Ryan MandevilleRyan Mandeville4NaN2024-03-05T15:46:50Z2024-03-10T09:21:21Z716418998241OpenOffice/4.1.14$Unix OpenOffice.org_project/4114m1$Build-9811 Growing up on the original Nintendo of 80's, I found the energy to play two games for hours at a time. Tetris and Legend of Zelda. If you have seen me packing our car, you know where Tetris continues today. There was something different about the Legend of Zelda that caught my attention way more than Super Mario Brothers or ExciteBike. This week, as I was preparing to deliver this sermon, that difference became clear. While Excite Bike had levels to pass and Super Mario had me searching for Princess Peach, Zelda was different, in that it invited me on a quest. There were tasks that had to be completed and objects that were needed before a task could be successfully completed and Zelda rescued. You were always seeking out the end goal with everything you did.Our fourth threshold is seeking. It is moving those people who are open to change, open to a new mindset, to focus in on the question they are asking and stop wandering. This is a phase I have walk through the doors of the church a couple times a year. The person will be seeking out their spirituality and come to get my take on life. Are not all faiths beneficial to us? Can't I believe in all of these different ideas at once? Which means that they are open to change, but they are wandering. They do not know which questions to ask or where to look in order to get the answers they wanted. To be able to make a commitment somewhere.Moving back to Link, the main character in Zelda, the game would have been horrible, if it were not for the opening prologue and developing story that told you where to go and what you needed to do as time went on. Without it, you would have just wandered around everywhere trying to figure out, why am I here? What am I supposed to do? How do I win? These are questions of seekers. As more information is discovered, their quest becomes clear. We need to do the same thing with those who are already open to Jesus. We need to help them clarify their quest.Jesus gives us an example of how he did that with Bartimeus. If Bart doesn't ring a bell right away, it is because most of us know him by the moniker of Blind Bartimeus. Today it would almost be politically incorrect to call him that. He is more than his disability. His story however, all hinges on this one fact. He is blind. Three times we hear he is blind. If you can't see, you tend to wander in a new spot. He has been wandering for years now, when he hears Jesus is coming his way. He sees his chance and starts calling out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” He is rebuked. Instead of abiding by the rebuke to be quiet, he continues even louder, “Have mercy on me.” Keep your promises despite my unworthiness and unfaithfulness. Now a question we often assume we know the answer to is, what promises is Bart asking Jesus to keep? Because God has made a lot of promises to his people. We are probably thinking of Jesus reading the scroll in Luke 4 from Isaiah 61 where he proclaims, ““The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim recovery of sight for the blind.” But that is actually the third out of four things Isaiah promised. Preaching good news, proclaiming freedom for the prisoners, and releasing the oppressed are the other three. Bartimeus could also use the other three as well. But he is seeking mercy from Jesus. So Jesus does him a huge favor. He asks a question, “What do you want me to do for you?” We wouldn't have to read the rest of the story and could guess right now what Bart says. But Jesus asking this question is the difference between Bartimeus continuing to wander and Bartimeaus seeking and finding. For when Bart says, “Rabbi, I want to see.” he has identified what he is seeking and what needs to change in order for him to follow. It might have been he was okay with being blind, but he had a sister that was on her deathbed. Or the tax man was going to take his house if he didn't pay up. But Jesus' question made it crystal clear for Bartimeus what his quest was. When Jesus provided the answer for his quest, vision, look how verse 52 ends. “he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.”We would think that is the natural conclusion. Jesus heals you and you now have to follow him. We are probably aware of many stories that do not fit that conclusion however. Friends who cried out for healing and were healed. But they did not follow Jesus after that. We need only look a couple chapters earlier in Mark in chapter 8, they are in Bethsaida. A man's friends beg Jesus to heal a blind man. Jesus spits on the man's eyes and puts his hands on him and asks if he sees. He sees people that looks like trees. So Jesus puts his hands on the man's eyes againand sight is restored. And the story according to our theory ends with, “And the man followed Jesus.” Instead, it reads in 8:26, “Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don't go into the village.”As you compare and contrast these two stories, you see the difference in which being open and seeking matters. The second blind man, we will call him Sal, short for saliva, was brought by his friends, who asked Jesus. Bart, sought Jesus out and asked Jesus to heal him. He was seeking the Messiah. He knew that Jesus was showing the signs as the Son of David. But he needed to be sure before committing. So he asks for mercy, because it would seem a little presumptuous to ask for his vision to be restored. But when Jesus asks him, he realizes what would confirm without a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah, if I can see again. Jesus knew this was the piece that would pull him into belief. Jesus is a loving God who wants us with him for the rest of eternity. The God who was willing to lay down his own life for us to be with him. So why would he not heal him if this is what is necessary to bring him into the Kingdom? Jesus will do what is necessary to get us there when we are seeking. The problem is, we struggle to know what will get us there without a guide leading us in our quest.This is where our role in walking with people on a journey comes in this threshold. We are there to help them find answers to completing their quest. Now there is a few key signs to know that you are moving into this threshold from being open to seeking. The first is the transition from saying, “I know God can” to “I know Jesus can.” When people are moving to the seeking phase from the open one, they are like Bartimeus, they know that not any God will do, but they need Jesus. Second, they will show signs of having counted the cost. Bartimeus did this in shouting all the louder. A blind man shouting out for mercy would bring him the shame of all those around him as he embarrassed them. We see that the people were embarassed and tried to quiet him. Having done the algebra, Bart knew the shame was worth it and shouted all the louder. The third thing that seekers will do, is they will start spending time with other Christians to figure out how to complete their quest. If you don't see any of these three things happening, you are probably still on the openness threshold.This seeking phase typically lasts for about three months for most people. Which is about the same length of the Conversations curriculum. The reality is, after three months, if they have not made up their mind to follow Jesus in a new way, they are going to give up the quest. So we need to be ready to be an open book and walk along a seeker. The reality is, a quest takes up a lot of energy. If the goal is not found after this time, wandering is a lot less work and will be chosen. So how do we help someone in this quest. As Blind Sal demonstrates, we can't do the work for them, but we can go on the journey with them. If we continue to do life with them, we can be more deliberate in showing them how our life is built on Jesus' words. We can open them to our prayer life and not just pray for them, but be praying with them. We can provide answers to initial questions. And we can be models of how the Christian life works. Not just the social media side, but the hard parts too. The asking forgiveness, the repentance parts on display for them to see.Bartimeus' journey was not long. He followed Jesus from Jericho to Bethany for 15 miles and then into Jerusalem as the week progressed. But what he saw in that short journey of discipleship, many of us would give everything we have ever seen in exchange for. He saw the Savior of the world saving the world. Let us be ready to help those God has placed in our lives reach this threshold and move into following Jesus so they can see their King enter and serve them in a way they never thought possible.