 Good afternoon, Pastor David. Hi, John. Welcome everybody to our Thursday edition of Unfiltered A Random Moment with Pastor David. You know our last our last time that we met on Tuesday was just some of the things I've been thinking about and then hearing your message last night on Pulse prayer and this is not what I want to talk about but on Thursdays we focus on on the spiritual aspect and and you know thinking about your message last week with unbelief and then your message last night in Ephesians with Pulse prayer for this reason it kind of stirred some things up in me and and we had a conversation earlier about the how-tos that you do when you are putting together a study and I like what you talked about your approach for this Sunday's message where you're you spoke about the man who had an unbelief in his son being healed by Jesus he even asked Jesus help me with my unbelief so heartfelt because so many situations I'm sure even with myself the unbelief that I've had in things but then this week you're going to be speaking about humility yeah so we had faith last week humility this week how do we reconcile those two things? Well those are two basic aspects as we look at it unfolding in the gospel of Mark those are two basic aspects of ministry that anybody who's serving the Lord needs to needs to grasp needs to develop and understand so in the context of what's taken place in Mark Jesus is ministering to his men in the last few months that he'll be on the face of the earth so his men are going to be entrusted with the gospel message and are intended to take that message throughout the world and so because of that he begins to in the ninth chapter of Mark especially we see this he begins to focus his attention on his men so that he can develop them into the best leaders and communicators of his message that that that is possible and so though he continues to minister to people several times you'll see him returning and talking to groups of people and all he really begins to specifically pour into them things that matter and so as it relates to faith he wanted them to know and we saw this last time that that that they need to exercise faith in their ministry because they had failed to cast a demon out of a severely demonized young boy and they they had relied on previous experience and weren't aware of the fact that every spiritual battle may have a new kind of a new kind of context and all of that so we saw that that faith that he was speaking to them about and it's because he spoke to them and he said how long shall I suffer you he wasn't speaking necessarily to those who are around what did they have to do with this it was more his men who had remained behind while he was up there on the mountain and the transfiguration was taking place it was more the men who remained behind who had failed to exercise the authority and faith that he had given to them and that's why he was speaking to them why because these are men who are going to be used by by by him to be the building blocks of something new called the church right so that's what we looked at last time but if you're going to be a person of faith you also need to be a person with humility and so on the road as they're together after this event with this uh this boy and the unbelieving father they begin to argue amongst themselves while on the road and they're coming from the Caesarea Philippi area which is to the north and they're walking down towards Capernaum which is uh two perhaps three-day journeys it'd be around 50 miles or so that gives them plenty of time to spend time with each other and they disputed they argued they had a prolonged argument concerning who's the greatest and so on the one aspect these need to be men of faith on the other they need to be men of humility because when you're you're arguing amongst yourselves who's the greatest it's revealing a severe interest in in yourself over others right I mean you have that you had Peter making a confession and Jesus commending him you're Peter upon this rock I'll build my church then you have three guys going up for three guys going up to the Mount Transfiguration experiencing some supernatural revelation of Christ and naturally they're going to be thinking themselves to be the greatest you know the elder the the the larger one and so you've got this argument going on amongst these men and in ministry the greatest in the kingdom is the servant of hall in the ministry the least in the kingdom is what the Lord commends and so they need to learn humility the lesson of humility and I believe that in our day but this isn't new but in our day there are quite a number of of quote-unquote ministers or pastors or TV expositors or whatever mega church pastors sometimes unfortunately but it's not just mega church pastors who can deal with this who actually think of themselves as the greatest and and they'll have a flock there who tell them they are who just boost them and tell them and promote them you're the best you know so many things oh I follow you you know and there's no difference in the attitude of sometimes fellow pastors then you found in the lives of of the apostles right and so Jesus has to speak to them I remember years ago I was in high school at the time so it's been many years ago we were having in our physical ed class we had to swim and I was no swimmer so I I was just with some friends just hanging in the shallow end of the wall we just kind of hung around and visited and I can still remember though a freshman a young man I was probably a junior or a senior at the time but a young kid standing on the high dive and he was at the edge of the board and he was yelling to the coach and I always will remember how he was saying coach look at me I'm gonna jump coach look at me I'm gonna jump the coach coach was uh was not paying attention to him he had other things he had to do but this this young boy kept on crying out look at me I'm going to jump until the coach finally turned to look at him and then he jumped and I've never forgotten that as I thought what a it's sad as I'm older now to realize that this little guy had such a great need to be seen to do something he thought was important I see the same thing sometimes and I say this with just a true honest kind of statement uh I see the same thing sometimes in pastors hey church look at me I'm gonna jump and then everybody turns to look at him as he jumps oh you're magnificent you did some great thing and then pat him on the back and off he goes and what we're doing is we're destroying a man rather than building him up because pride leads to destruction and ultimately these great moments will end in humiliation later on and so instead of us building up men as if they're so important we need to really uh encourage them to remain humble and that doesn't mean by walking up to him and saying you're too proud that means praying for them and loving them and encouraging them in a biblical way so that he realizes that these people trust him as a spiritual leader not a hero there's a difference I don't want to be somebody's hero I am one person's hero and that is my wife's hero I want to be my children's hero in the sense that they say my dad is a good man and does things for the right reasons but I don't necessarily want to be my church's hero they need to know Jesus is theirs and it should they be married that there's their husband will say and all of that you know I mean it like that but I certainly don't want to come and give the adventures of David every Sunday the things that I do and what I've accomplished and I'm the greatest in the kingdom because Jesus made it very clear that to be the servant of all is to be the greatest well pastor thank you so much for that because we do see that faith and humility do go together and Jesus was teaching them a valuable lesson you know they were uh been commissioned by him to go out and cast out demons and do ministry yeah here comes this man and what a great way that Jesus instructs us as well you know he'll take us through those times but he was ultimately doing it to show them what the true message of the kingdom well they without him cannot do a thing they couldn't cast out the demon I mean when Jesus came and he argued with the uh the religious leaders there what are you disputing with them about um and then he he called and says bring him to me um no these men could not do anything without him and his presence needed to be there to show them that he was with them but any authority that they exercise was derived from him and if he has ministers don't understand that John we begin to take credit for the work that God himself did and I am Lord that is my name in my glory I will give to no one else neither my praise to graven images God does not give his glory to anyone else and one of the worst things that we can do is to try and steal his glory well church family I mean did you've heard it uh want to come out and and have you listen to this I mean come out to church and hear this message it's going to be it's a great passage of scripture yes I mean we can go on but for the sake of time come on now our church our time is at 8 30 and 10 45 on sunday as we're teasing out pastor David's taking us with the book of Mark and invite a friend uh it's a great opportunity to get together and worship and then spend time in God's word and in fellowship so we invite you guys to come on out pastor thank you so much and uh church family thank you for tuning in and God bless you