Bible Difference Between a “Need” and a “Want”

Introduction

Good morning. I need thee every hour, most holy one. Enjoy your pain. I need thee every hour. Do I know my needs from my wants? I need thee every hour. It is true that we need the Lord. We need his mercy. We need his grace. We need his love and we need his salvation. But do we know the difference between what we need and those things that we just want? I’m wearing a watch. It’s a Cassio. I love it. It’s a Christmas gift. But I remember the words of an old wise, wealthy man who said, if I could afford a Rolex, I’d buy a Time X. It’s kind of interesting, though, how that works. When you think about people of means, just because you have the ability to buy something doesn’t mean you must buy something.

There are needs and there are wants. There were many people in the Bible that were men of means. Barnabas had multiple lands.

He had his own chariot driver. I can imagine him scrolling through his scrolls as he’s reading Isaiah.

Then you have the apostles who all had various incomes we think we need, but they’re really just things we want. Do I really need some of the things I think I need? Or is our use of the word need limited to things God says are our true physical needs? In Matthew 6, 25 through 34, it says food and clothing are real needs that we have. Food and clothing. But with our clothing and our accessories, do we really need a yellow double stitched Voltarian style Paisley handbag? I don’t even know what that means. But do we need that to the ladies? Or do men really need a mossy oak double vested triple lined hunting vest? Do we really need that name brand thing? Or is the want there just obvious too?

Young people, here’s a nostalgic 1990s throwback. There was a commercial that was out there in the 1990s with a little bumblebee that was flying around, and he said, Honeycomb, honeycomb, I need honeycomb. And the little bumblebee flying around. Really need that brand cereal. It’s sold a lot with that ad. A lot of people, kids go, I need that. What you really need is a nutritious breakfast, and honeycomb might be one of the ones you want. So any type of healthy food will fulfill what is a need. It is important to not confuse needs with wants. No matter what the age is of the individual. These examples of food and clothing may seem quite obvious, but then it gets a little deeper. What about the baggage we carry in life that are heavy things, like emotions and social position and comforts?

1. What Bartimaeus Needed, Wanted and Received

Do we really have must have emotions or must have social position or must have financial growth or must have comfort with our own health? You see the picture of this guy here? Turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 10, verses 46 through 52. When considering what is the difference biblically between a spiritual need and a spiritual want, examples such as I need my food a certain way, or I need to make more money, or I need a designer purse or hunting vest. That may satisfy a person whose mind is content to think in a self-interested way, but it doesn’t make God’s law any less powerful in defining the difference, the biblical difference between a need and a want. A succinct passage clarifying the distinction is the biblical case of the blind man Bartimaeus.

In Mark chapter 10, verses 46 through 52, it says, And as he went out of Jericho, his disciples in a great multitude, blind Bartamaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, saying, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Note that word mercy. Then many warned him, saying, Be quiet, be quiet. But he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. They called the blind man, saying to him, Be of good cheer. Rise up. He’s calling you. And throwing off his garment, he rose and he came to Jesus, and Jesus came to him. Remember, he said, Have mercy on me.

He came to Jesus and he said, What do you want me to do for you? And he said, Rabon, I owe that I might receive my sight. Then Jesus said, Go your way, your faith has made you well. And from that moment he received his sight, Mark 10, 52, and he followed Jesus on the road. From this passage, three questions surface as important in the difference between a need and a want. Number one, what did Bartimaeus need? Number two, what did Barnamaeus want? And three, what did Bartimaeus receive? I’d like to suggest to you from verse 47 that what Bartimaeus needed was mercy. Okay, that’s what he needed. He needed the mercy of God, he needed the salvation of God, he needed the grace of God through Jesus.

He had that need. What did Bartimaeus want, verse 51, was his eyesight. He wanted to be able to see. What did he receive? I believe he received both. Spiritually, Bartimaeus had vision prior to the miraculous eyesight granted by Jesus. He may not have been born with the ability to physically see things, but he had a mental image of what his future could be like with Jesus’ mercy active in his life. On the surface, one could even say, even eyesight is not something that a person needs from God, it’s just a want. After all, a grown blind man realized this after talking with Jesus in Mark 10 51. We don’t need all the things we think we need. And we better learn what our spiritual needs are because to not place a heavenly priority where God says we should be regarding those needs will separate us from God and get us deeper into sin.

2. Other People Don’t Always Understand Our Needs

The poet wrote, I need thy presence every passing hour. What but thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Who like thyself my guide and stay can be through clouds and sunshine, oh Lord, abide with me. And the treasured hymn of Henry F. Light, it’s clear that we need God every hour. We need his grace, we need his guidance. We need him through the nice times, we need him through the cloudy days of uncertainty. And as Bartimaeus knew we need his mercy. Now here’s the catch. Others may not be able to comprehend or even know our needs. Other people don’t always understand our needs.

In Luke 18, verse 35 through 43, there’s a parallel passage to this. And I’m gonna suggest you look at Luke 18 for a moment. We know it’s the same event because in both accounts we have the same dialogue, and in both accounts we have the same location. Mark 10, 46 says, as they were leaving the city of Jericho, they found the blind man begging. Where in Luke 18 it says, as Jesus approached Jericho, they found the blind man. Jericho was a double city. In ancient times there was Roman Jericho. And in Israeli times, there was modern Jericho. Bartimaeus was healed on the one mile stretch of road between the older Jewish city of Jericho and the newer Roman city of Jericho. He’s in between the Jerichos, if you will.

But we can learn a great deal about people here. We can learn a great deal about Bartimaeus on the roadside between these two ancient cities. And we can probably even relate to Bartimaeus when he called out in Luke 18 and 38. Have mercy on me. How do we relate to that? Well, those who were on the way rebuked him and told him, Be quiet. Isn’t that so symmetrical to life? People telling us, stop doing what you’re doing. Other people don’t comprehend our needs. It doesn’t take much effort for someone just to ignore us or think our need is not as important as their own needs. After all, look at the people who told them to be quiet. They weren’t criminals. They weren’t people devoid of emotional understanding or empathy.

They were followers of Jesus. They were Jesus’ disciples. We might expect a religious elite like a Pharisee or a Sadducee or a scribe to be the one saying, Oh, you be quiet, Bartimaeus, but they’re not. They’re all the crowd that’s following Jesus. They’re the people that are with Jesus. They’re good-natured, devout disciples of Jesus that said this. May have been the excitement of the day, may have been the people just wanted Jesus to get from there down to Jerusalem. May have been that he just didn’t, the people didn’t want him to sit there. The fact is we don’t know why they said what they said and why good people said this, but we do know they did say it. Deuteronomy 29, 29 says, For the secret things belong to God, but those things which belong to us have been revealed to us in our generations forever.

3. The Need for You to Be a Teacher

In Luke 18, 38, blind Bartimaeus serves as a reminder to us. It may be that we, listen, we are continuing in our life right beside Jesus per se, and we rush past those people who need us to support them in their trials and tribulations. We may be good people. We may be disciples of God, we may be like the crowd, but everybody gets distracted. But we can put forth a little extra effort to comprehend the needs of those around us. Have you ever comprehended, please hear this about teaching? Have you ever comprehended the need for you to be a teacher? Perhaps a guide to the biblically blind, or a teacher in a Bible class to a biblically minimally trained individual or class of lesser steadied people.

Someone who has minimum spiritual vision for their life may be able to see with the eyes of faith more clearly because of you. Some of you may be hearing this lesson, and you could quote the New Testament book of James and say, Well, it says, say not yet many of their be teachers there. Let not many of you be teachers. That’s me right there. I’ve read the Bible five to seven times. I’ve read the New Testament over and over, but don’t let me be a teacher. If you’re thinking, I could never teach a Bible class in the community or even co-teach a Sunday school class here at church services. I want you to visualize observing the 767 to 740 BC era, where King Isaiah is king, and Isaiah says, right before he ever teaches classes to the Hebrew people and the kings, Woe is me, for I am undone, because my lips are unclean.

The people have unclean lips. We could say to his speech, it’s far from mature. Yet note what one of the greatest teachers of the Old Testament says, Isaiah realizes. He realizes his liability and his shortcomings can be turned into an asset. For Isaiah 6 6 says, and says, Behold, the burning coal has touched your lips, your guilt is removed, and your sin to toned for. It would be sin unto sin for Isaiah to say, Well, now I’ll just not speak the message of God, even though he thinks I can. Here’s why. Because Isaiah’s mouth had a seraphim fly to him, having his hand in him with him a coal that had been taken with the tongs from the altar, and heard a voice from the Lord resonating what still resonates today, whom shall I send, and who will go?

And in Isaiah 6 8, he doesn’t say, Oh, you’ve got confidence in me, but I don’t think I can go. He says, 6 8, here am I send me. That’s what we need. We don’t need to be passed by the Bartimaeuses. We need to look towards the people that need help and help them and teach the message. Isaiah said in response to the voice of the Lord, Here am I send me. We will all experience this from time to time. Even Jesus, Isaiah, when he talked to those who said they could see, but were really spiritually blind, and then told others they were not far from the kingdom when they evaluated their own level of understanding. If you’re burying a talent, you will be the counter.

Rejoice in the Lord. When you see the fruits of your labor, it takes work, but it’s a rewarding spiritual task. One of the greatest needs of this generation is teachers to teach the next generation. When we see who Luke 1838 is talking about, and blind Bartimaeus in this scripture reminds us of, it may be that you and I are right beside Jesus, able to teach the people who need us most, and we’re just passing up golden opportunities. If you’re given the opportunity to mature and to teach, take that. Realize one of your greatest needs may be your need to develop your skill as a teacher. Isaiah taught in 740 BC at his feeble start, and he developed later. He became an extraordinary teacher at the time of Hezekiah.

4. Jesus Is the Recognizer of Our Need

You may want to let someone else teach, but your spiritual need might really be the first step it takes to share the gospel. Don’t pass up opportunities, especially those for our families and those in Bible classes at church. We may be good people, we may be disciples of God, we may be like the crowd, and everybody gets distracted, but we can put forth a little extra effort to comprehend the needs of those around us. Let’s mature to another point. Let’s meander to another point. Here in this context, Jesus is the recognizer of Bartimaeus’s need. What Jesus said in Luke 18, it’s meant to improve us. Whether we’re craving mercy from our sins, like Barnamaeus, or whether we’re unobservant of our friends and brethren’s needs, like the crowd.

Because what Luke tells us is Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. And when he came near, he says, So what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? We may center our attention on the fact that Jesus asked what he wanted and then gave him eyesight that he never before had. But if we do that, we may let a major hub of the passage just whoop slip on by. And that is that Jesus gave the blind man not just what he wanted, but also what he needed. He gave the blind man attention, time, a listening ear, and he recognized his need for mercy. Friends, no matter what our spiritual needs are, mercy, grace, forgiveness, peace in our life, or salvation for our sins, Jesus always recognizes our spiritual need.

And he did so for Barmaeus. Jesus taught his disciples a lesson.

Now, wonderful thing about this passage is that Mark, Luke, the focus on the unobservant point where they’re sitting there talking and they say, Oh, come on, come on, let’s move along. That’s not the focus. Luke says immediately he received their sight and followed Jesus, and when that happened, all the people saw it, and they all listen happily, they praised God, Luke 18, 43. And Mark says, some of the crowd, some of the crowd called to the blind man and said, Cheer up on your feet, Jesus is calling you. Okay, so here’s a crowd that at one point they’re kind of like, well, you know, let’s let’s move along. They’re like, cheer up, get happy. He’s over, he’s here, he’s calling you, he wants to heal you.

5. Spiritual Needs Can Only Be Fulfilled by Jesus

He’s happy about doing that, and so is the crowd. Jesus is happy to heal, the crowd is happy to have him do that. Friends and brethren, the essential reason why the crowd praise God and why the blind man joined the crowd of the disciples and why Jesus had mercy on the man is plain. Spiritual needs can only be fulfilled by Jesus, and these people understood that. If your life consists of non-stop shopping, albeit for the discount bargains or the designer name or the latest collectible, that stuff won’t be with you in heaven. When you’re on a quest for things and sinking things, you’re making the choice to put mammon before the Messiah. The wants of the world will not sustain the trinkets of American idolatry-driven mayhem that is packaged as gotta haves or must-haves, which really are nothing shy of misguided need dysphoria.

I don’t need to buy the latest and greatest toys. For me or for my family, I don’t need to keep up with the Joneses and have the coolest car or truck money can buy.

That says, hey, all my children require the same amount of extracurricular activities. Nor does it even say they’d benefit from any of them spiritually in the first place. When a grandparent is on a deathbed, no one prays that their favorite sports team of that grandparent wins the Super Bowl. The things that really matter most we think about when we might lose a soul. What will you profit, a woman? What will you profit, O man? What will you profit, O young person, if you gain the whole world and lose your soul? Or what will you give in exchange for your soul? Matthew 16, 26 warns us, I’m not going to exchange my soul for stuff. As families serving God, is families remembering the words of Joshua 24, as families remember the words, as for me and for my house, we will serve the Lord.

The context is actual priority. And placing God is a higher priority than the displaced priorities the nations around Joshua face. He said, choose. He said, make a free will decision. He said, I’m not going to serve idols. Joshua 24 says, choose idols across the river. Don’t do that. Or choose the Lord who wishes to really be close to you in our land. Jesus words it by saying, God is the Savior that really wants to be yoked with you or connected with you. Brethren, you really want meaning in life? Do you really want to find your place in life and find out what spiritual living is all about? Get your worldly life lost because you’re spending so much time reading and researching in the Word of God.

Get what the world says is living, living in the world, to be dwarfed by the quest for biblical service. Deny your personal materialistic wants and carry the spiritual cross of compassion and salvation that you need. Know the difference between a need and a want. We’re off, when we look at the passages of Matthew 16 25, we want to look at that passage for a moment. Jesus said it best. He said, if anybody’s going to chase after me, let that one deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, Matthew 16, 25, he’ll find it. But what if I have a handicap? What if I’m blind? What if I have a disease?

What if I have cancer? Hear me. Even handicaps and setbacks are not guaranteed indicators of lesser service to God. There is no real quick fix solution to salvation. Jesus doesn’t offer a quick fix salvation. Sometimes in life, our blessings come slower or delayed, or even our blessings come in retrospect when we look at back of the blessings he’s blessed us with and we apply what we can maintain with wisdom. That doesn’t mean that just because I wasn’t blessed with what I wanted, that doesn’t mean Jesus is through with us. It may just mean he’s preparing us for eternity. Recognize Jesus is your advocate. And you can go to God in prayer through him and ask him to explain to God the Father that I need to cheer up and be on my feet like Barnamaeus and just cheer up.

And if we’re living a holy and sincere life, he will intercede at every request. Hebrews 5 3 and Hebrews 8 6. I want a lot of things in life. I’m going to be plain. I want a lot of things. Those things that I want, they’re not must have needs. They’re trying to my wishes. I’m gonna find Rachel. There’s Rachel. The other night I showed her a picture of something I wanted. She says, What is it? I said, It’s a 1974 Corvette stingray. And by all means, make it black. I want it to look like Batman. I drive up Buick. I look more like Alfred. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a car. It needs to get me from here to there. Isn’t that true with life?

6. God Wants Us to Need Him

It’s okay if you have a nice car. It’s okay if you have a nice house, a nice possession. That’s fine. You’re able to afford that and able to buy what you want to buy, that’s fine. You manage your money and make good decisions with it, that’s fine. But the point I’m trying to make here is God wants us to know the difference between those things we want and the things.

So every one of you and wants us to need him. Let that sink in. That’s the lesson in a nutshell. He wants us him to go to him and say, Yes, I need you. I can’t rely on my own strength. I can’t pull my life up through my own bootstraps. I can’t live my life just going for everything I want. I know I need a savior. I know I need the Lord. I know I must go to Him because he’s the one that’s I can’t myself. And you. If that was the case, every single one of us would say, Lord, all the people I’d like to be saved. That’s not going to happen that way. The individual has to, by their own free will, choose to hear the word of God and believe what it says in the way that they’re hearing the will and then applying the will in their faith to God.

He wants us to need him. In Hebrews 11 6, he teaches that we’ve got to hear. In Acts 17, 30, it says, for God commandeth. Well, in Acts 17, 30, he said the people believed the Lord. They made a case right there that they believed in the Lord. In Acts 2.37, it says we need to repent. It says, and now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins. And be baptized. But here’s this other point here in Romans 10 10. You need to be able to profess the Lord. This is not a situation where you say, Well, my family has always told me. I’ve always come to church here. I’ve been going here all my life, and I to happen where I’m baptized.

No, it’s not that. You need to be a person that has faith, that has trust in God that he’ll help you. You need to have your own faith that you believe Christ is the Son of the living God. You need to have that belief. And you also need to repent of your sins to say, get out sin and get in Jesus. And you need to confess your sin, confess the name of the Lord, that you believe and make a proclamation that he is Lord. It’s not just hearing and believing, turning away from sins and then being baptized, but you need to make an acknowledgement that you believe in the Lord. You know, we made that comment, what you need and what you want, and made the comment to some of the older, wiser ones that maybe you might need to be a teacher someday and teach the lost and improve in your active teaching.

Conclusion

Why is that? Because you profess Jesus. You’re willing to confess Jesus and state who he is and that he is your Lord and that you want others to go to heaven too. Because we can we can talk about the plan of salvation and quote it up and down. We can say the five points here to salvation, but we need to be people that live for the Lord so that after we’ve been baptized for the forgiveness of sins, after we’ve begun the journey of the Lord, that we also strive to help others. Well, that’s the lesson for the hour. I thank you so much for your kind attention. It’s not been a terribly long lesson, but hopefully that’s been okay. When we look at these types of lessons, we sometimes need them from time to time to help us recognize our spiritual needs and differentiation from our physical wants.

If you would like to become a Christian, if you would like to serve the Lord by hearing and believing, repenting and confessing Christ, by being baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and then living a faithful life. We’ll give you that opportunity if you’ll come sit on a front row, even now as we stand and sing.