read Luke 18:35–43.
As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing a crowd passing by, he inquired what was happening. “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by,” they told him. So he called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Then those in front told him to keep 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. When he came closer, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord,” he said, “I want to see.” “Receive your sight,” Jesus told him. “Your faith has saved you.” Instantly he could see, and he began to follow him, glorifying God. All the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. (CSB)
This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Father, I thank You so much that You have given us this opportunity to see You in your word today. I pray that You would open up our minds and our hearts and our ears to see and hear the things that we need to see and hear. Please open our eyes to see that Jesus is the Son of David Whom not just the Jewish people have hoped for, not just the people of the Middle East, but also the people of America and Japan have hoped for. I pray that You would open our eyes so that we could be shameless in our desperation to call out to the Lord Jesus for help. Be with us today as we seek to do that. In your name we pray. Amen.
So, when Madeleine was about two years old, she was dying. We took her to the doctor, and the doctors didn’t know what was happening to her. Stephanie and I got to the point where we were just like, all of the etiquette that you normally have with doctors—where you try to speak real nice, and you try not to step on toes and tell the doctor how to do his job—yeah, that went out the door. It got to a point where we got so sick and tired of hearing “we don’t know” and watching them just move their feet so slowly, as though they lived in a puddle of molasses.
We eventually told them, “No, this is what you’re going to do: you’re going to run these tests. And you might think that Dr. Google’s a little bit crazy, but I’m telling you, what we want is this, we want this, we want this.” All the etiquette of not telling a doctor what to do went out the door when it became our daughter. We told them what tests to run and who they were going to send referrals to. We went and talked to these doctors, and they were like, “It’s not going to do anything. I’m telling you, it’s not.” “I don’t care. I want the test. Give us the test.” And we were glad that we did, because it was the test we requested that revealed exactly what was wrong with Madeleine.
There are times in your life where you must let your desperation for help from God drive you to do and say exactly what must be done. Too many Christians are so afraid to be seen saying that Jesus is their Lord and King that we keep quiet because the world, just like the crowd around the blind man, will tell us, “Be quiet. That’s not good etiquette.”
The main point of today’s sermon is: we must grab a hold of Jesus with a shameless faith—a faith that says He is the King of the universe with compassion for the wounded.
Now, with that, I want to set the stage for our passage here. We are in Luke 18. In Luke 9:51, it says that He set His face towards Jerusalem. He is now headed towards Jerusalem because He has to do one thing: He has to die.
In Luke 13:33, Jesus says:
Yet it is necessary that I travel today, tomorrow, and the next day, because it is not possible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (CSB)
This tells us something very important. We have a Savior Who is on the scene Who is trying to save a people who don’t know Who He is. They are blind to Him. And He’s coming up on the city of Jericho. But I want you to know this is not the same Jericho that we read about in the book of Joshua. This is actually a wealthier city that had a lot of money and well-to-do people, and it was about 17 miles outside of Jerusalem.
And Jesus is stepping onto the scene, and He’s here because He’s getting closer to Jerusalem. And this blind man cries out. What this blind man does is exactly what we must do when we hit those points of trial and temptation in our life.
Grow Deaf to the World’s Megaphone About Your Status and Identity
So the first point I want you to grab a hold of is: we must grow deaf to the world’s megaphone about your status and identity.
The world is going to tell you what you mean to the world and what you mean to God. The world is going to tell you who you are, and they’re going to do it with a megaphone. They’re going to scream louder than you can scream, and they’re going to tell you, “Don’t do that. Do not call out to Jesus out loud. Play your part and remember who you are, you scum, and stay quiet.”
That’s a megaphone I want you to take, and I want you to blow it up. Find your biggest piece of dynamite, stick it in there, and light that sucker up! That megaphone must not play a role in your head. Silence it. Grow deaf to it.
This man was a blind beggar. That means that he was a second-rate citizen. We know that because of Luke 14:15–24. We see how they treat the blind. In this parable that Jesus is telling, He reveals what they thought of the blind. They put them in the same category as the poor, the maimed, and the lame. The blind were lumped in with them; they were the street beggars that nobody wanted to talk to.
In John 9, there’s this funny situation where Jesus is approached by the religious elite, and they have a blind man standing there. And so they ask Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” (John 9:2). They would see the blind and immediately think somebody messed up somewhere along the way. For them, seeing a blind man brought the assumption that this man was a wretched sinner, and therefore, he didn’t deserve help or the presence of Jesus.
This obviously means that they don’t understand Who Jesus is at all, because it’s the blind, the poor, and the wretched that need Him the most. But you see, what’s great about Jesus is He loves the blind. In Luke 14, He tells people when you hold a banquet and a party, invite the blind over (v 13). Stop trying to invite the well-to-do of society, the people who have all the things that you covet or the status that you desire. Invite the lame. Invite the blind. Jesus loves them.
This man disregards the megaphone entirely. The megaphone that is telling this blind man, “Hey, you are a second-class citizen,” he tells to shut up simply by ignoring it.
How often do you want to say things at family dinners? You have a family member that’s doing something you know is wrong, and you have the keys that can get them out of that darkness. But because societal pressure tells you, “Shh,” you keep quiet. Is the Spirit telling you something different? Do you feel the tug of God’s holy presence within you telling you, “No, open your mouth”? Then do it. Do not let the world inspire your actions as a believer. Instead, let this blind man be your example.
Interrogate Your Informants: Who Is Informing What You Know About Jesus?
I want you to not only be courageous to grow deaf to the megaphone, but I also want you to interrogate your informants. That’s the next point: Interrogate your informants. You must ask yourself, who is informing what you know about Jesus?
This blind man, when He is on the scene, you notice what these people tell him about Who is coming. Who do they tell this blind man is coming? They say, “Jesus of…” where? “Nazareth.” But how does the blind man respond when they say it’s Jesus of Nazareth coming?
Imagine being the blind man sitting by the road begging for help and money, and you hear this commotion. You don’t know what’s going on. That’s exactly what this man is hearing. He’s hearing whispers and rumors, the shuffling of feet, the rocks moving underneath their sandals. And he wants to know, “What is this roar about?” And they say it’s Jesus of Nazareth.
Does the blind man go, “Jesus of Nazareth”? He doesn’t. He says something entirely different. This man calls out Jesus, not by what they tell him this Jesus is. This man calls out to Jesus based on what his faith is telling him Who Jesus is. He doesn’t say, “Jesus of Nazareth.” He says, “Son of David.” And that’s very important.
We must be careful on whom we let tell us Who Jesus is. We must not be like everyone else. They’re going to tell you Jesus is a good teacher. They’re going to tell you that Jesus is a prophet. But the scariest part is they’re going to tell you He is only a good teacher and only a good prophet. This is a lie, and we must have the vision of the blind man to know the difference.
The Blind Man Uses the Title of the Scriptures
How did this man have this? This man did not let the world tell him Who Jesus is. He made up his mind to call Jesus by the title of the Scriptures. This man made up his mind long ago Who this Jesus was.
It’s very similar to if I’m sitting by the road, and I’m hungry, and I’m destitute, and I’m blind, and I hear a Mormon tell me, “It’s the brother of Satan.” This is what the Mormons believe—that Jesus is the blood brother of Satan, of Lucifer. And I’m sitting there, and they say, “It’s the brother of Lucifer coming.” Yes, I know they’re using the same vocabulary. They’re saying the name Jesus, but I’m deciding in my head not to see Jesus the same way the Mormons see Jesus. I know what they’re saying, but I’m going to translate that based on what my faith is telling me. And my faith says this is the Jesus of the Scriptures, not the Mormon Jesus.
So you must also interrogate who your informants are. Who are they telling you Jesus is? Know deep down what they truly believe, and ask yourself, does that line up with the Bible?
Thank goodness the blind man does that, because he calls Him the “Son of David.” And he had heard the stories of Jesus; he knew Who this Jesus was. How did he know Who the Son of David was? He knew the Scriptures. The Bible does not tell us how a blind man knows the Scriptures. I don’t know, but it would have been a miracle for a blind man to know anything about the Son of David unless maybe he became blind later in life. It would take a great miracle for a blind man to have good friends that would carry him to the synagogue every week. Nobody had parchments or scrolls underneath their armpits as they went about their daily marketplace visits to read them on their own. There was no such thing as a personal Bible. So, it would have been a miracle just the fact that this man knew Who the Son of David was in the Scriptures.
But he knew something, because he knew that the stories he was hearing about Jesus healing people pointed to only one thing: this was the long-awaited Son of David.
The interesting thing is that Luke is contrasting, ironically, his own disciples from this blind man. In Luke 10:23–24, Jesus tells His disciples, “You are blessed spiritually. You have privileged vision to see and hear the things that others can’t.” He tells them:
“Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the things you see but didn’t see them; to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them.” (Luke 10:23–24, CSB)
All too often we think that seeing is believing, and it’s a load of crock.
I had the beautiful privilege of sharing Jesus with one of our neighbors here in the neighborhood. She came to my office to ask about something that was happening next door. There was a lot of smoke, and she wanted to drive over here and make sure our church wasn’t on fire. So I started talking to her and asking her about Jesus and what she believed. And no, she was not a Christian. She was not a believer in anything; she was pretty much an atheist.
So I gave her my favorite book from when I became a Christian. It’s called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. She chuckled at the title because atheists don’t need faith, and the book makes the point that actually you do. But anyway, I lent the book to her, and a few weeks go by. She comes back, and she leaves a letter in the book outside the church. I guess she didn’t want to talk to me.
She said, “Thanks for the loan. It made me chuckle.” She said, “But this is a book that is a mental conviction, and I don’t need mental conviction through argumentation. I need something else.” She says, “It will take a serious, obvious, God-only miracle in front of my eyes. No coincidences. Someone will need to levitate because I asked God to do it in that moment.”
She has bought the lie that seeing is believing. These disciples saw Who Jesus was, and they still didn’t get that He was the Son of David.
The rich man in the parable in Luke 16:19–31 dies and has to go to the place of fire, while the poor man, Lazarus, dies and gets to go be with Father Abraham in heaven where he is comforted. But the rich man suffers, and he’s pleading for mercy. He says, “Just touch your finger in water and touch my tongue to give me momentary relief.” Abraham denies that. And then the rich man pleads. He says, “Well, please just send Lazarus, or someone else, to go try and warn my family that there is judgment after death. If they see a dead man raised from the dead, surely they will believe.”
And Abraham says in the parable, if they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets—that is, the Old Testament—if they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead (v 31).
Jesus knows full well that the heart of a human is so broken and so dark that, no, seeing a man rise from the dead is still not enough to convince you. What you need is the gift of vision that goes beyond your eyes. That’s what this blind man had.
Old Testament Promises of the Son of David
So what did this blind man see that we don’t naturally? In Genesis 3, man forfeits his co-regency, his power to rule as king alongside God on earth. God made us co-regents. We were here to take care of the earth and to steward God’s creation as His emissaries on earth. And we handed that over to Satan when we decided to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We gave God the middle finger and said, “I don’t want this. I want to be You instead.”
So immediately, in verse 15 of the same chapter, God pronounces a curse on man. He pronounces a curse on the enemy, and then He says to the woman that her Seed will one day crush the head of the serpent (v 15). That sets the stage for the entire Old Testament. Every chapter you read in the Old Testament, you go, “When will we get the Seed of the woman?”
In Genesis 49, God promises a Ruler that’s going to come from the Jewish tribe of Judah, and He will be called the Lion of Judah, and the scepter as King will never depart from His hands (v 10). So, as the chapters of the Old Testament progress, you go, “Is this the Seed of the woman? Is this the Lion of Judah?”
In 2 Samuel 7, we get to the promise that God gives to David through the prophet Samuel. He says:
When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son…Your house and kingdom will endure before me forever, and your throne will be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:12–16, CSB)
The promise given to David is that there will be a King Who will be the Son of God, Who will rule and reign forever. This has been the heart of every human since we gave God the middle finger in the Garden of Eden. We have all longed and hoped that there would be a righteous King from God Who will shepherd us in righteousness and justice and peace.
And that’s exactly what we get when we get to the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 7, we see that this virgin will give birth to a boy (v 14). And in Isaiah 9, this boy will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, and He will sit on the throne of David (v 6). He picks up the promise given to David, and He’s carrying it.
He’s giving us more details in Isaiah 11. This Branch Who is from David, He will be full of the Spirit of God. He will judge the poor and oppressed righteously. He will have the power to judge the wicked. And as a result, this King from David will found a new creation of absolute peace between all creatures on earth, and the nations will look to the King of David for guidance (v 1–10).
Jeremiah picks up the promise to David, and he says in Jeremiah 23:5–6:
“Look, the days are coming”—this is the LORD’s declaration—
“when I will raise up a Righteous Branch for David.
He will reign wisely as king
and administer justice and righteousness in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved,
and Israel will dwell securely.
This is the name he will be called:
The LORD Is Our Righteousness.
(Jeremiah 23:5–6, CSB)
In Jeremiah 33, it says, “I will cause a righteous Branch to sprout up for David.” He’s looking for a King from David, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land. David will never fail to have a man sitting on the throne of the house of Israel (v 15–17). And that was given to a people in exile. Their nation was being obliterated, and they were taken from their homeland. When the world seems bleakest and darkest at its peak, Jeremiah says there will be a King from David.
And then Ezekiel—our sister read for us this morning the promise that David will never cease to have a descendant, and He will be the Shepherd of God’s people forever (Ezek 34:23).
In Hosea 3:4–5, we’re continuing on through the Old Testament. There is a prophecy in v 4–5 and in Amos 9:11–12. They both prophesy a day when David will rule over His people again. And guess when that is? It’s promised to a people who are in exile (i.e., the belong to the Twelve Minor Prophets which was likely composed into a singular work during the post-exilic period).
Zechariah 6:12–13 says, “The Lord’s anointed will be called Branch,” picking up language from Isaiah and Jeremiah, “and He will be the Priest on God’s throne” (v 12–13).
The book of Hebrews picks up on this, and I’m going to give you a cliffhanger for a reason—I want you to be there on Wednesday nights!
But the book of Psalms then picks up this idea. In Psalm 2, it says that God will have a Son, and the rod of discipline will be in His hands, and He will discipline the nations (v 7–9). And in Psalm 89, the psalmist recounts the Lord’s covenant with David that He will always have someone ruling on the throne forever (v 3–4).
So when the blind man says, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” he has the King of the Old Testament Who is promised to a people who were beaten, bruised, battered, and who feel neglected and forgotten. And this man knows that God is faithful, and there is a King from David that He had not forgotten about. He knew that this man whom the crowd calls “Jesus of Nazareth” is the long-awaited King from God Who is making the world new. This is the long-awaited Messiah.
So interrogate your informants when they tell you Who Jesus is. Know Who Jesus is from this book alone (i.e., the Bible), because this will give you the sight that even those with the best vision do not have.
The Blind Man Sees Jesus as Compassionate
But the fact that this blind man is able to call out to Jesus means that this man understands that Jesus is compassionate. So the next subpoint: The blind man sees Jesus as compassionate. This is why he says, “Have mercy on me.” He shouts the Greek verb eleeo, which means to have mercy or compassion.
He understands, even though he can’t see Jesus. He just knows the stories that he’s heard about Jesus. He knows that Jesus is One Who has compassion. And Jesus is the same God as the God of the Old Testament.
So I want to correct, if you have this view, that the God of the Old Testament is vindictive, rude, mean, and a warmonger. I want you to remember Jonah. God tells Jonah, “Get up and go tell the Ninevites, your wretched enemy, that I’m about to destroy them.” And Jonah says, “I don’t want to go tell them because I know that You’re a God of compassion and mercy. And if I tell them Yahweh is about to obliterate you, they will repent. And when they repent, You’re going to forgive them. And I don’t want that. I want my enemies to die.” (Jon 4:2).
We laugh. But how often do you feel this way about your enemies? I know I struggle.
So, fast forward to Jonah 4. Jonah is sitting there after he preaches to Nineveh, and he’s just sitting there to wait to see their forgiveness to come. He doesn’t want it. So God sprouts up a plant. While Jonah is sitting there wallowing in all of his self-pity, a plant sprouts up to give Jonah shade. Because we are talking about the Middle East, it’s hot. So a plant sprouts up and gives him shade. Jonah’s… well, he’s still a curmudgeon. He wakes up, and the plant’s dead. Now he’s basking in the heat, and he’s mad at God all over again.
And God tells him in v 10–11:
And the Lord said, “You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. So may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?” (Jonah 4:10–11, CSB)
The Lord of the Old Testament has compassion on His enemies. And this blind man knows it. He knows that the Son of David has compassion on him.
Grab Jesus Desperately Without a Care to Anyone Else
So we must do what this blind man does and grab a hold of Him without shame. Grab Jesus desperately without a care for anyone else. We must stop caring what other people think.
Showcase Your Salvation with Shouts of Praise
When He answers your prayer, showcase your salvation with shouts of praise. That’s how this man responds. Instantly, the man could see. And what does he do? He begins to follow Jesus, glorifying God, and as a result, everyone who saw it begins to give God praise, too.
First of all, it takes a shamelessness to access the power of God. If you want God’s power in your life, do not be afraid to look like a fool to the world. Call on Jesus without shame. And when He answers, keep the shame away and call out to Him in praise and glory before all of man.
Again, we must not be like the nine lepers. In the Gospel of Luke, in Luke 17:11–19, we see ten lepers who are healed. And guess how many of those ten lepers come back to Jesus to give Him thanks? One. Jesus says, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” (v 17). Christians, we are blessed tremendously day in and day out. Do not be like the nine ungrateful lepers who were healed.
So, how do you praise God? It’s very simple. I love the Psalms because the Psalms illustrate for us how you praise God. You praise God by beginning to list out everything He’s done for you: “And guess what, Lord? You brought the sun up. What a miracle! Lord, I have heat today. The air conditioning works. Thank You. I have food. I have a job. I have a wife and kids.” Everyone who is breathing has a reason to praise the Lord. Just tell Him what He’s done for you, and then end it with thanks.
Conclusion
For hundreds of years, do you know what the number one religion was in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Africa, and Turkey? Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey… do you know what the number one religion was? Somebody shout it. Islam? No. Christianity. The number one religion for hundreds of years was Christianity. If you looked at those countries today, you would have no clue that Jesus was the number one God in those regions.
The Muslims that slaughtered Christians from the 7th to the 15th centuries followed the same religious book that Muslims today follow. The same source of inspiration that obliterated Christianity from the Middle East is the same source of inspiration that these Muslims are moving to America with. If this trend continues, it is inevitable that Islam will do to the West what it did to Arabia and the Middle East.
The time when you will be tested, whether you will be full of shame to call out to Jesus, is coming. I want you to not be afraid to not only call out to Jesus like this blind man when you need help, but also when your nation needs help and when your family needs help. I want you to see Jesus as the answer in every facet and to be bold and proclaim it. Jesus is the answer.
There is a time of suffering coming to this country, and you will be tested. The question is: Will you be ready? Let’s go to the Father.
Lord, You are our King. Jesus, You are the answer. And we thank You for being the God that loves us enough to be born from the lineage of David, to sit on the throne and reign forever. We look eagerly forward to your return to right all the wrongs in the world and to put our enemies at bay.
I pray that, for now, You would giv