Hi, I'm Dr. Ryan Dellamater with Ocean Water. We help people get their water from the ocean. I'm down here at the beach today with my family and I want to say hi to all of our friends here in California and in El Salvador. Today I want to talk with you about six ways to get your vision back. Today's message is out of Psalms, out of our daily reading group. If you'd like to read the Bible with us every day, I'd love to have you join us.
If you'll just message me on Instagram or Facebook, at Ocean Water, I'll make sure that you are able to get that plan. Today we're in Psalms 99. It says, the Lord reigns, let the nations tremble. He sits enthroned, let the earth shake. Great is the Lord in Zion, he's exalted over the nations. Let them praise your great and awesome name. He's holy, the king is mighty, he loves justice, you've established equity.
In Jacob you've done what is just and right, exalt the Lord our God, worship at his foot stool, he is holy. What a vision. Many of you can identify with this conversation I had recently. Someone said to me, man before this whole thing started I was already feeling pretty low. Now my wealth's been cut in half, my house has lost its value, I've seen the stock market plunge. A lot of you high school seniors and college seniors have been looking forward to a graduation you worked on for four years.
That's not going to happen. 26 million people just in the United States have lost their job. A lot of people have lost their vision because of what's happened in the last two months. So you might be saying, Ryan, why would I be talking about vision right now at this moment? Well actually there's never been a better time than right now to get a new vision. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 29 where there's no vision that people perish. You have to have vision if you're going to make it in life.
The word vision in this verse means a dream. It's the word haszone. It means that you've got to have a dream for your life. You've got to have a goal for your life. You have to have a vision for our time here on earth. We all know what it means to perish. Have you ever bought a piece of fruit or vegetable and you left it in the refrigerator and you forgot about it and you came back and you opened up the door and you could smell that it had perished?
That word actually means in Hebrew, parah, and it means out of control. That's exactly what happens in our lives when we don't have a vision for it. There's nothing to guide it. There's nothing to direct it. Where there's no clear objective, where there's no vision for our future, our lives literally get out of control. In Luke 18 there's a story about a guy who lost his vision, actually his physical vision. Let me give you the background of a story I also want to share with you.
It's a story of a blind man named Bartimaeus. He's heading and marching towards Jerusalem where he knows they're going to arrest Jesus. They're going to kill him. They're going to crucify him. Jesus knows he's going to die and resurrect three days later. It's the whole purpose he came to earth. So he's got a lot on his mind. It's the last week of Jesus' ministry and the crowds are enormous. They're following him everywhere. He's walking south to Jerusalem.
He's going through all these different cities. He comes to the city of Jericho. There's a huge crowd following him. He comes up to the city gates. At the city gates there's a bunch of blind people that were sitting there. Now this wasn't uncommon at the time. There were blind beggars at the gate of almost every major city in the Middle East because in those days blindness was the worst curse you could possibly have. It was the lowest level of the status quo.
It was like boogie boarding at Lowers. Not cool. Today a person can be blind and live a highly productive life because all of our technology. We have seeing eye dogs. We have braille on street lights so people know when to cross the street when it's red and green. We have all kinds of disability conveniences. We have audible books and we have computers that will talk to you. We can live a very productive life today and be blind. That wasn't the case back then.
In those days blindness meant absolute poverty because if you were blind in those days it meant that you couldn't read anything and you couldn't write anything and you would have no work and you were literally left at the mercy of everybody else. So blindness meant you were going to be a beggar for most of your life. You'd sit at the gates and depend upon the mercy and the pity of other people. It was a miserable life to live without physical vision.
Luke 18 says as Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside when he heard the crowd ask, he said, what's happening? And they told him Jesus is passing by. And then he cried out Jesus son of David have mercy on me. Those who led the way rebuked the blind man and told him to be quiet. He shouted son of David have mercy on me. So Jesus stopped and he ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came Jesus said what do you want me to do for you? That's a very profound question.
We're going to come back to that. Jesus wants to ask us that question. What do you want me to do for you? Bartimaeus said Lord I want to see. Jesus said to him receive your sight. Your faith has healed you. And immediately he received his vision and followed Jesus praising God. And when the people saw it they also praised God. Helen Keller the famous philanthropist who was born blind said isn't it a great tragedy to be blind? And her reply was it's a greater tragedy to have eyes and not see.
There are a lot of people who can see physically but they have no vision spiritually. They have no vision for their life and their world and their marriage and their kids and their finances and their career. Most of us go through life without a compelling vision. But how you see your vision is exactly how you see your future. Next week we're going to celebrate 365 days of ocean water.
It was just a year ago that we started this journey and next week I'm excited I'm going to recap everything that God's done in the last 365 days. And I'm also going to share some things that I'm stoked about for the next 365 days. I'm so excited about this I want to ask you to text someone and ask them to join us. Just text them that'll be enough. One person. So the way you see your life determines your stress, your success, your stability and your spiritual life. It's really all about vision.
There's six parts to the process. You know every miracle that Jesus did, he did it to teach us something. Not just to heal somebody, not just to help somebody. He was doing that but it was also a teaching tool. Every miracle is a parable of truth and from this healing of a physical blindness we can also see some stuff about how we can get vision back for our lives. So let's look at this together. The first step to getting your vision back is to do what Bartimaeus did.
Believe Jesus can change my situation. This is the hope step. We need hope to cope. If you're going to believe that things can be better in the future it starts with hoping. Hope is believing that Jesus can change any situation that you're in. This is what happened. He said as Jesus approached a blind man was sitting by the roadside when he heard the crowd he asked what was happening and they told him Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. He cried out Jesus son of God have mercy on me.
Now imagine this there are a lot of blind guys sitting there. He's not the only one. This is nothing new. He's not by himself. There are probably a few other blind people with him. But one guy in spite of the crowd decides to shout Jesus I'm over here. Hey he's basically making a scene. I'm sure the crowd is looking around. Who does this guy think he is? This guy is being rude. Why is he so desperate? Well it was a cry of hope because he believed that Jesus could change his situation.
Think about that. Now right now most people have lost their hope and the reason why they've lost hope is because they put it in the wrong source. There's only one source that will never disappoint you and me and that's God. If you're going to have a source of hope and you put it in anything that can be taken away from you or anything that can disappoint you it won't work. Our hope must be in Christ alone. Only he can meet all our needs all the time. No human being. No woman.
Only God can do that. The reason why so many people have lost hope right now and are drifting is because they're looking in the wrong places for hope. Some people put it in stocks. Some people put it in their retirement. Some people put it in their job. Some people put it in a relationship or the economy. Some people put all their hope in the government and in politics. None of that works. We think maybe if I can get into this relationship I'll have something I need.
When I go to this bar I'm with this person. We try all these different things to try to give us the hope and the vision for our life but really we just have to come back to God. It's not technology and another relationship or another trick or another therapy. It's God. It's simply saying God help me. 1 Peter says God paid for you with the precious life blood of Christ. In other words he paid for your salvation when Jesus died for you. Because of this you can trust.
You can trust in God who raised Christ from the dead. That's a pretty big thing. And gave him great glory. Now your faith and hope can rest in him alone. In Christ alone our hope is found. The second thing you've got to do is you've got to ignore all the negative voices. This is what I call the resistance step. All the negative voices that you're going to have to ignore if you're going to get your vision back. If you're going to see where you're supposed to go with the rest of your life.
Most of the people who go through life go through without any vision. A lot of people don't want you to have a dream for your life or have a goal for your life. They don't want you to go after the big things that you can do and that you can accomplish. And there's a lot of negative voices that are around people all the time. If you're going to break out of drifting and discouragement and even depression you've got to begin to disregard all of the people around you.
A lot of people are going to say when you get really focused, are you kidding? You can't do that. Forget that dream. It's never going to happen. You're not going to be able to change. You've had too many wrong things happening. You're not the right guy. It's just negativity. It's discouragement. But don't pay attention to what I call dream busters. And believe me there's plenty of them.
Want to bust your dream or kill your dream or discourage you from doing the things that you really feel like you're supposed to do with your life. And they want you to be filled with fear and anxiety and doubts about yourself. They keep you from launching out. One of the greatest fears of people fall trapped in a fear of the disapproval of other people.
If you fear the disapproval of other people you'll never ever have God's vision for your life because you can't please God and everybody else at the same time. You've got to decide who you're going to live for. You've got to decide that yeah you're going to have some resistance going to that but I'm going to do it anyway. So let me help you out with this.
No one in the United States tonight or anywhere for that matter is going to be thinking about what you or I think about them when they go to sleep tonight. We sort of interact a little bit with people throughout the day and that's good and that's encouraging. But ultimately we just come back to our vision and our plan for what God wants us to do. Everyone wants everybody to listen to them and follow them today but God wants us to follow him. God wants us to follow his plan for our life.
The Bible says this in verse 39. It says those who led the way rebuked him and they told him to be quiet. He just shouted all the more son of David have mercy on me. Now what's the crowd doing? The crowd's saying what are you doing? Jesus is important but you're just a blind person. Who do you think you are asking God to help you? Who do you think you are asking God to do anything with your life? Don't make a scene just relax. What the crowd is basically saying is this.
Surely Jesus wouldn't be interested in using a person like you. We all say that to ourselves all the time. We say why would Jesus be interested in using a person like me? Well if you're going to get back to the vision that God wants to have for your life we're going to have to get past that negative voice even the one we tell ourselves that God can't use us. Let me ask you a question. Whose disapproval do you fear the most in life? Who would you be most afraid to be rejected by?
Because whoever that is is your God. And when anybody is God in your life that's called an idol. The Bible says in the Ten Commandments have no other gods before me and in the Bible it says to have no idols. Anybody you fear their disapproval more than God's ends up being your God. That's why so many people have no hope because they're stuck in the rut of thinking if I really went after my dream what would my boyfriend think or what would my spouse think? What would my parents think?
What would my kids think? What would all these people around me think? The Bible says that when you fear the disapproval of others you're a disabled person. Did you know that? The Bible calls that a disability. Disability is at an all time high because people want people so badly to follow them. The Bible says when you worry about the approval of others it's a spiritual trap. It says the fear of human opinion disables you in problems.
You might think what would everybody think if I really followed God's plan for my life? What would I do? What if I went after the big goals that I have? Well the Bible says that the moment you ask that question you're dead in the water. You see the fear of human opinion disables you but trusting in God protects you from all that. You're either going to fear people or you're going to fear God. Those are the two options. The third thing you've got to do is you've got to listen for God's call.
This is like the attention step. You've got to pay attention to what God means. He wants you to slow down. We're going to have to stop being busy. We're going to have to quiet our lives a little bit. Think about that. Quiet down. Slow down. Settle down and focus. What is God saying? What is God saying? What does God want you to do? Sometimes you just literally have to slow down. You've got to relax. You've got to close your eyes and just pray. It's that quiet. It's that quiet. It's that quiet.
It's that quiet. It's that quiet. It's that quiet. It's that quiet. It's that simple... trying to get that clarity and try to bring things down a little bit. You see... God in the next verse says so Jesus stopped and said call him. Talking about this blind guy. I said he called to the blind man. Cheer up on your feet. He's calling you. He's calling you. Throw in his cloak aside fi he's come to his feet. Jesus is calling me, but you've got to listen for God's call. Calling and vision go together.
What do I mean by that? God's call on your life is God's vision for your life. They go together. If you want to know God's vision, you have to know God's call for your life. When people talk about, I was called by God, a lot of people think that's some kind of weird thing. Well, it basically means that you're supposed to be different. Everybody's called by God. In the whole world, everybody's called by God.
We're all called to know Him. We're all called to love Him. We're all called to serve Him. We're all called to share His love with all of the people around us through our actions and our words. We're all called to be forgiven by Him. We're all called to go to heaven. The only question is, are you going to answer the call? Or let me put it this way. Are you going to answer God's texts? God's texting you.
He's calling you today. In fact, He's been trying to text you and call you literally our entire lives. But some of us say, Lord, I don't want to talk to you right now. I don't want to answer that call. I don't want to return that text that you sent to me. Calling is not something that's supernatural. It's God's plan and purpose for your life. Some people are called to do real estate development. Some people are called to teach preschoolers.
Some people are called to drive a truck. Some people are called to do accounting. Some people are called to raise kids. And some people are called to roast coffee. Some people are called to study underwater animals. Some people are called to make music and art. We're all called by God to do different things at different times in our life. What we do changes, but who we become like Jesus is the constant. God called us to do all these different things so everything in the world could get done.
It says here that Jesus called and He said, get up on your feet. And here's the point. Bartimaeus could have missed God's call if he wasn't listening. God's calling you. Are you listening? Which means you have to spend time alone with God, reading His word and praying and thinking about your life and asking for His help. You see, you can't hear God's call. You can't get God's vision if you're distracted by all these other things.
Isaiah 30 says, in repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength. So they called the blind man and the crowd said, cheer up on your feet. He's calling you. Notice how the crowd's thoughts have changed. Earlier they're telling them to be quiet and now they're telling them to cheer up. That's how fickle the crowd is. One minute you're the hero, the next minute you're the zero. Public opinion changes all the time.
It's so fickle. That's what I want to tell you. Jesus calls you. It doesn't matter what the crowd says. Go do it. If God has called you to do it, then you better do it. Because that's going to be the right thing for you. It's going to be the vision for your life. It's why it's called a personal relationship with Jesus because His plan for you is personalized in detail. It says, throwing His cloak aside, Bartimaeus jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
Notice He's saying, I'm not going to procrastinate. I'm not going to delay. I'm not going to change my mind. I'm not going to wait. I'm not going to keep putting it off. When God calls you, He just says, I'm here. I'm never going to get this chance again. I'm going to make the most out of it. I'm going to take advantage. It's now or never. You see, God's been calling some of us for weeks, some of us for months, maybe some of us for years.
And we've just been putting it off. That's unwise. We need to do it right now. If He's calling you, just answer the call right now. And all you say is, God, I'm here. What do you want me to do? My guess is you already know some of the things that you're supposed to do with your life because God's been whispering them to you. And you probably already know the benefit of what they'll do for your life. You have a little fear.
You say, I'll get around to it someday. I'll put it off. You're delaying the call of God in your life. You're postponing His vision for your life. Every day you postpone God's vision for your life. You're wasting another day. So right now, you can just pray with me. You can just say, God, I'm ready. I hear you. I'm in. Now, here's the fourth thing you've got to do. Tell God exactly what you want.
This is what Bartimaeus did. Jesus calls him. He goes up and notice what he says. He says, When he came near, Jesus asked him, What do you want me to do for you, Lord? He says, I want to see. I love this. I love this because it's so simple. Nobody can say it's too hard to understand. It's not complicated to get your vision back. You just tell God exactly what you want. A blind guy says to Jesus, I want to see. Bartimaeus doesn't go into a long speech. He doesn't go into why he went blind.
He just says, I'd like to see. And Jesus goes, Well, here's your sight. Next, it's pretty simple. He said, Receive your sight. Your faith is healed. Just like that. Bartimaeus said, I want to see, Lord. He said, Go. Your faith has made you well. Bartimaeus believed that he could do it. You're healed. It's that easy. Tell God exactly what you want. He knew. He had it clear in his mind that this is the way that you get your vision back.
People think, Should I set goals? Goals are statements of faith. The Bible says that God loves when we trust him. He loves faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So when you set a goal, you can say, Lord, I believe that you're going to do this in my life. You can write it down. That is a statement of faith. You're telling God what you want out of your life. Ocean water has a goal. Five thousand ocean-based access points for people to receive their water from the ocean for free.
That's our goal. It's what we work on. Five thousand churches along the coast and beaches of the world in 108 countries that have ocean-based coastline. That's what I'm committed to doing for the rest of my life. If you're under the age of 30 and you're interested in going to one of these countries and starting ocean water, I want you to message me on Instagram and in Facebook. And I want to start praying with you. We have six countries that I've already asked us to come. Is God calling you?
Could you be the answer to 38 families in a country somewhere? Right now we help 38 families in Palo Mercino, El Salvador. And God is blessing me. Could you be the answer for 38 families in a country somewhere around the world? I want to pray with you about that. And I recommend that you just don't think this through, but you write down your prayer requests as statements or goals. Writing down your vision makes it more specific. It makes it more clear. It makes it more clarified.
Now, obviously Bartimaeus didn't write it down because it was blind. But he's been thinking about the one thing he wanted this entire life. And Jesus comes up and says, what do you want me to do for you? Here's the question. Why in the world did Jesus ask that? Isn't Jesus God? Yes. Doesn't he know everything? Yes. Doesn't he? Didn't he create Bartimaeus? Yes. He knew that Bartimaeus wanted to be healed. He already knows what Bartimaeus is going to ask.
So why in the world when Jesus calls the blind man does he say, what do you want me to do for you? It's because every time God asks you a question, it's never for his benefit. He already knows the answer. When God asks you a question, it's because he wants you to know the answer. He wants you to have it clarified in your mind. Jesus knew what Bartimaeus wanted. The question was for his benefit. He was giving Bartimaeus the opportunity to publicly announce what he wanted God to do in his life.
If you want your life to be different after COVID-19, then this is the next step. You've got to tell God in advance, this is God. This is what I want you to do in my life. This is what I want. This is who I want to be. Bartimaeus was a poor man. Now he's standing in front of thousands of people when Jesus says, tell me what you really want. What can I do for you? That took a lot of courage to say, Lord, I'd like to be healed. And that he had to believe that Jesus could do it.
Jesus loved him enough and wanted to heal him. It was a statement of faith. And Bartimaeus did it in front of everybody. He said, I want to get my vision back. If Jesus Christ was in the room with you today and stood in front of you today and asked you, what do you want me to do for you? What would you tell me? What do you want God to do in your life? Well, what if you might think, what if this sounds self-centered? What if it's too personal? Or what if it's too big of a request?
And what will other people think? Well, this is exactly what Jesus is asking you right now. He's asking you this question. What do you want me to do for you? Just like he asked Bartimaeus 2,000 years ago. God is saying, what do you want me to do for you? Right now, I want these seagulls to leave. So tell God your dream. Tell God your goal. Because he says, without a goal and a vision, my people perish. Jesus says, what do you want me to do for you?
If you're worried about what other people think, you're not going to go anywhere in this next season of your life. Bartimaeus wasn't hesitant. He states his goal and faith. He states it out loud. He says in public, I want to see you. Which means that he believed that God was able to do it. Jesus Christ asks us today, what do you want me to do for you? That's a wonderful question. But we all can wrestle with it. Romans 8.32 says this.
Since God did not even spare his own son, he sent Jesus to die for us. But gave him up for us all. If God loved us enough to do that, to send Jesus on a cross, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else? If God loved you enough to come and die for you on a cross, don't you think he loves you enough to help you with your mortgage, or your job, or your graduation, or where you're supposed to live, or what country you're supposed to go to? Of course he is.
Don't you think that he loves you? Everything is small compared to the fact that Jesus died on a cross for us. Tell God exactly what you want. When you're hearing the call of God, God often gives you a call to a new direction by letting other things dry up. A lot of things are drying up right now. But often what we think is a dead end is just a detour to a better path. We think it's a dead end. God says, I just don't want you going down that path anymore. So I'm putting this here.
It's not a dead end. It's a pivot. It's a detour. And my answer to this question, what do you want me to do for you? I recommend don't ask for material things. Ask for a vision that relates to God and serving and seeing people come to him. And God will help you do that. Just like Bartimaeus said, Lord, I want to see. What do you want me to do? The fifth thing you've got to do is you've got to receive your vision and faith. That's what Bartimaeus did. He received it in faith.
The Bible says, receive your sight. Your faith is sealed you. And immediately he received his sight. Immediately. Receive your faith, he said. Your faith is sealed you. Receiving in faith, go together. If you don't believe, then you won't receive. The two of them are linked. He had faith and he knew that Jesus was willing to give him his answer. Because faith is placed in a person. I talked about this one time with someone and I said faith is always attached to a person.
Bartimaeus attached his faith to Jesus. He knew that Jesus was the only answer and he placed his faith in him. Faith is believing that something is true because you know, you believe something is truthful. Faith is believing that something is going to happen because you believe that someone is going to make it happen. And this is what Bartimaeus got right. He said I need sight, I need to see, this was his vision. He put his faith in Christ. Jesus did. He could see who Jesus was.
He could see that Jesus was the answer. I want you to notice this. Did Bartimaeus not have a personal relationship with Jesus? He was a stranger to him but he believed there may be people who are going to see this today. You don't have that personal relationship with Jesus. You say I don't know him that well. I don't know him well enough to ask me for anything. Well today you can ask God for anything you need.
First you can say God help me to love you, help me to follow you and then help my life to have meaning and purpose. The relationship came after the request. The relationship came after the healing. The Lord can do the same thing in your life. Don't be afraid to ask him. And then the sixth thing, the last thing is stick with Jesus on the road that he travels. Because if you want to keep your vision you're going to have it leaks sometimes. And we get distracted a little.
You've got to stay on that road with Jesus. This is exactly what happened to Bartimaeus after he got his vision restored. He says this immediately after Bartimaeus received his sight he followed Jesus. When people saw it they also praised God. That's what happens when we start to follow God. Other people notice it and then they start to praise God and follow God as well. So if you don't take your next step of faith you're going to get behind because Jesus is moving on.
So we've got to, following Jesus implies movement. That's why you have to work at it a little bit every day. That's why you've got to read God's word a little bit every day because you want to stay in step with him. So let me ask you two questions. What's your next step and what's your next step today? Now I don't know what it is but I want you to ask God what it is. Maybe you know this thing you've been meaning to do but you've just been putting it off. Bring that to God today.
For some of you it may be that you have to ask forgiveness from somebody that you hurt or someone that hurt you. I don't know what it is. It might be giving, it might be being generous, it might be ending a relationship, it might be starting a business. Whatever that thing is I want you to bring that back to God today, right now in your life.
Now if you're watching this today I want everybody who watches this to be in a small group or a house church because that's one of the things that's going to help you in your life every week. Bartimaeus got up on the day he got healed and what was his plan for the day? It was the same plan that had been every day before but Jesus intervened. When Jesus met him in the middle of his life he had no idea that Jesus was coming by. He had no plan to get ready.
Just the savior of the world was going to walk right in front of him and change his life and that's our opportunity today. That's our opportunity to have a new vision. There was no time to prepare, he just did. Now would you pray with me? Would you say, dear God I want you to help me today? I'm tired of trying to do things my own way and not getting the results that I want. God help me to do things your way so I can get different results, better results with my life. God be my savior today.
Help me today. I trust you today in Jesus name. Amen. I'm stoked that you've been with us for today's message. I'd like to stay in touch with you throughout the week. If you'll message me at Ocean Water I'll make sure and get you information to help you grow every day. Thank you so much for being with us. I love you all and I'll see you next week for our one year message.