Leave Empty or Leave the Same || Leave Empty || Incredible Sermon

About this sermon

What if the very thing keeping us alive in one season is the same thing holding us back in the next? In Mark 10:46-52, we encounter blind Bartimaeus sitting by the roadside in Jericho, wrapped in a cloak that served as his identity, his income, and his excuse. When Jesus passed by, Bartimaeus did something remarkable before he ever received his sight -- he threw that cloak aside and moved toward Jesus while still blind. This sermon unpacks the profound spiritual weight of that single act. The cloak was not just a piece of fabric; it was everything he had built his survival around. And yet, the miracle did not come until he was willing to release it. The central lesson is both challenging and liberating: God does not fill what we insist on keeping full. We are invited to examine what cloaks we are still wearing -- old identities, survival mechanisms, labels placed on us by circumstance or by others -- and to consider whether those things are sustaining us or simply keeping us stuck in the same spot. 0:00 Leave Empty: The Call to Release Our Praise 20:10 The Cloak of Bartimaeus: Identity, Security, and Excuse 41:29 Discard the Disguise, Ditch the Dependence 59:26 Demonstrate the Departure: Press Toward the New Subscribe here http://www.youtube.com/OfficialSmokieNorful http://www.SmokieNorful.com