There's another group of people that Jesus said were blind as well. They were religious leaders. They were people who outwardly, they did everything outwardly to impress people and there was no heart engagement with God. They were more concerned with what people think. When you're more concerned with what people think, you're blind. You can't see real life. If you're looking for the applause of people, then you'll miss the applause of one who really counts. That's where we should be focussed on what God has to say for us - and so the religious leaders were blind. He said they were quite blind.
There are other people in the Bible that the Bible tells were blind too. There was a church in the Book of Revelation that Jesus wrote, I've been there, into that place Laodicea and everyone was lukewarm. They were half hearted, spiritually passive and shot down and saying well we've got it, we're okay, we don't need anything. And Jesus said you're blind. You can't see your need. You can't actually see that that state of apathy and passivity and lukewarmness leaves you without any vision for what you're called to do. You'd never be in that state if you could see what you're called to be.
And so He describes a whole number of things. In the Book of Peter, Peter describes people who are blind and he says these people have never cultivated their life with God, never built a life that would be productive and fruitful in advancing the kingdom. A person who does not give their life to some purpose in God is blind. You can't see what you're here for. You've missed your way and lost your purpose and God wants to do something about that. He wants to help you. So as we're looking at the story you may be one of those people. There may be physical eye sight problems - we can pray for those later. There may be also that you're in darkness, that actually sin has blinded your eyes. Could be that you're living to impress people and you've got issues of the heart that would leave you blind.
Here's another area that Jesus said makes you blind too - may not have thought of this one. Matthew, Chapter 7, He says - in Matthew, Chapter 7, the first few versus He said don't judge people, because if you judge people, He said then it'll return to you and He said first remove the beam out of your own eye, then you'll see clearly. So judgements in the heart stop you seeing clearly. They make you blind. You can't see what real life is about, what issues are about and you can't be of help to people. When we judge people we can't really help them at all, so there's some of the ways that people can be blind. I wonder if one of those is you tonight? God can help you in this.
So blind Bartimaeus, here he is living a miserable life, a miserable existence, boring thing. People probably kick him and spit on him. He can't do anything about it - doesn't know who they are and there they are, just sitting day by day, just in the dust on the side of the road. One day he heard of Jesus. Someone spoke to him, that you don't have to live this way any longer. Someone spoke to him and said Jesus Christ can change your life. He can physically heal you. He can break the power of sin. He can set you free from the bondages in your life.
He heard what Jesus could do. People in darkness who are blind, spiritually or any other way, he could hear what Jesus Christ can do for an ordinary person's life. You and I are called to let our community who is blind know about this Jesus Christ. Every one of us is called, because when he heard about it - I was amazed, interesting the story that Danny told; here in a school and they're all laughing and then he began to share the Gospel. Suddenly hearts began to open up and the atmosphere changed and people started to see something they hadn't seen before and then began to respond. Tremendous thing to see it. It's like the darkness began to lift and then they see their need. Quite an extraordinary thing to watch and when the Gospel is preached, to see people who laugh and jeer and then they start to go quiet, and then they began to draw in and began to listen as they begin to see that they have a need in their life and that only Christ can meet it.