Jesus Hears Your Raw Cry for Him!
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” (Mark 10:49 NIV).
Jesus stopped.
Those two words catch my attention. What causes Jesus to stop? He is the Word. He is Lord. He is Messiah, and yet throughout Scripture we have moments when Jesus appears to allow Himself to be interrupted. Who is this God-Man who appears at times to have extremely flexible plans? What is it from humanity that would cause Him to pause His journey, to stop what He is doing, and turn toward us?
Jesus often stopped for the unlikely. Jesus would stop for ones whom His own disciples did not think He would stop for. We see this in Mark 10:13-16 as Jesus decides to stop for the little children. The disciples try to whisk the children away, seeing them as an inconvenience, but Jesus finds value in stopping for them. In this brief interaction, you can tell that once again even those who walked daily with Jesus did not fully understand His heart. This became normative for Jesus, consistently giving attention to the ones others so easily ignored. In Mark 5:1-20, we find another such intriguing story when Jesus is approached by a demon-possessed man. For an unknown amount of time, this man had been totally rejected by society, living among the tombs, tortured by the legion of demons that inhabited him. This man was the type most people ran from, but not Jesus. Again, Jesus stops to give attention to this man who is crying out for His help.
Clearly Jesus had a pattern of stopping for those most would not, but what is it about Bartimaeus and several others that caught His attention? It is hard to tell on the surface if it is having the right need, the right heart, or maybe even the right environment. Throughout Scripture there were certain cries that seemed to catch Heaven’s attention. Look at some of these remarkable verses.
A very large crowd of people assembled in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month. …The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place (2 Chronicles 30:13,27 NIV).
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. …The cry of the Israelites has reached me” (Exodus 3:7,9 NIV).
In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears (Psalm 18:6 NIV).
Apparently there is a cry, there is a sound, that reaches the ears of God and compels Him to action. These are the cries of those hungry for Him to move. It is the desperate sound of those who realize that God alone can save them, heal them, deliver them. When people turn to God alone this can be called the cry of faith. It is the cry that says, “God will move on my behalf!”
Faith is not as abstract as we often make it out to be. Faith indeed has substance and it is evidence, as Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is tangible. Faith always demands a response; it always precedes actions. James points this out when he says:
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works (James 2:17-18 ESV).
Faith often seems to ignore the social norms and even at times logical human advice. If you are not the one in faith, it appears to ignorantly deny truth. Faith by all other accounts, usually except for the one who has it, can be quite extreme. Bill Johnson says, “Faith does not deny a problem’s existence, it simply denies it influence.” In other words, faith is not denying the present obstacles or reality; it is just submitting to a higher truth—the truth of Jesus Christ. We do not have to deny the statistics about this generation to have faith for them. We aren’t ignoring the facts; we just have faith that the Word of God supersedes the facts.
Faith can be seen, it can be felt, and it can be heard. It is evident that faith can be seen by how Jesus responds to the healing of the paralytic when he says, “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5 ESV). Faith can be felt, which is obvious when Jesus says, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me” (Luke 8:46 ESV). Faith can also be heard. It is heard when the centurion says to Jesus, “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Matthew 8:8 NIV). This level of faith impressed Jesus. The Bible even states that Jesus marveled at his faith (Matthew 8:10). This is the faith that causes Jesus to stop. This is the sound that demands Heaven’s attention.
It is this sound that is heard when Bartimaeus makes that bold declaration, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” I believe Jesus heard a sound that He simply could not resist. Jesus heard the sound of faith. Jesus heard the sound of hunger. He heard the sound of determination. The sound of one who says, “I will do whatever it takes to get His attention.” Bartimaeus had made that bold declaration, essentially saying, “You are the Messiah, You are my Source, no matter what anyone else is saying, You have what I need.” Bartimaeus refused to be quieted down. Bartimaeus refused to be distracted. Bartimaeus refused to be deterred, and Heaven heard his cry.
The response—Jesus stopped.
Several years ago, I was in Brazil getting ready to preach in a church that I had never been to before. As I prayed about the service, I could not get a sense of what God wanted me to speak on. If you’re a preacher, you understand that this is not a great feeling. Your main job is to deliver a message, so you can imagine as the time for service drew closer I became more and more nervous. It didn’t help that I did not know the pastor or the church well. I arrived at the church and still had not heard anything from the Lord about what He wanted me to say or do. I attempted desperately to remember something, anything, that I could share and nothing was coming to mind. I wracked my brain for the most recent sermon I preached and still nothing. After the greetings with the pastor, we went into worship. I remember thinking that surely Holy Spirit would tell me something during worship. Again, absolutely nothing. Next thing I knew, they were introducing me as the guest speaker and I was taking steps toward the pulpit. It was then, in the final few seconds before I grabbed the mic, that He spoke one very simple thing. He said, “Ask them what they are hungry for.” For you reading this, perhaps you feel relieved for me that an answer came, but in the moment my first thought was, “What in the world am I supposed to do for the other fifty-nine minutes and forty-five seconds of this service?” There is no way that one brief question is going to suffice for an entire service. Having zero other options I nervously, with knees shaking, said over the microphone, “God wants to know what you’re hungry for.”
What happened next I will never forget. Immediately those in the crowd began to cry out. There were undignified screams of those who wanted Jesus more than anything else. I can still hear the sounds that undoubtedly captured the attention of Heaven. The next hours can only be described as holy. God’s Presence rushed into the room in such a mighty way that I and my translator both laid face down on the altar. They would not and could not be silenced, though no one present wanted it to end. His Presence was so weighty that day I wasn’t sure when if ever I would be able to get off the floor. For an uncertain amount of time, people continued to cry on the name of Jesus, until I began to hear the sound of movement. As I looked up, people were making their way to the altar. Many were crying as they threw their glasses on the stage because their eyes had been supernaturally healed as His Presence came. There were so many miracles that occurred that night with no one specifically praying for them.
That day, Jesus stopped.
A sound came out of a church in Brazil from people who were hungry for nothing else but Jesus. A cry that caught the attention of Heaven. A cry that ushered in a manifestation of His Presence.
After Jesus heard the cry of Bartimaeus, He stopped and said, “Call him.” This generation is one that is choosing to ignore those who would attempt to silence them. They are refusing to be silenced by the religious majority that would say that their cry is too loud, too passionate, perhaps too irreverent. They have chosen not to listen to the voices that would tell them that Jesus is doing something different or that their generation is too lost and too far gone. You must be focused on the One you are crying out to and determined to ignore the crowd. This generation will not succumb to the pressure of culture; they will cry out even more and Jesus will stop for them. In fact, Jesus is already stopping for them. He is calling them.
Do you know what I find comical? The very people who had rebuked Bartimaeus then said to him, “Cheer up! He’s calling you.” I would say these people are fair weather friends, and like many of you I have had more than my fair share of them. These are the people who criticize you when things aren’t working out the way we thought they would. They are ones who not only can’t see the promise that God has given you, they are the antagonists of the promise. They want to stop your dreaming. They want to halt your faith. They struggle to believe that Jesus would stop for you, and they certainly do not want Him to use you. These “friends” will kick you when you are down, but when He begins to fulfill His promises, when He stops for you, when He puts favor on your life, all of a sudden they are your biggest supporters and friends. One minute they are rebuking your cry and the next they are wrapping their arm around you and telling you with excitement that Jesus has called you.
We do not get much insight into Bartimaeus’ thoughts about these people around him. To be honest, it appears that he gives it barely any thought. I want to encourage you to do the same. Do not allow the crowd’s rebuke or the crowd’s cheer to affect you. Bill Johnson puts it best when he says, “If you live by the praise of man, then you’ll die by their criticism.” Be not overly moved when the masses attempt to deny you or when they sing your praises. Instead, take a lesson from Bartimaeus who stayed focused on just One. He did not stop when they tried to silence him and he did not try to make friends when they encouraged him. He simply remained focused on the movement of Jesus. Perhaps it has become cliché, but we truly are meant to live for an audience of One. This is our place of greatest strength.
In my heart of hearts, I believe this will be the heart posture of this generation. In a culture that has tried to sell them endless feedback in the form of social media followers, likes, and comments, I believe they will listen for the voice of Jesus. While the temptation is to find their value in brand agreements, viral videos, and Tik Tok approval, I believe they will prize the acceptance of Jesus above the approval of others. Many of them have tasted of the false acceptance that the crowd has offered them and they realized it did not satisfy. They have known the devastating flippancy of the virtual world. They have experienced firsthand being loved one moment and canceled the next. This society has not met their needs, and they are focusing in on the One who has what they need.
When you hear the voice of Jesus call you, it no longer matters who tried to silence you. Equally, it no longer matters who has tried to promote you. His voice drowns out all of the chatter. His voice permeates through the cultural noise.
Prayer
Father, give us the grace to live for an audience of One. I pray that right now You would heal the wounds of the crowd. For every time that this reader has been kicked when they are down, falsely accused, and rebuked by those who did not fully know their situations, I pray that You would bring healing to their heart. Help us to forgive them, for truly they know not what they do. Protect us from being moved by the criticisms or the praise of others. May we, like Bartimaeus, release a cry for You today that would catch Your attention. May we come out from all of the noise that culture supplies and lock eyes with You. Lord, hear our cry. Hear our cry for our own lives and for this generation. Amen.
