Mark 10: The Hunger for God That Breaks Routine

Introduction

When we talk about revival, we think of miracles, healings, everything that moves and changes. This message, preached in Italian to open a new series called "Overflow," approaches the problem from the other end: before awakening the world, the Holy Spirit wants to awaken his Church. And this awakening has a condition, one Jesus himself named: being hungry.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). There is a hunger the Church must have so that God can satisfy it. It is a responsibility, and it is a decision. The question the preacher wants to carry with his church throughout the year is simple: "Are we truly hungry for God?"

To answer it, he opens Mark 10 and the story of Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the road, who refused to stay in his routine when Jesus passed by.

Message outline

1. God wants to change you before he changes your circumstances

Revival changes circumstances: in society, in priorities, in daily life. But before that, God wants to change us. If we are not ready, we will not know how to face what is coming, and we will miss what God has planned.
We often pray that God would change what surrounds us. Sometimes he does not do it yet because he wants to prepare our heart first. He does not want to give us bread that falls and whose crumbs benefit others: "The bread is for us."
Being ready also applies to the hard changes that life brings.
To overflow is to let out what we have inside: "We overflow with what we have within. There is no other dynamic."

2. Hunger is not a desire, it is a need

The preacher talks about his daughter at home: when she is hungry, you can no longer talk to her, she is edgy, she screams, she breaks everything. Why? Because she is hungry. Hunger changes our priorities.
A desire, like going on vacation or changing cars, may or may not come true: life goes on. Hunger and thirst are basic needs. To satisfy them, you go looking for bread, not a plane ticket at a travel agency.
Routine often makes us insensitive to what God wants to do around us. Knowing God can become a mere tradition.
"This year, traditions will be changed. I am sure of it," states the preacher, convinced that religiosity will be broken. Tradition gives security, but when God's wind, fire and rain come, nothing is the same anymore. Not a catastrophe: beautiful things, provided we are ready to receive them.

3. The danger of getting used to God

We can keep serving God without desiring him anymore. That is religiosity, being a Pharisee in the biblical sense: everything becomes so natural that we no longer even know why we do it.
"The most dangerous thing for us believers is to get used to God." We then enter the mechanism of duty, and wonder disappears.
God's movement does not begin with spectacular things. It begins with small transformations, with small habits that disappear to make room for God. Are you still amazed when God acts in your life, in the lives of others, or when you get up and see creation?
We can get used to the Word. John 3:16, we know it by heart, so we quickly move on to the next verse. Yet revelation is progressive: "What have I not yet understood about John 3:16?" God's Word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12): a word you have already heard can still transform your life.
We can get used to songs: we wait for the next one, more beautiful, more rhythmic, instead of living what we sing. Even a song repeated every month can become the place where God speaks.
The preacher uses the picture of his own children: in the morning, he did not jump for joy when he saw them, because he saw them every day. It was beautiful, of course, but nothing like the wonder of a birth. Familiarity extinguishes wonder, to the point of saying: "Oh, I have to go to church again this morning."
"Serving without being hungry for God produces religiosity, religiosity produces law, and law produces death. There is no middle ground." God sets before us life and death and says: choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). Choosing life means saying again today: "I am hungry for you. I have not arrived anywhere, I want to know you even more."
The "I already know how a service goes" and the "I already know this passage" keep us stagnating in our superficiality.

4. Bartimaeus: a crowd on the move, a man sitting still

Jesus leaves Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd (Mark 10:46). Thousands of people talk about him, about his miracles, some criticize him. Everything is moving.
Then Mark freezes the picture on something static, routine: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, blind, a beggar, sitting by the road.
The crowd was walking with Jesus, in the right place, with the right people. But it had stopped crying out its hunger for Jesus. Bartimaeus, for his part, was not walking with Jesus, but he was beginning to be hungry for him.
A thousand against one: the preacher compares the scene to a stadium where a handful of visiting supporters try to sing against an entire stand. Their voices are drowned out.
Every day, Bartimaeus was brought to the same place, he received a few coins to last until evening, he was taken back home, and the next day it all started again. It was not living, it was surviving: "My condition is like this, nothing can be done about it, so I carry on like this."
God does not call us to survive, but to live, and to live in abundance. Begging from God out of guilt ("it has been three days since I read the Bible, I have to read it") is also survival. "Duty makes you survive. Desire makes you live."
When we get used to a condition, we slowly stop asking for it to change.

5. Not seeing, but hearing

Bartimaeus could not see, but he could hear: some marveled at Jesus' miracles, others criticized him. He had to take a position: is it worth crying out to this Jesus, or is it better to stay quiet?
He hears that it is Jesus of Nazareth and begins to cry out: "Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me!" (Mark 10:47). His understanding of Jesus was right.
Often, we do not see that God is at work, but we can sense that he is doing something. "Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don't you know it?" (Isaiah 43:19).
Elijah was expecting a great rain while the sky was clear. He sent his servant to look seven times, until a small cloud appeared in the distance (1 Kings 18:43-44).
"The fact that you do not see is not a problem. The problem is if you do not sense that something is happening in your life." The preacher shares his conviction: God always announces in advance what he is going to do, so that we can prepare.
Bartimaeus could have told himself: "Jesus will surely pass by another time." That is routine. No: Jesus is passing now, and now is the time to cry out our hunger. Jesus will surely pass again, but the opportunity to grow in that area will have been lost.

6. Crying out louder than the crowd

"Many rebuked him, that he should be quiet, but he cried out much more" (Mark 10:48). A single cry in the midst of a thousand people, and yet the whole crowd heard it.
The crowd is our thoughts, other people's thoughts about us, our circumstances. It says: "Be quiet. Your situation is like this. You have cried out so many times and nothing has changed."
What keeps us from crying out is not first of all sin (even though it matters), it is often weariness. Physical weariness, or the weariness of no longer seeing God at work, of no longer seeing conversions or baptisms. So we cry out once, then the thoughts arrive and we fall silent.
Bartimaeus cried out once, then even louder. And Jesus stood still (Mark 10:49). He had other goals, with Jerusalem and the cross ahead of him, and yet he stopped.

7. Making space to be filled

We are so afraid of silence and emptiness that we constantly try to fill them. A couple of pastors from a noisy city in Italy slept at the preacher's home: in the morning, they found the night terrible, because there was too much silence.
"It is in silence that God speaks." To be filled, you must first be empty. If you want to pray more, something has to be removed: habits, priorities, certain circumstances, room in your schedule. Otherwise the "I want more of you" cannot happen.
Even in church, we fill every silence, sometimes with worship music. That is not bad, but we need to relearn silence to hear God's voice.
"Overflow begins with emptiness." Keep the necessary priorities, let go of what is superficial.
Rather than only praying for revival, pray: "How can I prepare my heart to keep and live what is going to happen?"
The crowd that wanted to silence Bartimaeus now says to him: "Cheer up! Get up. He is calling you!" (Mark 10:49). Our thoughts can change and help us make the right decisions.
Bartimaeus, still blind, throws off his cloak (Mark 10:50). In the Old Testament, it was the poor person's most important possession: given as a pledge to a creditor, it had to be returned to him in the evening so that he could cover himself (Exodus 22:26-27). This cloak was not superfluous, it was necessary. Before being healed, Bartimaeus leaves behind by faith what was holding him in his routine.
First the call, then the healing. "That is what faith is": obeying God without seeing. The preacher announces the three dynamics of the series: God fills, we absorb, and it overflows outward, so that the world may be saved.

Key takeaways

Revival begins with hunger for God. Before changing your circumstances, God wants to change your heart.
The greatest danger for the believer is getting used to God: serving without hunger leads to religiosity.
Duty makes you survive, desire makes you live. God does not call you to hold on until evening, but to live in abundance.
When your thoughts, your circumstances or your weariness tell you to be quiet, cry out louder: Jesus stops.
We only overflow with what we have been filled with, and we are only filled after making space.

Personal application

Are you truly hungry for God right now, or has knowing him become a tradition?
Which passage, song or moment of the service has become so familiar that you no longer expect anything from it?
In what area have you stopped asking for your situation to change, because you got used to it?
Which "crowd" is telling you to be quiet today: your thoughts, your circumstances, your weariness?
What can you remove from your schedule or your habits this week to make room for silence and prayer?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

Why does revival begin with hunger?

The preacher relies on Matthew 5:6: blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Before changing the circumstances around us, God wants to change us. Hunger is not a simple desire: it is a vital need that changes our priorities. It is this hunger that God comes to satisfy.

What is religiosity according to this message?

It is continuing to serve God without desiring him deep in the heart anymore. The greatest danger for the believer, says the preacher, is getting used to God: we enter the mechanism of duty and lose our sense of wonder. Serving without hunger produces religiosity, religiosity produces law, and law produces death.

What does Bartimaeus' cloak represent?

In the Old Testament, the cloak was the poor person's most precious possession: given as a pledge, it had to be returned to him in the evening so that he could cover himself. Bartimaeus throws off this cloak even before being healed. He leaves behind by faith what was holding him in his routine in order to go to Jesus.