Chapter 3

Cast Off The Coat

And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. — Mark 10:46

Jesus comes out of Jericho, and He passes right by this blind man called Bartimaeus. It doesn’t seem as if Jesus was looking for people with needs, He was just passing by. He didn’t stop or look around or ask anyone if they had a need, He was simply passing by. Many people feel like Jesus has passed them by. Sometimes people get their feelings hurt because Jesus doesn’t force His way into their lives to meet their needs. This story shows us the way to get God’s attention is to humble ourselves and cry out to Him.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of wit-nesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, — Hebrews 12:1

When you meet with a person who is completely blind, they may be looking right at you but cannot really see you. Their eyes may be opened completely and they may be gazing right at you, but they really do not see you. They cannot really see what you look like. They might be able to feel your features, and be able to sense the smoothness or the roughness of your skin or the texture of your hair but they see very differently from most of the world.

In this story, Jesus was passing by. There was somebody poised and ready for a miracle, but Jesus kept on walking. There was someone that wanted a change in their life, somebody that really did not care what anybody thought and needed something from Jesus. Bartimaeus knew he could have it; so what did he do? As Jesus passed by, Bartimaeus sat there begging. But when he heard it was Jesus, when he knew it was the Master, he began to cry out. “Jesus! Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!” Everybody else said, “Be quiet, what is wrong with you? Do not you have any manners? That is the Messiah, the Master, the Teacher. Show a little dignity.” But he just ignored them. Because for all of those great things Jesus was, he knew that Jesus had the answer to his need, so he again cried out “Jesus! Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me!” (see Mark 10:47-48)

Keep these two things in mind. Bartimaues had a need, and he was covered up. He was comfortable in his coat, in his beggar’s garment. He was wrapped up in what was common and familiar to him, but in his need he cried out to Jesus, “Have mercy upon me.” There was desperation in his voice; the desperation came from the fact that he was blind. Because he was blind, he was also poor. Those two things coupled to-gether did not make for a very good life. He was poor with no hope of getting any gain. He did not have means to attain anything because he could not work, due to the fact he could not see.

Spiritually, when you cannot see, you cannot really understand, and so you cannot attain anything from the kingdom of God. There are some people that cannot see spiritually and because they cannot see, they are poor. They do not understand the things of God, and because they do not understand God’s ways, they are in a sense bankrupt. Spiritually, they do not have anything. God loves you enough to allow you to read this today. God knows you; He knows where you are at. You might be spiritually blind. You might have trouble understanding what the preacher preaches while you attend a church service. You may not be able to see what God has for you or hear his call sounding out for your heart because you are spiritually blind and eternally poor.

Even if you have nice clothes, nice things, and 20/20 vision, you can still be spiritually blind. When you are spiritually blind, you cannot see and you cannot understand the things of God. This leaves you with a void in your spirit. When you are spiritually blind, it is difficult to make a lasting commitment to God. This is because you cannot see Him. You cannot see in the realm of faith or in the realm of spiritual things. This leaves you spiritually bankrupt. Even if there is a form of godliness in your life, there is not any substance.

God is calling out to you to cast off your coat of comfort. Get rid of the beggars garment. In Mark chapter ten, Bartimaeus was physically blind but spiritually he was aware in his senses. He knew Jesus was around. You might be spiritually blind today, but you can sense Jesus is somewhere near you. If you can sense, or even get a hint that Jesus is in your vicinity, you need to cry out to him immediately. Even if you don’t understand everything about the Bible, but you want more of God, this is for you. You are blind and you are poor, but if you can just sense Jesus is near, there is hope for you. If you can just get a hint, or even a feeling Jesus might be passing by, all you have to do is cry out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me,” and He will. If you will cry out to Jesus, Jesus will stand still. This is how He responded in Mark chapter 10. The scripture says, when He heard him, He stood still.

And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. — Mark 10:49

Imagine with me what it must have looked like that day. Imagine how that con-versation would sound today. Here we see Jesus, a very humble man, walking with His disciples and all of a sudden He just stopped, and everybody asked, “What are you stopping for?” Well, in the case of the woman with the issue of blood, He said, some-body touched me. But this time, nobody had touched Him. So when He stopped, they said, “What in the world are you stopping for?”

“Do you hear that”, Jesus said, “Do you hear somebody crying out, somebody is calling,” and then He said, “Wait a minute, stop, stop the procession. Get that man over here.” Jesus just stopped; Jesus will always stop when you cry out to Him, He will al-ways stop and call for you. He will never continue to walk past you when you cry out to Him for mercy. Never one time did Jesus turn anyone down. He never walked away from them or turned them down flat. He never did that. He always stopped. He always listened. He always answered.

When Jesus stopped and called the man, Bartimaeus had some choices. When you call out, I know Jesus hears you. He hears you and stands at attention, then calls you to come. Jesus is saying to us, I have what you need, but will you come? Some people will remain where they are, they will just sit spiritually. They stay in that spiritual state because they think if they stay there then nobody will notice them. Maybe nobody will really pay attention. So they keep their coat of comfort wrapped tightly, their spiritual beggar’s garment, wrapped tightly around them so nobody can see them.

Bartimaeus had a choice, and the choice he made was to leave the garment be-hind. The scripture says he cast away the garment. He cast away the garment because when you come to Jesus you have to come just like you are. You cannot come with pretensions, you cannot come trying to cover things up. Deep down, Jesus knows you have a coat on; you have a beggar’s garment wrapped tightly around you.

Have you ever read the story of the artist who wanted an un-kept beggar to pose for him for a special picture he was painting? He searched the city till he found just the man–a poor fellow who was unshaven and dirty. He asked the man to come to his stu-dio the following day. He paid him a little bit of money in advance and the man went straight to the public baths and cleaned himself up. He shaved the stubble off of his chin, combed his hair, neatened up his clothes and when he presented himself in the artist’s studio, the painter was aghast. He said, “But I wanted you just as you were.”

When we come to Jesus, He wants us just as we are, even with our dirty, ugly, nasty thoughts and our other imperfections. He wants you just as you are. He does not expect you to become better or get better just so He will accept you in. That is not the way He does things. He wants you just like you are; with all your bad habits and all of your mean spiritedness. He wants you just the way you are. He does not want you to go try to clean yourself up first, because the scripture says; our righteousness is as filthy rags. He says “Do not try to clean yourself up, that makes you even less desirable. I cannot do anything with somebody who depends on their own righteousness.” Jesus wants you just the way you are!

Many people did not understand why Jesus went to Zacchaeus’ house to eat. They reasoned why He would eat with the publicans and the sinners. They did not understand why He would sit down with this evil man. Zacchaues was an evil man, a tax collecting man and they didn’t understand why Jesus would eat with him. They thought it was a shame for Jesus to eat with these sinners. Jesus was sending a message to everyone of us that He loves us just the way we are. The scripture says it very plain, while we were yet sinners; that means at your nastiest, ugliest point, Christ died for you. When you feel your lowest, far away from God, He still wants you. Even at your worst, Jesus loved you the best. Even at the very lowest point of your life, He loved you enough to die for you. It does not matter what you have done or where you have been.

Jesus Christ loves you and He gave His life for you. When He called, Bartimaeus got up. When you come to Jesus, He will transform your whole life. It is wonderful. He is not expecting you to transform your life before you come to Him. Some people say, “I have to get things right in my life before I come to God.” Others question, “Why I am not good enough to get to God?” Here’s a fact: You do not get good to get to God; you get God to get good. You cannot perfect yourself or behave better just so Jesus will accept you. He wants you as you are, even in the lowest, most humiliating points in your life. The good news is Bartimaeus got up. The hardest part is just getting up.

And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. — Mark 10:49-50

Jesus is calling you to cast off your coat of pride today, but some people won’t move because they do not want anybody to see them come to Jesus. They do not want others to watch them as they go meet the Master. People all around were watching Bartimaeus the whole way, they knew who he was and what his issues were. You might think you have a big “coat” on and nobody can see the real you, but everybody knows. It is easy to recognize people spiritually bankrupt in a crowd. They are the ones who have a hard time worshiping. Spiritually poor people have a hard time lifting their hands when it is time to worship and sing. They are not fooling anybody.

When Bartimaeus got up to move toward Jesus, it was a turning point in his life. He knew that Jesus had what he needed, so he moved when it was time to move. If you really believe that Jesus has everything you need, you will make the bold step to answer His call. If you are desperate enough, you will make the move. Why would you just sit back and watch other people get blessed, and be filled with the Holy Ghost and never make the move for yourself?

The best part of Bartimaeus’ story included in the Bible is when the scripture says; he cast away his garment. He cast away his garment because Jesus wanted him just as he was. This garment represented something. The garment was there for a reason. There was something about the garment. Something about the coat he was wearing. Many blind people down on their luck like to have nice things like blankets or big coats draped around them for warmth and comfort. This makes them feel more secure even though they cannot see what everyone else is seeing about them. They want to keep the coat around them so nobody can really see what they are covering up.

Bartimaeus’ coat has significance for us today. For each one of us it may represent something slightly different. This coat might represent discouragement, sin, pride, laziness, a comfort zone or even other people’s opinions of you. No matter what this coat represents for you, it is time to cast off the coat that holds you back today.

This garment might represent discouragement; discouragement from getting to Jesus. When Bartimaeus wanted to come to Jesus, there were people that told him to be quiet and sit down. They tried to discourage Bartimaeus from getting to Jesus. As you are reading this today, still wearing your coat of discouragement, there are little things whispering in your ear. These voices are trying to tell you that you are not good enough or that nobody really likes you. Many different things to make it seem useless to try and shed this coat. It is a garment of discouragement and this is your time to take it off. Bartimaeus did not care what anybody else thought, he knew he had to leave the discouragement behind. Now it is time for you to leave the discouragement and the doubt behind and move on.

This coat represented a garment of sin and Bartimaeus’ old life. It was the old Bartimaeus. The old comfortable Bartimaeus. He knew if he could get to Jesus, Jesus would change him, He would heal him, and he would receive his sight, so he would not need the old Bartimaeus anymore. You may not like yourself right now, but you don’t have to stay where you are. You can come to Jesus, He will take your sins away and make you brand new.

The scripture tells us that we become new creatures in Christ. I want you to know if you have the old garment of sin and heaviness, the scriptures says, if you have sin and heaviness wrapped all around you, you need to cast off the garment today. The only way for you to cast away the garment is by making a decision to be baptized. You can go down in the water of baptism, and you can have all your sins washed away in the name of Jesus, and every sin that you have ever committed will be cast away from you. Bartimaeus had a garment he had to discard. This was a garment of sin, a garment of discouragement and it was a coat of pride. What garment holds you back from getting to Jesus?

In the natural world, people wear certain clothes because they feel like they look good in them. In their pride they think, “I am pretty good; I do not really need to come to Jesus.” Many people will allow pride to get in the way of their miracle and them coming to Jesus in complete surrender. God is always ready to transform their life but they have too much pride.

But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. — James 4:6

Why not humble yourself before God? Decide today to get rid of the pride. Who cares what anybody thinks? The end result will be well worth it! Do you know why everyone gets uncomfortable when you talk about pride? Because everybody has it. Some have more pride than others. Some people have it in abundance; some have a huge garment of pride. Other people just have a “bathing suit” of pride. They might even reason it is very small and shouldn’t be a problem. You still have to rid yourself of any pride, because you cannot come to Jesus that way, it just does not work.

Bartimaeus decided not to let this heavy garment of pride remain on him. When you get desperate enough, pride is not an option anymore. When you are desperate, you do not care about anything but getting what you need most. You will not care what anybody thinks. It will not really matter, because you have a need. Oh that God would remind us, what being humble looks like. God may send somebody into the church, off the streets, that will out worship you, and out praise you. They may stink, they may not have a job, their clothes may not be near as nice as yours, and yet they will walk into the church and they will be blessed. They will be anointed and given a ministry by God because they are humble. While you are questioning, criticizing and standing in judgement of others, they are taking off the garment of pride.

There are some subjects people do not like to hear about: pride and laziness. The coat of comfort looks a lot like laziness to me. If Jesus would make an announcement that He is coming back in seven days, would your coat of laziness come off? How would you live if you knew that He was coming back in seven days? What if you knew He was coming back in one month? Would that help get the coat of comfort and pride off? The coat of comfort was wrapped so nicely around Bartimaeus, it was comfortable for him to sit there as people passed by. He would simply beg and it probably got to the point he did not even have to beg, because he had his regulars that came by and dropped the coins in because they felt sorry for him. They gave him enough that he could eat and get by and sit there in his coat, be comfortable and not have to do anything. When Bartimaeus cried out, everybody’s attention was on him, he left the comfort behind. He cast away what was comfortable, what was hiding the flaws, what was hiding the things he did not want everybody else to see, and he cast it all off.

He could’ve sat there the rest of his life and they would have taken care of him. By law, they had to take care of him. By law, he had to have enough to eat. By law, if it was too cold outside, they had to give him an extra coat; they had to take care of him. That is how they operated in those days. He could’ve been lazy for the rest of his life. But he said, “I do not want to be lazy, I am tired of laying around and sitting around with my coat of comfort. I am ready to get rid of the comfort and get my miracle, I am ready to break through into what God has for me.” So he stood up and he cried out, “Jesus have mercy on me!” And you know what he was saying? “If you will have mercy on me, I will not be lazy anymore. If you will have mercy on me, I will get rid of the comforts and I will let you bless me.” Many people would rather just stay comfortable.

Nobody would have paid any attention to him, but he stood up and he cried out. Sometimes we have to break out of our comfort zones in order to be blessed. Sometimes we get mad and we get upset and almost hate the preacher because he pushes us out of our comfort zone, but the reason he is pushing us is because he wants us to be blessed. Some people do not understand why a Pastor pushes so hard in the services. I’ve had people say to me, “Pastor we love you, but do not push so hard.” I tell them, I want you to be blessed. I want you to have everything that God intends for you to have. I want you to be happy, with peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” You are not going to be blessed with the way you are living. So I hope to push you out of that comfort zone.

Finally, he cast off the coat of what other people thought. Many people thought Bartimaeus should be quiet. This is how people think. They think you should just stay there and beg. They think you should just chill out. Have you ever heard somebody say that? When people get to going crazy in their worship at church, they act like, “Would you please calm down?” There are some people that cease to care what anybody thinks. Caring what people think too much will get you nowhere in life. It would be awesome if some teenagers got tired of caring of what everybody thought. Some parents and adults need to quit caring what anybody and everybody else thinks about them and their relationship with God.

If you are going to be a Christian, you have to quit caring about what the world thinks. If you are going to become something in God, you have to cast off that coat of what other people think. You have been carrying around that coat for so long. The coat of, “I do not know what people will think about me”. The coat of, “If I stepped out of my seat, what would they say about me today?” The coat of, “If I were to go down to the altar and receive the Holy Ghost, what would people think?” The coat of, “Boy, if I get fanatical and radical and started speaking in tongues, what would my family say?” The coat of, “If I started witnessing to people on my job, and saying, Bless God and Hallelu-jah, what would they think about me?” The coat of, “What if they asked me if I am a tongue talker?” The coat of, “What if they say, are you a Holy Roller?” The coat of, “Man, I really do care what people think about me. I want to be known as sophisticated, proper, and always accommodating.” So many coats that need to be shed from our lives.

Bartimaeus’ actions seem to say, “I do not care what they think. I have been sit-ting here blind for years, who cared? If I can get healed then I do not care what they say about me. I do not care if they think I am dumb or ugly or do not have an ounce of work in my body; I am ready, if they think that then who cares? If they think I am just trying to patty cake around to get to the Master, or get some attention, who cares?” There are some people in church who get worried and say, “Well I do not want to do too much.” “I do not want people to think I am trying to get too much attention.” “I would love to teach Bible studies and I would win souls to God and I would pray people through to the Holy Ghost, but I am just too worried; people would think I am just trying to get in good with the Pastor. I would show up to all that stuff, but people would probably think that I am too fanatical.” But you know what? Bartimaeus said, “I do not care what people think about me anymore. It is time for me to leave that behind”

I want to challenge you today, whether it is a coat of sin, pride, comfort, laziness, or just fretting what people think about you, I want to challenge you to leave it behind. Once you throw it down, do not pick it back up. Once you get rid of it and go to Jesus, do not go back looking for it later. Don’t go trying to find those things you left behind. I do not want you to go back to the old life. I do not see it in the scripture but I believe with all my heart Bartimaeus never went back and picked up that beggar’s garment again. I believe when he came to Jesus, Jesus turned his whole life around gave him his sight and he began to work and carry on a normal life. I believe he probably passed by a lot of times and said, yeah, “That used to be me. I used to wear that. Boy, if you had seen me a couple years ago, I had that on!” Some people may ask, “Well Pastor, I do not understand, you said I will have a great testimony. What do you mean?” I mean you will be able to point to your garment. You will be able to say “You remember when I used to be such and such, wasn’t that horrible; man, I cannot believe I ever got caught up in that pride or that sin, God’s been so good to me, I do not even recognize that garment anymore.”

Maybe right now you feel like pulling a Bartimaeus, but you are not sure if you can. You care too much about what people think. Maybe you are too comfortable or have too much pride. Let me ask you, is it worth eternity? This coat you have on, is it worth eternity? If it is going to keep you from eternity with Jesus Christ, is it worth it? If you look at the scripture we read, you will find one thing. He cast off the garment and he followed Jesus in the way. That should be the lead we follow as well.

Maybe you are at the crossroads today. You can throw the garment away. You can cast it away and follow Jesus. I do not believe Bartimaeus ever returned to the garment. The reason for this is because the scripture says he followed Jesus. When you follow Jesus you do not follow him with a bunch of garments on. You follow Jesus just as you are; you follow Jesus without the comfort, without the sin, without the pride, and without the care of what other people think about you. When you come to Jesus you have to cast off the garment.

Have you heard something from the Lord while you read this chapter? If you are thinking to yourself… you did not name my garment, I do not have pride or sin or com-fort, I am alright in all those areas. If you have a nagging problem keeping you from get-ting to Jesus - that is your garment. Whatever the problem is, you might as well call it your garment. When you come to Jesus you have to leave those things be-hind. Scripture tells us we must repent. Jesus preached repentance, Peter preached repentance, and John preached repentance. Repentance is a major theme throughout scripture, especially in the New Testament. Repentance was the key to salvation.

When you come to Jesus and you are trying to take off that garment, you are ac-tually repenting. You say “God I am tired of the pride, I am tired of the sin, and I am tired of whatever it is. I am leaving it behind today. I want to leave that to follow you.” That is repentance. You may ask, “How can I keep that garment off?” There are two things you have to do. You may get the garment off but still have some fibers of it on you. You need to go down in the waters of baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Have every fibre, every molecule of that old garment washed off your life and out of your body. When you do that; your soul is cleansed, you are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and all your sins are remitted. They are not just forgiven, they are remit-ted.

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. — Acts 2:38

As a fellow human being, I can forgive you for something but I may not be able to remit it from my memory. With God, when you repent and are washed in the waters of baptism, in the name of Jesus, you are not just forgiven by God, but all your sins are remitted (washed away). The scripture says God will never remember them against you. That is powerful. I do not want to just be forgiven, I want my sins remitted. God will also give you power to never pick up the old coat again. He will give you the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Bible says we should repent, be baptized and then we shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost, is God’s power in us. When we receive God’s power in us, He gives us the power to never pick up the old coat again.

There are certain things in life I do not do. Some people say, “Oh you cannot do them because you are a Christian.” The truth is, I do not want to do them. I have no de-sire to go get drunk, I have no desire to smoke cigarettes, I have no desire to cheat on my wife. I just have no desire to do those things. Why? Because the power of Jesus Christ, once it gets inside of you, will transform your life. It helps you become everything God wants you to be, if you will yield to him every day. A word of advice, you may not want to ever pick up the old coat again, but you cannot do it by yourself; your human nature always goes back to what is comfortable. Our natural desires lead us to what is easy. Seventy percent of people that lose weight go back and gain it all again. Why? Because we always go back to what is comfortable for us. It is just in our human nature.

Today, if you are spiritually blind or spiritually poor, you can cast off the garment that is holding you back, you can be baptized in Jesus name and be filled with the Holy Ghost. I want you to know your life can be turned around today. God can give you His spirit. If you have never received the power of the Holy Ghost, you can receive it today. You do not have to wait for it, you do not have to do anything to earn it, you do not have to pay any money for it, all you have to do is ask God for it.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? — Luke 11:13

The scripture says ask and you shall receive. God wants to fill you with His power. If you have never received the gift of the Holy Ghost, He wants to fill you today. Do not let Him pass you by while you sit silent. Are you ready to throw down your garment and call out to Him? If you will call out to Him today and cast off the garment holding you back, He will meet with you right now.

Questions For Reflection:

1) What images come to your mind when you think about the story of Bartimaeus the beggar?

2) How can you relate to Bartimaeus as a person, have you ever felt like you were less of a person than those around you?

3) What areas of your life do you feel a void in right now?

4) If you had a “beggars coat” spiritually, what would it be specifically?

5) How will you behave the next time you sense Jesus is near you?