Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We have been on vacation up in Michigan. Grateful for the time off. We have been breathing in the Canadian wildfire smoke.
[00:00:08] We got it all. Three days locked inside. It was awesome. So much fun. It was terrible, though, I'll tell you. But I'm grateful for the gift of time. We created many memories. I did everything I could to try to throw my kids off the tube out on Lake Michigan. It was great. But I come back and we have new lighting. What's going on? Half the ceiling is missing. This is crazy. It's exciting. If I had known these lights were so bright, I would have tried to tan my head a little bit more, just to look a little bit better.
[00:00:36] We're in a new series today that is not really a series at all.
[00:00:41] The next four weeks we're going to. Our teaching team has decided to look at a couple of scriptures, a few scriptures that we have found compelling, things that we feel we want to bring before our congregation. So. So today I want to take us to a moment in the ministry and the life of Jesus that has been stirring in me for roughly two years.
[00:01:00] It's kind of hard to share it because it's been so personal for me, these six verses or so, but I'm excited to do it. It's the story of a blind man who in some ways saw Jesus with more clarity than even his own disciples.
[00:01:15] So this is Mark, chapter 10. You can turn there with me. Mark, chapter 10, verse 46.
[00:01:20] Very poignant moment, an important moment in the life, the journey of Jesus, where he was going. This is Mark 10:46, it says. And they came to Jericho.
[00:01:34] And as Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.
[00:01:46] And when Bartimaeus heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
[00:01:57] And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.
[00:02:06] And Jesus stopped and said, call him.
[00:02:10] And they called the blind man, take heart, get up. He is calling you.
[00:02:16] And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, what do you want me to do for you?
[00:02:24] And the blind man said to him, rabbi, let me recover my sight.
[00:02:29] And Jesus said to him, go your way.
[00:02:33] Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.
[00:02:40] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:42] Thanks be to God. Let's pray.
[00:02:45] Jesus, this is Your word.
[00:02:48] May it teach us and show us. Holy Spirit, have your way in each one of us.
[00:02:52] Let us get out of this. Exactly what we need today so that we can love you more, receive you more and be changed by you.
[00:03:02] So let's unpack this scene a little bit. Let's set it up a little bit. The author is Mark.
[00:03:08] Mark wrote the earliest gospel. It's the shortest narrative of the Gospel. And he tells us that Jesus and his disciples came to a town called Jericho. When we hear of a town called Jericho, those of us know the Old Testament. We think of what?
[00:03:25] Joshua. Joshua, Right. The walls. You said walls. I didn't understand what you're saying. Yes, the Joshua and the walls of Jericho. The trumpets. The walls come a tumbling down, right? But this Jericho in Jesus day was different.
[00:03:37] This is a thriving oasis in the Jordan Valley. It's surrounded by desert, dry and rugged terrain, but it has springs of water in it. So it's a literal oasis. Palm trees and gardens and fruits and vegetables.
[00:03:52] Great place for trade and market and travel. People that would head to Jerusalem would often go through Jericho in order to get things they need. And that explains why a beggar would position himself along a road right here outside of Jericho.
[00:04:09] Now, Jerusalem was about 15 to 18 miles away from this Jericho. And in Mark 10:32, Mark tells us that the disciples were traveling up to Jerusalem because Jerusalem is an ascent roughly from Jericho up to Jerusalem was about 3,000ft in elevation. So picture the walk 18 miles about uphill, 3,000ft in elevation. It's a tough trek. It's going to require a lot of energy, physical energy. But Jesus also knows what he is going to do in Jerusalem. So it's not just physical for him.
[00:04:42] It's emotional, it's mental, it's spiritual. Just imagine what's going through him as he leaves Jericho, knowing where he's going. The next scene in Mark is Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey.
[00:04:57] So a tough journey.
[00:05:00] Only one. He told the disciples that he's going to be betrayed, he's going to be mocked, he's going to be beaten, he's going to be killed, and then he's going to rise from the dead. And one verse before Bartimaeus appears. We're going to talk about this in a minute. Jesus says that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. He came to give his life as a ransom for many.
[00:05:20] He's moving toward Jerusalem. He's moving toward the cross. And Mark chooses to include this one final scene in Jericho, just before all the things that were going to happen in Jerusalem.
[00:05:36] This is the final healing in the Gospel of Mark.
[00:05:39] And interestingly, in my research, I found that Bartimaeus appears to be the only recipient of a healing miracle in the Synoptic Gospels. Who? Whom the writer identifies by name.
[00:05:53] Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke.
[00:05:56] Bartimaeus is the only one.
[00:05:59] So Jesus, he's leaving Jericho. And Mark introduces us to Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is verse 46. Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus. An interesting detail here.
[00:06:10] Jewish readers of this text from Mark would know that the prefix bar, as in Bartimaeus means son of.
[00:06:19] So Bartimaeus literally means son of.
[00:06:23] Jewish readers would know that. But Mark says Bartimaeus, the blind beggar son of Timaeus. He's being redundant.
[00:06:30] Why is he repeating Bartimaeus? Why does he say it twice?
[00:06:35] It's because many of his original readers were like us. They were Gentiles, they were non Jews. They wouldn't have understand, understood the prefix bar.
[00:06:46] Mark wants them and us to know this man's name.
[00:06:53] He's Timaeus son.
[00:06:56] He has a real story, just like you, just like me.
[00:07:02] And Mark gives us a few details. And these few details are enough for us to feel the vulnerability of Bartimaeus life.
[00:07:11] He's blind, he's begging, and he's sitting beside the road. He lived with a need that he couldn't hide and a condition that he couldn't fix.
[00:07:28] Now, Jericho was a logical place for him to sit and to beg because of these travelers that would come through Jericho, because of these merchants, they would pass by, but Bartimaeus couldn't read their faces like I can read your faces. I can tell you're engaged in Bartimaeus right now. That's awesome. He couldn't do that. He relied on hearing.
[00:07:52] Listen for footsteps, listen for pebble being crushed under feet, listen for the noise of the crowd.
[00:07:58] And then he hears the Jesus of Nazareth passing by, verse 47.
[00:08:07] When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is near, he cries out, son of David, have mercy on me. And then the crowd tells Bartimaeus to be quiet. I don't like to say this from the front, but they're basically telling him to shut up. It's rude. They're rebuking him.
[00:08:23] Stop.
[00:08:25] But that doesn't stop Bartimaeus, right? Cause he cries out with even more desperation, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
[00:08:37] Do you ever cry out with that kind of desperation at sporting events? We do. Come on. We do. I did it Cubs won the World Series in 2016. I was yelling like a child, we do it, but not in this case. We're probably too civilized really to relate.
[00:08:55] Bartimaeus is all in and he uses his title Son of David. It's so brilliant. Son of David was one of Israel's richest titles. For the Messiah, this shows Bartimaeus had great theology. It pointed to the long promised deliverer who would come from King David's family line and inherit King David's throne and restore the kingdom of Israel. I'm reading in Chronicles right now. Just finished it. You see how all awful Israel was doing?
[00:09:22] Just terrible. So when Bartimaeus calls Jesus son of David, he's not simply using a respectful title. He's identifying Jesus as the one promised king that they had been waiting for.
[00:09:36] Now, before Bartimaeus asks Jesus for sight, he asks him for something else.
[00:09:42] What is that?
[00:09:44] We've sung about it a lot today. A whole new song that was all about this one word, mercy.
[00:09:52] Why mercy?
[00:09:54] What's mercy?
[00:09:57] The Greek word verb for mercy is eleo, but Bartimaeus uses a form of that word. That's eleison, means have mercy on me.
[00:10:09] Some of us hear that word eleison when we think of the ancient church prayer Kyrie eleison, which means lord, have mercy.
[00:10:20] And then some of us, if you're like me, you hear the phrase kyrie eleison, and you're back in 1985 rocking the Mr. Mr. Song. Kyrie Leison, down the road that I must travel. Right. Anybody? There's four of us. Thank you. It's great.
[00:10:34] But that song. You know that song? I was wondering if that song was actually about blind Bartimaeus. I know. Curious. Kyrie layson down the road that I must travel Kyrie layson through the darkness in the night. Sounded very similar. I wonder. It's not true. But the song Kyrie by Mr. Mistrid repeats that phrase four times in the chorus. So a whole generation of people in 1985 were singing Lord, have mercy without even knowing it.
[00:11:03] My mom used to hate that song. She thought it was blasphemous. I'm like, it's a great song, Mom.
[00:11:09] But apparently Bartimaeus was praying liturgy centuries before Mr. Mr. Put it on the radio. But it still brings us to the question, what is mercy?
[00:11:18] I love this definition of mercy.
[00:11:23] Mercy is undeserved compassion given to someone who cannot rescue himself.
[00:11:31] That's mercy.
[00:11:38] Mercy first, then sight, and y'. All. This leads to an incredible irony that's happening in these Pages of Mark.
[00:11:49] Bartimaeus can't see Jesus physically, but he sees something about Jesus that even those walking closest to him still couldn't grasp.
[00:12:01] We're going to get to that if we look at verse 51. One of the reasons this story, this moment with Jesus has stood so close to me, stuck so closely with me, is because of what Jesus does. In verse 51. He asks Bartimaeus, what do you want me to do for you?
[00:12:16] There's something almost startling about this question.
[00:12:20] Bartimaeus is blind.
[00:12:23] Everyone knows what Bartimaeus needs and wants.
[00:12:26] The crowd knows.
[00:12:29] Bartimaeus knows.
[00:12:31] Jesus certainly knows. And yet he still goes to Bartimaeus and says, what do you want me to do for you?
[00:12:40] I was thinking this week how Bartimaeus is probably a person I would be tempted to avoid.
[00:12:51] I might hear the shouting, I might notice the need, and I might just keep moving.
[00:13:00] But Jesus does not.
[00:13:04] Jesus stops and he calls him, and I love Bartimaeus and his joy. Here. He throws off his cloak. The cloak might be the only thing he owns, and he throws it off. He springs up and he goes to Jesus.
[00:13:18] And Jesus gives Bartimaeus his attention, his full attention, I think, and says, what? What do you want me to do for you?
[00:13:25] What a question.
[00:13:28] I love great questions like this.
[00:13:32] When Laura and I were foster parents, we were trained by the state in how to discipline a child of the state. Because you can't just do what you want. You got to do what the state allows, which makes perfect sense. And they taught us how to de escalate a child when they would act out or get angry. It's called sama. It's an acronym.
[00:13:53] Satori Alternatives. No idea. But if you want to look it up, it's a really helpful technique.
[00:13:59] It's a line of questions that would help a child realize what they're feeling and then be able to communicate it, what's causing their behavior. And there's this order of questions. I'm going to do it for you right now. I used to do it with my friends, the east, all the time, and they're right over here. We could do it together.
[00:14:15] You could walk up here and do it. So let's pretend there's a boy named Billy right here. And let's say that Billy is six, okay? And he's like knocking on his head. And I say, billy, I can see you're hitting your head. Are you angry? Billy would say, yes, I'm angry. And I say, well, what are you angry about? And he'd say, well, Emily, Stole my toy. I said, emily stole your toy. And so you're angry, Is that right? And he'd say, yes, that's right. Okay, so, Billy, what do you want?
[00:14:43] I want my toy.
[00:14:45] So, Billy, you want your toy, Is that right? Yes, I want my toy. Okay, what have you tried to get what you want?
[00:14:52] What have you tried to get your toy back? Nothing.
[00:14:55] Okay, what are you willing to do to get your toy back?
[00:15:00] Well, I'm willing to go over to Emily and just try to get it back. I said, great, will you do that? And then after you do it, let me know how it goes. It's a great technique. I've actually used it on some of you and you didn't even know it. It's great. It's a perfect technique. I used it the other day on my kids. I asked my wife to do it on me sometimes because I can't figure it out. But it all hinges off this one question.
[00:15:20] What do you want?
[00:15:26] We don't even know. It's a helpful question because children are awfully too busy acting out because their will has been broken. They don't even know what's causing it.
[00:15:35] The question brings to light what is missing.
[00:15:38] Jesus is doing something similar here. He didn't have to ask Bartimaeus the question. He could have just healed him. He could have spit in his eyes. He didn't need Bartimaeus to come up to him at all. But he does.
[00:15:50] Jesus wants Bartimaeus to say his need out loud. And that's part of the beauty of the question.
[00:15:57] Bartimaeus is not a problem to solve.
[00:16:00] He's not a condition to correct.
[00:16:02] He is a man made in the image of God, and Jesus treats him like that. He gives dignity to somebody the crowd was belittling.
[00:16:12] Jesus already knows his need, but he wants Bartimaeus to bring that need into the open.
[00:16:19] Y', all, there's something really powerful about naming our need to a trusted friend to Jesus in prayer.
[00:16:31] It's not because Jesus needs the information.
[00:16:34] And it's not because saying the right word somehow brings a miracle. But get this.
[00:16:40] Honesty brings us out of hiding.
[00:16:45] Our instinct is to hide. We talk about this all the time. Doug preaches on this. Brandon preaches on this. Genesis 3. They ate of the garden. They ate of the fruit from the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And then they felt shame and they felt guilt, and they felt fear. That's how we feel. And it's hard to bring something out into the light, but that's when we change, we can be honest about our needs before Jesus. Things become real when we say them aloud.
[00:17:16] I remember the first time I told Laura, I love you.
[00:17:20] It was risky at that point for me. I was her first boyfriend, you know, what if she didn't say it back?
[00:17:27] What if she laughed? She totally laughed at our first kiss. Oh, my gosh, it was terrible.
[00:17:34] What if me saying I love you made things awkward in our relationship now? I mean, of course she totally said it back, you know, but saying those words out loud between the two of us would change stuff.
[00:17:50] What had been internal became relational.
[00:17:56] And Jesus invites Bartimaeus to move his need from internal ache to relational trust.
[00:18:03] He invites us to name our need, to move it from the vague background of our lives into a direct conversation with the one who is actually able to help us.
[00:18:16] And then Bartimaeus answers Jesus. And he says, rabbi, let me recover my sight.
[00:18:22] Now, that's the English Standard Version. But I really love some of the other versions of this sentence. Like the Holman Christian Standard Version says this, rabboni, I want to see.
[00:18:34] Now, rabboni is an Aramaic term, and it's related to the word rabbi. It comes from the word rabbi, but it's warmer. It's more personal. It's like saying, my teacher, my master.
[00:18:49] It's the same word that Mary Magdalene uses after Jesus has written and she's talking with him, and then she realizes who he is and she says, rabboni, my master.
[00:18:59] There's like, love attached to the word.
[00:19:03] And Bartimaeus, I love it. He doesn't give a speech.
[00:19:07] He's not a victim. He's not telling Jesus how long he's been on the side of the road, or woe is me. None of that. All he does is say, I want to see.
[00:19:22] Same as me. I want to see.
[00:19:24] I want to see.
[00:19:27] I want to see Jesus more clearly.
[00:19:30] I want to see where I have become blind to my own pride.
[00:19:35] I want to see my impatience. Y', all, can we just agree that Highway 80 is cursed and evil?
[00:19:42] It is awful. I hate it so much. We were driving home from the airport the other night. Laura says, get on 80, babe. It says, it's all clear. I'm like, it's never all clear. It's never good. Something's gonna be going on at 4 and E somewhere. We get on 80, 26 minute backup. Like, are you kidding me? It's awful. I became so impatient with my family.
[00:20:01] It was terrible. And then I just apologized the whole way home. I apologized in the 9:30 service too. Just awful. So impatient. I want to be able to see that more clearly. I want to see the needs of the people around me and not walk by. I want to see where I have confused my kingdom with his kingdom. I want to see the way Jesus sees.
[00:20:21] I hope you do too. And Mark the author, he makes this question even more significant by placing it directly beside another conversation.
[00:20:31] Look at the conversation that happens just before this. This is Mark, chapter 10, verse 35. I'm so excited to share this with you. To the detriment of James and John.
[00:20:40] It says verse 35 and James and John, right? Two of the great disciples who loved Jesus. They were close with him. John the disciple Jesus loved. The sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus and said to him, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.
[00:20:56] That's bold.
[00:20:58] And Jesus said to them, what do you want me to do for you?
[00:21:06] And they said to him, grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in glory.
[00:21:13] It's the same question.
[00:21:18] He asked the same question earlier to James and John. Two men, mind you, that he had chosen to be his disciples. Two men that he taught and loved and walked with for months, even years.
[00:21:33] The same question. And they answer Jesus by asking him to sit at his right and his left when he comes in his glory. They want places of honor. They're thinking about rank, they're thinking about status, and they're thinking about power and recognition. Do you see the irony here?
[00:21:51] James and John, they didn't see. And Bartimaeus, the blind man saw when I was in graduate school at Michigan State University.
[00:22:01] Papow, we don't have a thing.
[00:22:05] We don't have anything. What do you all do? Woo. We don't do that.
[00:22:08] We just say go green. It's so lame. That's all we say.
[00:22:12] I was at Michigan State. I was about done with my doctoral degree in music. And you say, I didn't know you could get a doctoral degree in music. You really can. It's very competitive. I was all but dissertation and Laura and I experienced a call from Jesus, kind of like Bartimaeus, to enter into full time ministry. We had been part of a church plant in Lansing, Michigan. So I went to my professor, I went to my dad. Separate conversations. But they both thought I was out of my mind.
[00:22:36] Neither of them were believers. They thought I was crazy. So I left behind my dream of becoming Dr. Jens and leading a major music program at a large university. That was the dream. And I'll tell you. One of my former students from Michigan State University is now director of Choral activities at Baylor University.
[00:22:52] It's a real thing. When I came here and moved here and took this job, one of my students was the director of choral activities at the University of Texas at Tyler. This is the thing that I wanted to do.
[00:23:02] I like to tell people I was teaching the top choir at Michigan State to learn to sing the Bach B Minor Mass in order to perform that with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. I went from doing that one day to the next day, pulling out my guitar that I barely knew how to play and playing my four chords for my songs from Passion, you are my King, or whatever it was. That's what I was doing. That's what I felt called to. And the one word that God was asking me to surrender was status.
[00:23:34] Still is.
[00:23:36] So I can really relate to James and John here.
[00:23:42] And what makes the request of James and John so troubling is that Jesus had just told them right before this where he's going to be delivered. To be killed, to be mocked, to be beaten. Jesus is speaking about suffering and sacrifice. But the disciples, they're thinking about status.
[00:24:04] James and John approach Jesus with ambition, and Bartimaeus approaches him with wait for it, need.
[00:24:13] The disciples, they conceive physically, yet they remain blind to the nature of Jesus and his kingdom.
[00:24:19] Bartimaeus lives without physical sight, yet he understands the king who is before him is merciful.
[00:24:26] And Bartimaeus has nothing to offer him except his dependence.
[00:24:33] This contrast from Mark and what Jesus is doing here, it's not so that we can belittle James and John.
[00:24:42] I think it's there because we're often more like James and John than we realize or want to admit, right? We come to Jesus and we often ask him to preserve our plans, to protect our comforts, to improve our position, to give us the outcomes that we want. And that's good, because Jesus asks us, what do we want that's good, we should go to him with that. That's a good thing to do. But sometimes our requests reveal that we still do not fully understand what kind of kingdom he is.
[00:25:13] See, I don't think Jesus stopped in this moment just for Bartimaeus.
[00:25:20] This interaction, I think, was as much about James and John and his other disciples.
[00:25:25] To further learn the nature of God and his will and his kingdom.
[00:25:30] The conversation with James and John ends like this. This is verse 45, right before Bartimaeus.
[00:25:36] It says, for even the Son of Man came not to be Served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
[00:25:44] If you interpret the entire Bartimaeus interaction through the lens of that verse, you are winning. That's right.
[00:25:51] Jesus has just told his disciples he came to serve. And then he stops beside on the road and asks a stranger, a blind beggar, what do you want me to do for you?
[00:26:02] He's serving a blind man in need.
[00:26:04] He practices what he had just taught. Some of you are incredible. You serve here and you serve here. Darren, I'm looking at you. You serve here. There's just so many people that give and give and give and give, and it's beautiful. And if you are not serving here, in a few weeks, we're gonna start a stewardship series that's very much about using our gifts to serve one another in the local church.
[00:26:26] And I hope and pray that as you listen to that, as we talk about that, you will find a way you can use your gifting to serve one another, because it's what Jesus calls us to.
[00:26:37] Then we get to the final verse, verse 52, Go your way. Jesus said to him, go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. And you could put in two words right there to Jerusalem.
[00:26:56] Jesus says, your faith has made you well. He is not teaching that Bartimaeus possessed some sort of inner spiritual force that, like, created his healing. There's some churches and some teachers that abuse this line right here.
[00:27:10] This is not positive thinking. And it's not even the idea that a stronger level of faith guarantees you some sort of miracle. That is not what is happening.
[00:27:20] Faith is the posture of trust that turns toward Jesus. Jesus is the healer.
[00:27:28] Faith is not confidence in my ability to believe strongly enough.
[00:27:32] Faith is confidence in Jesus. Amen.
[00:27:37] The other thing I think that's going on here, that's kind of in between the lines.
[00:27:41] Bartimaeus also understood there was an urgency in this moment.
[00:27:47] Doug often talks to the staff about urgency in our day and our time.
[00:27:52] For Bartimaeus, Jesus was there.
[00:27:55] It actually happened.
[00:27:57] He knew this is probably going to be his only shot with Jesus. And the crowd is telling him to be quiet. He cries out even more. He's willing to risk embarrassment because of the possibility of mercy with Jesus.
[00:28:09] There's something challenging in here for us disciples.
[00:28:13] What keeps us from crying out with that kind of honesty?
[00:28:19] Is it pride? Is it a lack of belief? Are we too concerned about appearing needy? Golly, we don't like to appear needy. We hate appearing needy.
[00:28:31] Why do we hesitate to bring Jesus the thing that we cannot fix?
[00:28:38] And there's an urgency here that we should not ignore. None of us is promised another day.
[00:28:43] I read the other day where Jesus said that we're not promised another day, we're not promised tomorrow.
[00:28:51] So use the clarity that you have today. I was talking with a friend on the phone before he went into surgery. He's an older man, and I gave him a call and I said, he's not a believer. And I said, hey, listen, I want you to know the Lord loves you.
[00:29:06] And I encourage you that before you go into surgery, you say a prayer to the Lord who loves you.
[00:29:12] And he rebuffed me and handed the phone to his wife.
[00:29:17] That made me sad because I love that man.
[00:29:21] Don't miss the opportunity that is today. When Jesus is drawing our attention to a need or exposing a wound, inviting us to trust him, wisdom does not keep postponing the response.
[00:29:33] Bartimaeus took the opportunity. Be like him.
[00:29:38] Jesus is asking you, what do you want me to do for you?
[00:29:43] Maybe another question could be, what's keeping you from asking him?
[00:29:49] Bartimaeus trusted Jesus more than he feared being judged, and that faith moved him toward Christ.
[00:29:56] So as we close, Bartimaeus cry is a great place for us to begin. Lord Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
[00:30:05] And maybe the next prayer after that. The next line is simple. Lord, I want to see.
[00:30:13] I want to see you more clearly.
[00:30:15] I want to see my own need and brokenness more clearly so I can bring more of that to you, so you can do more of a work in me.
[00:30:23] Jesus is not going to pass by you needy Christian.
[00:30:26] He's not going to pass you by.
[00:30:29] He's not repelled by your weakness. He's not irritated by your dependence on him. He actually loves it because he came to serve you. He came to serve me, to give his life as a ransom for both of us, all of us, so we can bring him our need.
[00:30:43] Not because your faith is strong enough to heal you, but because Jesus is strong enough.
[00:30:49] He is the right Savior for you and for me.
[00:30:53] Amen. Amen. Will you stand and let's pray together before we worship Jesus?
[00:31:03] Lord Jesus, son of David, would you have mercy on us, please?
[00:31:09] Would you help us to see the things about ourselves that we cannot see, that maybe hinder us, that get in the way of our growth?
[00:31:18] Thank you for your mercy, this undeserved compassion that you give us.
[00:31:25] Thank you. That you stop.
[00:31:28] That you bring healing, that every friend in this room, Lord, you love Forgive us for the times, Lord, where we want to steal your glory intentionally or unintentionally. Where we want more status or we want more power or we want more recognition. Help us to remember that you're the God who is serving us, and may we respond with hearts that want to serve in return.
[00:32:00] We worship you, Lord.
