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Um, the reading this evening is taken from Mark, chapter ten, verses 35 to 52. And I'm reading from the Niv version the request of James and John. Then James and John, the sons of Zeb, came to him. Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. What do you want me to do for you?

He asked. They replied, let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you're asking. Jesus said, can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with? We can, they answered.

Jesus said to them, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with. But to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared. When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Then they came to Jericho as Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city.

A blind man, Bartimaeus, that is the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth. He began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stopped and said, call him.

So they called to the blind man. Cheer up. On your feet. He's calling you. Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked him. The blind man said, rabbi, I want to see. Go, said Jesus. Your faith has healed you.

Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you, Helen. Do have your Bible with you? Or your little red book? I'm sorry if you wanted one earlier. We have actually run out of the little red books.

But we do have other bibles, if you needed one, or you have permission to go on your phone. Actually, could we have the slido question code back up? I feel like it took me quite a long time to type the number in so maybe you're about halfway through, so stick it up for a few minutes, and if you do have a question, you have permission to be looking on your phones, and I won't take it personally for a few minutes. Should we pray?

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen. Lovely. So there is the code. Do go on, Slilo, and stick a question in if you want to.

And that will save us just standing up here and not saying anything. That'd be great. I wonder if you've ever had the experience where you start to have a conversation with somebody and the conversation goes on and it goes quite well, and you feel like you know the person quite well, and then it eventually dawns on you about halfway through the conversation that you actually were speaking to totally the wrong person. Have you ever had that? I mean, it's much worse, isn't it, when you actually say something and you've had good repartee and you think, yeah, we're going on really well.

And you say something like, how's Jane? And they're like, who? Like, oh, that's really awkward, isn't it? I actually had an experience a little bit like that yesterday afternoon at Nyman's. We went to Nyman's to take the kids down to the Nutcracker walk thing, some Christmassy thing that kids like.

Anyway, we walked around it, and when you go into these national trust houses, if you've ever gone taking small children, you know what it's like. It's a bit more like herding cattle, isn't it? And you're trying sort of, to watch what they're pulling. And we went into this one room where they had all of the outfits from a ballet of the nutcracker. It's a ballet.

Who knew? And they had all these outfits, and there was a dress in the corner, and I could see this small hand pulling the corner of a dress I went to. Everyone was like, oh, don't do that, mate. Okay? Thinking it was my son.

And then a little face looked up at me and I was like, oh, you're not mine. Turned around, looking at my mom's, like, I'm so sorry. I thought he was mine. I'm just so sorry. It was just super embarrassing because it was responding the wrong way to the wrong person.

Of course, if he was mine, it would have been appropriate, and I'd be saying, don't pull the ballerina down. Not that I wanted the other strange child to pull the ballet dress. Down. But anyway, you know what I mean? It's funny, isn't it, if we get people wrong.

And in our passage today, we really have two different responses to Jesus. James and John are responding to Jesus and what they think he's about. And then Bartimaeus, this other guy, is responding to Jesus, what they think he's about. And there's a real contrast between the two of them. And it's important for us today because absolutely everybody has to respond to know if you've heard about him, which you have because you're here tonight, then you have to do some sort of response.

It can be ignoring, it could be totally accepting, it could be thinking he's all right, but you've got to make some sort of response. So what will our response to Jesus be? We got to make some sort of response to him. And the first example, as I said, in verses 35 to 45, we see is the request of James and John. They're responding to Jesus in a particular way and it's actually wrong.

As I've been thinking about it over this week, don't envy James and John James. And know if somebody said to you, do you want this job description? You're going to go in the Bible and for the next few thousand years, people are going to be talking about your mistakes. It's pretty bad, isn't it? It's a bad gig.

I feel a little bit like this now. My entire ministry, every sermon I've ever done is on YouTube, so you can actually go and find all the errors. But this is what it was a bit like James and John, they made a mistake, but it's so useful for us to have it because it's so instructive for us. So I hope that one day I see James and John in heaven and I can say to them, thank you for that. It must have been super awkward later, but they make this mistake with Jesus and they make a hugely bold request.

Look at this in verse 35. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to him. That is Jesus teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. That's quite a big thing, isn't it, Jesus? I just want.

I haven't said yet. I want carte blanche on whatever I'm going to say. Will you do that? What a question. That's pretty bold, isn't it?

That's pretty bold. And the question they ask is going to be really important because it shows us what they think of Jesus. The sorts of things we ask from Jesus is going to show what we think he's all about, right? There was a letter from a student once, wrote home to his parents, saying, I miss you, mum and dad. It's so sad not to see you every day.

And I really do hope you'll find it in you to write back soon, even if it's only ten pounds.

We all know what that letter was really about, right? The request shows what you think it's about. I would like you to give me some money. And so John and James and John's question is going to be really instructive. What do they think Jesus is all about?

What do you want? Says Jesus. They replied, verse 37. Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in glory. What about Jesus?

Oh, man. Jesus is going to be in his glory when that throne room comes, one of us wants to sit on the left and the other on the right, and we just want to look amazing. That's what we want. We want to be glorious. We want to be big deals.

I want to be able to strut around like Muhammad Ali in heaven and be like, I am the greatest. That is what they want. And Jesus says to them, you've got no idea what you're talking about. Verse 38, you don't know what you're asking. You see?

Do you know how my glory is achieved? Do you know what's coming up? Verse 38, you don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I'm baptised with?

What Jesus is saying is, you can't take on the punishment for the sins of the whole world that I'm about to take. See, in the Bible, God's wrath is often pictured as a cup. It's like a cup filled to the brim of wrath and that's going to be poured out. This happens several times in the prophets, and later on, God's wrath is poured out. And what Jesus is going to do on the cross is he's going to take that cup that was going to be poured out and he's going to drink it to the dregs so that God's wrath is satisfied, the punishment for sin taken entirely on himself.

This is what he's doing. He's going to the cross to drain the cup of Roth to the dregs. Can you do that, James and John? And the baptism he's going to suffer. That one might seem a bit strange.

We tend to think of baptism as a washing. But if you're familiar with the Bible story, you might remember when Israel was coming out of Egypt and they were going through the Red Sea, you've probably seen the Disney film the Prince of Egypt, I think is the one. And they come through the Red Sea and the people go through and the seas come crashing back on the Egyptians. This is the baptism he's talking about that actually the punishment of God came on the Egyptians, and that's the punishment that's due to come on all of us. But Jesus is going to go through those waters and come out the other side for you and for me, taking on all of that on himself, James and John, can you do that?

Verse 39? We can. They answered, we can. They don't understand what Jesus is doing. They don't get what he's up to.

They don't understand that Jesus is on the way to the cross. He's going to go through suffering and the cross. He's not just going straight to glory. But what they want to do is they want to be the greatest. And Jesus really gives this absolutely clearly in verse 45, possibly the most important verse in Mark's gospel, really to say what Jesus is all about.

A great memory verse, if you're into such things and you should be. Great memory verse. Jesus says, even the son of man, that is Jesus, even the son of man, did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. This is what Jesus came for. He came not to be served like they want to be served, standing at the left and the right of the throne in glory.

But even Jesus himself came to serve. Even Jesus himself came to give his life. This was the mission he was called to, and he took it on. And so James and John, who had been with Jesus, I don't know how long, a few years by now, they still didn't quite have Jesus straight. It's as if they're talking slightly at ods to the wrong person.

And the challenge for us is, do we get the right Jesus or have we still got something in the way? You see, James and John wanted glory. That's what they really, really wanted. They wanted to lord it over people. We see that from Jesus' reply, because he gets the disciples together and says, look, actually, in the world around us, people take positions and authority because they want to lord it over people.

They want to be in control and command and stuff like this. This is what James and John wanted. But he says, that's not what I'm about. And you need to understand that the road I'm on is going to the cross.

Well, turn over the page and we find Bartimaeus. We're not going to leave it in the negative saying, you can just get Jesus wrong. Mark doesn't leave us there. We get a picture of somebody who gets Jesus really, really right. And it's an encouraging picture because you might be thinking to yourself, okay, we've done eight weeks of Christianity explore.

James and John had hung around with Jesus for several years. What are the chances of me getting this right? Am I going to get this all wrong? But Bartimaeus is a wonderful example of somebody who you absolutely wouldn't think would be there to get it right, but he does. So verses 45, 46 to 52, we see Bartimaeus responding rightly to Jesus.

Bartimaeus is a blind man. And at first we're thinking, okay, maybe this is another healing story of Jesus. But really this story isn't really about the healing. The healing really takes quite a sideline in the story. It's really about how Bartimaeus begins to follow Jesus.

And there's just three things that we want to see about what Bartimaeus does, and they're really, really instructive for us. Look at me. In verse 47, Bartimaeus is sitting outside the city and he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is coming by. He hears about Jesus. Some people are saying, oh, Jesus is coming out.

Jesus is coming out. And what does he do? He cries out. He cries out. He calls to Jesus.

That's a great start. What's the first response to Jesus crying out to him? Jesus, Jesus.

He may not be somebody who you might expect to take up Jesus' time, but like the little children that we thought about a few weeks ago, actually Jesus welcomes all people. There's no one who is above. And then Bartimaeus, having cried out in verse 47, notice what he cries out because he doesn't just say Jesus, he doesn't just cry out, he cries out, this, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. It's quite a simple thing, isn't it?

Jesus, have mercy on me. Well, if James and John's request, Jesus, I want you to give me carte blanche for power. Shows what they're all about. What's Bartimaeus all about? Have mercy on me.

Totally different posture, isn't it? Totally different thing. Not give me whatever I want, but just Jesus, have mercy. Jesus, have mercy.

And knowing that Jesus is the one, he needs to have mercy on him. He's persistent. He's incredibly persistent in his faith. Notice this in verse 48. Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet.

It's as if there's this wonderful crowd following Jesus out of Jericho, and everyone's sort of milling around and they just see this blind beggar by the side of the road and they're like, be quiet, partimaeus, be quiet. You're being a bit of a nuisance. It's Jesus. Join in the songs, or whatever it might be. I don't know what they said.

And that must have been quite a lot of pressure, mustn't it, as you're sitting there thinking, oh, who am I to cry out to Jesus? But Bartimaeus response is absolutely brilliant. He shouted, all the more. That's great, isn't it? He shouted all the more.

Everyone's abusing him for wanting to come to Jesus. Jesus, have mercy on me. Jesus, have mercy on me. Oh, Bartimaeus, you silly fool. Stop, stop.

All right. Jesus, have mercy on me. I'm going to go louder. We're all in. Have mercy on me, Jesus.

He's persistent in his faith, and it pays off, doesn't it? Jesus calls him. He actually sees the people having a kerfuffle and he says, call Bartimaeus to me. And so Bartimaeus has come into the presence of Jesus.

They're quite amazed. Maybe the same people who are rebuking him suddenly are now saying to him, cheer up. That's a great little thing, isn't it? I'm sorry I was being mean to you. Cheer up.

Now he's calling you, throwing his cloak aside, verse 50. He jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. There's a lot in this, actually, throwing his cloak aside, because Bartimaeus is just a beggar. He's a blind beggar. He's not able to work.

And what does he have in the whole world? A cloak. That's really all he has. He's kind of taking his worldly possessions, he's throwing it aside. He's that keen to get to Jesus.

It's as if he's just taking everything he has, chucking it aside. If I can just get to Jesus and ask for his mercy, and Jesus asks him the very same question he asked James and John, what do you want me to do for you? What do you want me to do for you? The blind man said, rabbi, I want to see. I want to see.

In some ways, that's kind of obvious, isn't it? Of course he wants to see, but that's not an agenda he'd come with, is it? And so it's a totally different posture coming. Do you see it's? Totally different, isn't it?

Ironically, of course, Bartimaeus is the blind one that did see. He did understand something about Jesus that James and John hadn't managed to grasp for all those years. But the blind man could see. He could see that Jesus was the one to come to for mercy.

And he did see. He did see. Go, said Jesus, your faith has healed you, or your faith has saved you. It's more than just healing. Your faith has saved you.

Your trust in me has saved you. And what does Bartimaeus do? He received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. That's massive. That along the road is huge, you see, because in Mark's gospel, there's a kind of a shape to it.

He hangs around in the north of Israel, and then he heads towards this road to Jerusalem. He heads toward the road to the cross. He sets his face like flint. Go to the cross. And this is on the road.

This is the road Jesus is walking. And Bartimaeus joins him in it. He follows him in it. And so everything that Bartimaeus does right is to know that he needs to come to Christ for mercy. And that even though he's not all that, that's all he needs to do, have mercy on me and to follow him on this road, which is the road to the cross.

It's through suffering and the cross, not a road immediately to glory and power, but through suffering and the cross. But he understands something about Jesus, and it's so important for us, because what this gospel is doing, what Mark is doing, is saying the people we would expect to get it all right, don't. And this really unlikely person does. And you know what? Bartimaeus's only qualification was?

Knowing he needed Jesus. His only qualification saying, have mercy on me. If you can say, jesus, have mercy on me, that's it. That's it. You can come to him.

He calls you to him, and he offers you everything.

You see, we all have to respond to Jesus somehow. We can't leave this building and not we've heard of Jesus. We can ignore him, we can think he's quite interesting, we could think he's crazy or we can think he's the Lord, but we've got to respond to him. And the only qualification for coming to Jesus is knowing that we need him, knowing that we need him. And when we know that we need him, we know that he is the one who's come not to be served, but to serve and to give his life for you and for me.

He's the one who says I'm going to give you everything that's mine.

Like in a marriage service where you say, all that's mine is yours. That's what Jesus says to you and to me. All that's mine is yours, and all that's yours is mine. I will take on all of your sin. I will take all of your shame.

I'm going to take all of your guilt. I'm going to drink that wrath, that punishment, down to the dreg. So it's no longer there. And I'll tell you what, I'm going to take off my goodness, my perfection, my everything, and I'm going to give it to you, going to be clothed with what's his. This is what the gospel is about.

The gospel is all about Jesus. I hope that you've heard that in this Christianity explored, really, it's in the name Christianity explored, and the question is, will you follow him? Will you follow him on the way? Now, maybe you do follow Jesus on the way, and you have for years. Persevere.

Persevere, because like Bartimaeus, there are sometimes people aren't there who laugh at you and mock you for it. Say, what are you doing following Jesus? Let's persevere. But maybe you've never followed Jesus. You may have heard about him before, you may never have heard about him before, but he is the one who can have mercy on you, who can take all your sin and your shame on himself.

Why not follow him? Tonight, I'm going to say a short prayer, and you're welcome to join in. It's just going to be a prayer, really, that's echoing Bartimaeus that just says, lord Jesus, have mercy on me. I acknowledge that I need you and ask that you give me your righteousness for my sin. So if that's something you want to pray, then do.

Do that quietly with me. Let me pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the king of the universe who came not to be served, but to serve, that you came to give your life as a ransom for many, your life for me.

Lord Jesus, I acknowledge that I need your mercy. Have mercy on me. I need your healing, your saving father, thank you for sending your son that all that's his might be mine and that I might be called your child.

Help me to follow him all my days. Amen.

Now, a little bit, in a few minutes, when we sing our next hymn, we are going to have an opportunity to put these dedication tokens in. It's our dedication Sunday, which, for those of you who have been a member, part of all saints for a while will know is the time of year when we think about our giving, which is really just part of being on that road of following Jesus. And if we've been around a long time in this next hymn, let's come and we'll put it in this bowl, which I'll put just down here. But maybe that's not you, and you have no idea what I'm talking about with giving and dedication stuff, and that's absolutely fine. In that case, your dedication token might just be I'm going to dedicate myself to you, Jesus.

I'm going to follow you on the way, if that is you, and you've done that for the first time. It would be so exciting to hear that and to pray with you. So let's sing. And in the next hymn, we're going to put our tokens of dedication in close.