By his faith Bartimaeus is removed from the anonymity of the crowd

I want to start a series of meditations on characters who stand out in the Word for being persistent people, committed people, violent people in the Spirit; determined people, defined people, clear people, radical people. And we are going to see how those characteristics of these individuals snatched grace from the Lord. And saying to snatch grace from the Lord sounds like a violation of the dignity of the Lord but it is not like that, the Lord likes from time to time that one puts him in trouble so to speak.

And He likes it because when we show the Lord that we are sufficiently committed to Him and that we believe enough to be aggressive, that pleases the Lord, far from offending Him, it pleases Him. This Bartimaeus character is like that, he is a violent being in the good sense of the word, brave. Do you remember that verse that says that the Kingdom of Heaven grows strong and the mighty take it by force?

The brave, that word that is translated into Spanish can be translated: the hard-working, the brave, the dynamic, the entrepreneurs, the militants, the radicals snatch the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is rough, you know that? The concept of the Kingdom of God and this already enters my sermon because you are already familiar with this text but I am going to develop it, the concept of "Kingdom of God" in the New Testament has a connotation of war and militancy.

The Kingdom of God is opposed to what? to the kingdom of darkness. And when it speaks of the Kingdom of God in the Bible it refers to an entity, almost in a sense a government that comes to Earth to repossess something that has been taken from it, not from God in an ultimate sense but from us perhaps through the forces of the devil, of hell. This world is occupied by an illegitimate power that is the power of hell and Christ comes to the world to snatch that illegitimate power from Satan. That is why the Bible paradoxically calls Satan the Prince of this world because Satan rules over this world but he is an occupier, he is an illegitimate force that has taken over this world by violence and deceit, because a humanity to whom God gave this world has been handed over to them through their sin and their rebellion.

So Christ comes into the world to snatch that power from Satan, amen? and we His Church are the element that He has left here for us to make war in His Name. That is why a neutral understanding of the Gospel, a com-administrative understanding of the Gospel does not do justice to what the Gospel is. The Gospel by nature is war, the Gospel by nature is conflict. The Church is an institution of war that God has left here to evangelize, to defeat demons, to inform principalities and powers that Christ is Lord to undo the glories of the devil.

What does the Bible say? It says that: "For this the Son of God was manifested" for what? "to undo the works of the devil." You see, every time one sees Christ, he sees him in conflict with something: in conflict with the Pharisees, in conflict with the Roman Empire, in conflict with demons, in conflict with disease, it is always because the Gospel is contrary to everything the world represents.

So when the Bible says that the Kingdom of God becomes strong, the idea in the original Greek is as if it said, sorry, the Kingdom of God proceeds with violence is the idea, it proceeds with force, it proceeds against something; proceeds forcefully, proceeds harshly is the idea. Because the Gospel, an image of an icebreaker comes to me right now, one of those ships that have a V-shaped steel prow that is used in the arctic to cross ice in the sea when it is frozen and that ship has that part of the front which is called the well-sharpened prow and of solid steel and moves forcefully, you can see the ice break and fly; wherever the ship goes, the ice breaks up in front of it and falls to the side. That is the idea of the Kingdom of God here on Earth, it proceeds that way.

Or if you want to see it in another way, less so, I think even more precise: it's like those big ice floes, those icebergs, those great masses of ice that geologists tell us that move an inch every 10 years or so. 100 years old but they are absolutely irresistible and where do the mountains and canyons come from, the Grand Canyon for example there in Colorado and all those geological formations?

We were now, for example, in Arcadia National Park, a very large national park that is here about 5 hours north and there are some big mountains around. All this park was created by huge ice floes, gigantic masses of ice that when moving were pushing the earth, they were scraping the earth and throwing it forward like a gigantic shovel and that is what creates the mountains and the formations of the cape surface of the earth; powerful mass movements that displace everything in front of them and around them, as they expand everything has to give way and that's why cavities and holes and mountains and all these things are created.

The Kingdom of God is something like that in history. The Kingdom of God has taken 2,000 years since Christ came and it is advancing little by little but it is pushing everything that resists: the devil, hell, the nations, the rebellion of man and we are part of that invasive warrior force you understand? That is why the Gospel celebrates these desperate characters like Bartimaeus. Let me read here for a moment now, I am going to continue with this idea because if I leave in your heart only one idea of being radical for the Lord and of knowing what you want and pursuing it with the focus of an icebreaker, I have already reached my goal. goal for today.

Verse 46 Mark 10 says: "Then they came to Jericho and as he and his disciples and a great crowd left Jericho, Bartimaeus the blind son of Timaeus was sitting by the road begging." Look at something interesting for a moment, right? It says: "And when he and his disciples and a great crowd left Jericho, Bartimaeus the blind." I think there is something interesting here and it is that there is a crowd, there are many people, disciples, there is a great mass of people. But in the midst of that great crowd at the moment one character stands out: Bartimaeus.

At the moment Bartimaeus is taken from the anonymity of the crowd and the text highlights it. The panoramic camera does so and focuses on the face of a single man who for the moment takes on total dimension and solidity and stands out from the crowd. And that is something that I see many times in the Scriptures and that is that the Lord was always surrounded by crowds but there was something many times, there was a quality in someone that for the moment isolated him from the crowd and made him attract the Lord's attention to that person.

Like right now: now there's quite a large group of people here and one could say: well sometimes we get into a herd mentality and get lost in the crowd. Look: by your faith you can reach the Lord directly with your need depending on how your heart is. There can be a thousand people praising the Lord but if in your heart there is a quality of desperate praise your worship the Lord hears it and sees it as if you were the only one who is worshiping him at that moment. And the Lord is capable of doing that with the thousand people that are in this place or with the billions of people that are on Earth.

What distinguishes us is that quality of faith that Bartimaeus had. The Grace of the Lord can reach everyone in a generic way, but many times the Grace of the Lord reaches a person in a specific way through the faith that is in that person. When we come to the House of the Lord, ultimately coming to the House of God in itself gives blessing. We receive the Word of God, we rejoice in the company of our brothers, we are inspired by listening to noble, good and eternal principles, amen, but you know what? there are people who leave the Church with a gift in their hands that comes directly from the mouth of God.

A healing, a Word of liberation, a revelation that came to his mind, a solution to a problem, a declaration from the mouth of God: I have a part in your business, in your important situation and I am going to act. There are people who leave the Church with a spoil in their hands because they fought as necessary, others leave blessed, amen! because they were in the House of the Lord but when I come to the House of the Lord, when I come to the Kingdom of God I do not come to receive a generic blessing; I want to possess the land, I want to receive what God has for me. I need provision for my need, it's not that I'm selfish, it's that this is how God likes things to be. According to your faith it will be done to you says the Word of the Lord.

I always say: look, salvation is free but the blessings within the blessing depend on you and your heart and your effort and your faith and what you give to the Lord and what you invest in the Lord. We will all be saved in Christ Jesus, but some of us will arrive smelling of smoke almost burning ourselves, others will arrive strong in the Spirit, joyful with a frank welcome from the Lord: come, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over little, I will place you over much. And to others they will say: oh well what's left, get in, come in! I want to be one of those who already has a procession receiving me with a trumpet and everything.

Bartimaeus is like that, right? there is a crowd around him. There are other people look at the woman with the issue of blood of which we have spoken, a whole crowd around and this woman surreptitiously, secretly, illegitimately in a sense touches the hem of the Lord's mantle and the Lord feels a shock and says: who? I touch myself? and the clumsy and rude disciples as they are in their spiritual understanding say: but Lord, how could I touch you if there are hundreds of people around you? No, someone touched me.

A woman with faith, a desperate woman. A woman who had nothing to lose, she didn't care, she didn't care what people thought about her, if they were going to arrest her because she was going against Judaic law, she had a need and she came to Jesus and He said: today is the day of my healing, today I do not leave without receiving what I came to look for and the Lord distinguishes that.

It is that sometimes we do not understand the nature of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes we believe: well, the Lord is sitting up there and He listens, He is merciful and has Grace. Look, the Kingdom of God is very specific, brother. You are going to receive according to what you give, you are going to experience the Glory of God according to your commitment to God. That is why the apostle Santiago says, right? when he says for example: "If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God who gives abundantly and without reproach" that is the generic word, right? God's nature is to give but he says: ask in faith, not doubting.

But that's where the conditions come from. It's what I say, right? Salvation is for everyone by grace, free and even that is not free it cost Jesus a lot but James says: "But ask by faith not doubting because he who doubts is like the" how do you say like the waters of the sea, like the waves that are moved from one side to the other? says: "The double-minded man" says: ouch and you sister are also included, don't believe me (laughs), "the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" says "do not expect to receive anything from the Lord" the have that kind of attitude essentially.

The Gospel is like that, you have to. There are many people in the Church and it is one of the things that I want to bring to your mind again through these messages, these are not times for you to be a double minded person. If you eat only once a week you will have problems at work and everywhere, the same happens with the Kingdom of God. If you only, excuse me I hope you love me at the end of yet but if you only come to Church and eat only on Sunday morning you will be weak.

These are dangerous times brothers. I believe that these are the times to which the Word of the Lord was referring when Christ said that those times would be shortened because otherwise the chosen ones would not be saved. The level of deception that has been unleashed on this world today I do not believe has ever existed in all of history. The dangers that today harass the children of God to maintain a healthy and biblical life in these times are of unusual proportions and only people with a very robust spiritual mentality, nourished by the Word of the Lord and with a clear commitment to be faithful. to the Lord, rain, shine or wind, I believe that they will survive these times.

I believe that this is why the Lord always haunts me with those mysterious words of the Lord: "When the Son of Man returns to earth he will find faith" because I see how the structure of the Church is crumbling in these times. Even those of us evangelicals who pride ourselves on being faithful to the Word are playing with the Word. That is why my desire and my commitment as a Pastor is to generate in us the faith of Bartimaeus; a militant faith, a radical faith. People who don't say: no, I don't need to go to Church so much, that for the fanatics, once a week is more than fine and that the Pastor preaches too long in any case.

Some come in the middle of worship because: oh okay, 15 minutes is enough, how about 35 minutes here but go see the movies that take 3 hours and how many times a week, right? but to give God 3 hours wow we are stingy with God. But I believe that robust people are needed who can gain 3 dimensions before the Presence of the Lord, people who know how to snatch his miracles, people who know how to go before the Throne of God, present their needs and leave there with their package under the arm because they have received there what they needed.

Brothers, if you depend on the Pastor to receive his blessing, I am afraid that you are leaning on a very fragile reed, you know? I hardly have enough strength for what I need, imagine if you lean on me, learn how to climb the bush and look for your own food brother, how to eat your own fruit of the Kingdom of God. Sit with your Bible at home and open it up and jump into that bottomless sea and dive in, and catch a few fish every time you get into the Word of the Lord and eat right out of the Word. If you eat from here you are eating canned food sincerely because: look first at the Bible, then a few comments, then the Pastor, then I preach it and when it reaches you the nutrients are very few left. Go directly to the Word of the Lord, kill your own meat and eat it directly brother.

Eat directly, take time to be before the Lord, fight your battles and have your own medals, don't wear little plastic medals bought there at Wallgreen's, no, real medals that you obtained by fighting with the scars of your own battles when you were wounded and you fell and moved on and saw the Glory of God, those are the children of God who deserve to inspire this world and be used by God.

Bartimaeus exemplifies that is a warrior man. Then it says that the Lord, his disciples and the crowd were there but there was a man: Bartimaeus the blind. Another interesting thing, perhaps I am going to have to stay in that verse only. Know what? there is another passage, it was the first time I saw this, that is why it is important to get into the Bible thoroughly. Matthew 20:29 to 34 I am not going to ask you to look it up right now but write it down if you want, it seems that there were two blind men, it was not just one because if you read Matthew 20:29 to 34 it is an almost exactly the same story but with two blind not one and that happens sometimes.

I'm not going to get into all the intricacies of textual interpretation and how the stories got into the Bible, there are people who take care of that and I'm going to leave it to them. But Mateo presents us with a story, a more comprehensive version of the event that includes two blind men and one, it was not another, another similar situation. No, I think there are so many similarities between the two texts that it seems impossible that there were not two, but interestingly Marcos chooses only one and tells us about the nature of the event; there is no contradiction in fact, everything that the other text of Matthew says is the same as that of Mark in terms of the biblical principles involved, what Christ does, the relationship.

But it seems that Bartimaeus still distinguished himself among that select group of two blind men in a crowd, there was something in Bartimaeus that even separated him from the other one who was there and that is why Marcos chooses to focus on one, Bartimaeus because sometimes even within the most intimate circle there are differentiations of the Grace of God manifesting itself in a life. We sometimes paint with colors red, white, black, yellow and that's it. Look: the Kingdom of God has nuances upon nuances and there are more subtle and more powerful spiritualities, it depends on your effort, it depends on your heart, it depends on the level at which your life and the texture of your character, your love for the Lord attracts you the Grace of God.

God is an incredible wine taster and He can distinguish between one soul and another, subtle things of purity, dedication, clarity, definition, willingness to sacrifice, to give, to go beyond; the Lord distinguishes the smallest movements of the human soul. I always live my life believing that God knows every nuance, every nuance of my thoughts and my most subtle feelings the Lord distinguishes them.

The Word says that there is nothing that the Lord cannot distinguish about the living and effective Word discerns, divides the claims of the heart, of the mind. He says: there is nothing that is not revealed before His Word and before Him, so live your life that way.

So even here we see Bartimaeus turning away from the other blind man. He says he was sitting by the road begging. In his poverty and misery Bartimaeus is a representation of each one of us, our powerlessness, our problems, situations, difficulties, struggles, we are powerless, we are beggars like that. We all need a miracle from the Lord, there is something that binds us, there is a fight that exists. There is a battle that we have to win, there is something that bleeds us every day if you think about it, yes or no? and you need like Bartimaeus something that only Christ can provide.

And that is why you need prayer, fasting, sanctification, service, giving to the Lord, reading the Word, perfecting yourself in spiritual warfare, knowing the mysteries of the Kingdom of God because those are the weapons that you can use to get out of your human misery, we are all ultimately beggars, all of us like Bartimaeus are sitting by the side of the road waiting for a miracle and an intervention from God and what is going to make that intervention from God possible?

Verse 27 says: "And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out," no, it was not just any Pharisee passing by, it was not the rabbi of the day of the hour who had a radio or television program, he says: " Hearing that it was Jesus" the solutions of the world are in Christ I am convinced of that. It is not in the Virgin Mary with all that I respect her, it is not in the new Pope that we have, it is not in Pastor Miranda, it is not in León de Judá, it is in Christ Jesus. That is why we have to let people know that there is a sheriff here in Boston named Jesus and he is capable of solving the problems of drugs, gangs, misery, ignorance, injustice, of poverty.

Jesus, the Church has to announce to the Church so that they know: oh, oh Jesus! ok I'm going to where He is. Many people don't know that in Jesus there is power to transform lives. This community needs a warrior Christ, not the Christ there with the little lamb in his arms, all languid like a pop singer, not a Christ who is a warrior. I like to see Christ with a rod of authority in His Hand, with eyes of fire and a body of burnished bronze and a Voice that is like the noise of waves and seas, that is the Christ that I serve and that attracts me. my attention because that Christ is the one who is powerful to break all the evil of the enemy, undo the hosts of the devil, change your life, transform communities; change nations, change history. That Christ is sitting on His Throne and He reigns, and He wants people to come to Him.

When Bartimaeus knows that: ah, there he is, Jesus began to shout, he began to shout, a nice way of saying: he began to shout like a devil. He began to shout. I see that over and over again in the Gospel that we have to shout at the Lord not because He is deaf but because He likes us to be intense. A hasty prayer there while we eat a plate of Corn Flake does nothing I think, maybe God in His mercy will listen to it but God wants a person who sits down and girds his loins and shouts before Him.

Desperate people. People who say: give me this or I die, I need a miracle Lord, people who shout to the Lord. And you know what? the Lord is not going to be offended, he is not going to say: oh you are bothering me. The Lord likes it when we ask with an aching and bleeding heart. You have to learn to cultivate that place of despair. When I cry before the Lord I know that it does not come from me, it comes from God and He listens to my prayer, that is why I ask the Lord: Lord that I can cry before You, that I can cry out before You, that I I can feel the urgency of my need before You because I know that when I pour out my soul before You You hear my prayer, the heart that pours out before Your Presence.

Like Samuel's mother poured out her soul there in the temple and Eli a man who had lost his anointing thought she was drunk. When you are drunk with sadness and need and clamor and anguish that prayer, if you pour it out in front of your Heavenly Father, He will listen to it. Let us learn to be intense, let us learn to be desperate before the Lord, God is honored by the prayer of His People.

"And hearing that it was Jesus, he began to cry out, Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me." Know what? We have a table to celebrate this morning, there are many things that we could do, we are just entering the passage, maybe next Sunday we will continue with this passage, but this morning I think you already have good material to go home thinking about this Let it be a nurtured thought that stays in your heart like a cannonball that enters your life, take it in your hands.

God wants desperate and radical men and women through whom to do His work on Earth. People who say like Esther: if I perish, let me perish, tell my people to pray for me because I don't know if I'm going to get out of this alive but I have no other recourse, I'm going to move forward. Those are the people that God listens to.

You have a choice this morning, you can live your life as one more evangelical with your evangelical card or you can live your life with a sword in hand making your way through the weeds of this fallen world dressed every day in the armor of the Spirit over your life.

My brother, my sister in the Name of Jesus receive right now, if you want to lower your head to be more concentrated, God's challenge in your life; I want to bless you, I want to do miracles in your life, I want to make you a man, a woman that brings joy to My heart when I look at it, I want to turn you into a resource for My Kingdom and I want that while you serve Me you also eat from the table with which you serve others. I am not only going to use you, I am going to provide you and I am going to bless you while I use you because I want a well-fed servant. I do not use my children as slaves, there I take all the juice out of them and then I kick them and throw them into the ditch. I bless my children and while I use them I bless them and while I bless them I use them but I am not going to having trade with mediocre people tells you the Lord.

The lukewarm make me nauseous says the Lord look for it that is in the Word. Why don't you solve this at once? says the Lord. If you are going to serve Baal, serve him, but if you are going to serve Me, serve Me, do not be moving between two waters or two thoughts, or one thing or the other; define yourself and live your life completely determined to one thing or the other says the Lord. If you serve Me I am going to bless you, if you surrender to Me I am going to make sure that no demon from hell prevails over your life, I am going to take part in all your affairs and I am going to listen to your prayers and I am going to bless your Seed, but define yourself and make war and be like My Kingdom, which is violent and battle-hardened and harsh, and that is how I want My people to be in things of the Spirit.

So I declare upon you that spirit. If you want to receive it, receive it, if not, don't receive it because this is not a matter of inertia. If you want to enter into this pact with me then say: yes, Lord, I open my heart to the endowment of Your Power and Your Grace, I commit myself to You. If you dare to believe this and to receive this, raise your hand where you are, whether you are from the Church or not, raise your hand if you can't do it, please don't do it, okay? but it is a commitment that I am asking you to make right now with the Kingdom of God, with the purposes of the Kingdom of God. Don't be too decent to raise your hands if you know you have to raise your hands, don't be too fancy not to raise your hands either.

If you think you know what I'm asking, raise your hand, that's part of being a man, a woman who thinks in supernatural terms, these actions have meaning. I raise my two hands and even one foot also in the Name of the Lord.

Father: O Lord, let the cloud of Your Spirit fall over this Church at this moment, Father. Make us a crazy Church towards you Lord, a reckless Church in the things of the Kingdom of God, a Church exorbitantly committed to you Lord. Oh God in the Name of Jesus thanks we receive from You Lord, we receive Your Grace, we receive Your Grace hallelujah. I commit myself to you Lord, radical men and women, a radical Church Lord for Your Glory and Your honor, forgive us for being so pusillanimous Father and kill us and make us again according to Your image and likeness, according to Your specifications Lord. Thank you, we adore you and we bless you.