This morning, we come to a very powerful text that contrasts humility with pride. It's also a very practical text. And as I'm sure you will agree, the sting of the lash will fall on all of our backs this morning. So will you take your Bibles and turn to Mark chapter nine, we will be examining verses 30 through 41.

Let me read the text to you, Mark nine, beginning with verse 30. "From there, they went out and began to go through Galilee. And He did not want anyone to know about it. For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, 'The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.' But they did not understand this statement and they were afraid to ask Him. They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, 'What were you discussing on the way?' But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. Sitting down, He called the 12 and said to them, 'If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.' Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 'Whoever receives one child like this, in My name, receives Me; and whoever receives me does not receive me, but Him who sent Me.' John said to Him, 'Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.' But Jesus said, 'Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us, is for us. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward."

I'm sure you will all agree that we live in a very self-centered, egotistical world, a me first society. If you disagree with that you have never driven on the interstates right? And people are absolutely obsessed with personal rights, legal rights, and many are obsessed with not being offended. I've learned a new term over the last I guess, couple years "micro aggressions." I'd never heard of anything like that. To make sure I have it right, I looked it up. Merriam Webster Dictionary says that microaggressions are "a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously, or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group." And it has been my studied observation that the marginalized groups are always leftist, immoral, and anti-Christian groups.

So today, we walk around on eggshells, so to speak, trying to be very careful to say or do the right thing, and now we've got another term, "misgender," misgender is using a word or pronoun that does not reflect a person's gender identity. And so if you don't use the right pronoun, then you are in trouble. We must join their delusion and celebrate their insanity and so forth. And of course, with all of this, we have another term that I had never heard of until a few years ago and that is the term snowflake. We have a culture filled of snowflakes. It is a derogatory slang term for a person, implying that they have an inflated sense of weakness and unwarranted sense of entitlement. They are overly emotional, easily offended and unable to deal with opposing opinions. And then we've got another new concept in our culture, and that is safe places. My goodness, when I was growing up, there were no safe places, you learn to survive, right? But a safe place is typically something on a college campus where people can communicate and commiserate and figure out how to retaliate against those who have somehow offended them. And of course, the only ones offended typically are liberal progressives. In fact, offending Christians is an applauded virtue today in our culture. So what drives all of this? Well, the answer is real simple, Pride, the basis of all sin. In fact, pride is one of the seven abominations that God hates that we read about. In Proverbs six for six and following. To be proud, biblically or arrogant means to possess and to manifest attitudes of unwarranted importance. To have an exaggerated sense of one's own importance and abilities. You often hear the term narcissist, again, that's a proud person, one that is desperate to be admired. And when you look at the proud person, and by the way, now I'm going to describe every one of us at some level. A proud person tends to be unteachable, feeling as though they are better than others impatient, opinionated, hot headed, unwilling to listen to have a disdain for opposing opinions. Many times they defy authority, they lack empathy. In Proverbs 16 Verse five, we read, "Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Assuredly, he will not be unpunished."

The 19th century British theologian and preacher JC Phillpotts said this, quote, "Of all sins, pride seems most deeply embedded in the very heart of man. Unbelief, sensuality, covetousness, rebellion, presumption, contempt of God's Holy Will and word, hatred and enmity against the saints of the Most High deceit and falsehood, cruelty and wrath, violence and murder. These and a forest of other sins have indeed struck deep roots into the black and noxious soil of our fallen nature. And interlacing, their lofty stems and gigantic arms have wholly shut out the light of heaven for man's benighted soul, but," He says, "these and they're associated evils do not seem so thoroughly interwoven into the very constitution of the human heart. Nor so to be it's very lifeblood, as pride were last may have no power covetousness no dominion and anger, no sway. There down down in the inmost depths, heaving and boiling like the lava and the crater of a volcano, works that master sin, that sin of sins, pride."

Peter and the disciples had to learn this. And they were, as we're going to see, having to learn this the hard way. And they did eventually. For example, Peter would say in first Peter five, five, "Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble." And James says in chapter four, verse 10, "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you." But of course, this kind of humility aspersion, especially in the presence of the Lord, is seldom found in our culture. In fact, today, we even have pride parades. In fact, June is Pride Month, where the most morally bankrupt people in our culture celebrate their perversions, so that they can fight their shame and the social stigma of their particular movement. And sadly, an increasing number of professing Christians embrace and promote these things. In fact, Paul describes them in Philippians three, beginning at verse 18. "They are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." Not to be sure, Satan has ingeniously designed his world system in opposition to God, to cater to this wickedness within us. In fact, we read in first John two and verse 16, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world."

Dear friends pride is at the very heart of road rage. It is at the heart of bigotry and hatred. It is what fuels slander and gossip. It is the poison well of, of sexual and physical abuse. It's what ruins marriages, what destroys families. It's what fuels political rancor and causes church splits. Pride is the secret motive of criticism. In fact, demeaning others makes us feel superior or so we think. Pride makes us controlling and contentious, combative. Pride will make us the hero of all of our stories, right? Pride will cause us to dominate conversations so that we end up talking about ourselves. Pride is what will cause us to dominate a Sunday school class with all of our incredible wisdom. Pride is what makes us the hero of our every story. It causes us to seek the spotlight, to be the center of attention. And it will even hide in the shadows of our perceived humility so that others will somehow notice us and applaud us for our humility. Like the guy that wrote the book, "Humility, and How I Achieved it Overnight." Pride has an insatiable appetite for praise. And it will take advantage of every opportunity for self-promotion. It is a wickedness that we must all fight. In fact, self-promotion is that jet fuel that drives social media. Pride will cause us to exaggerate our strengths and minimize our weaknesses and failures. It will cause us to flaunt our wealth, our prowess, our wisdom, and parade our possessions.

As we look at Scripture we see that pride originates in self-righteousness, like the Pharisee, who stood and prayed in Luke 18 "God I thank You that I am not like other men." Pride originates, as well, in unsanctified knowledge in First Corinthians eight knowledge that will even puff up a mature believer who has an accurate but egotistical understanding of his liberty in Christ causing him to feel superior and look down at his weaker brother.

Pride also originates in inexperience. This is why we are told to never put a new or immature believer in a position of leadership, First Timothy three six, "Lest he become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil." And of course, that condemnation was due to his pride. Pride originates in the possession of wealth, the possession of power, just look at Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar and Hezekiah and Herod, and so many other leaders that we've seen down through history. And of course, we witnessed this all the time, in our politicians and our celebrities. Pride leads to a contempt, the Bible says, a contempt for God's word, and even for its ministers. Biblically, we see that pride leads to a persecuting spirit, wrath, contention, jealousy, strife, self-deception, factions, disunity. And what's fascinating is it will always be followed by shame debasement and destruction and deed as we read in Proverbs 16, verse 18, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall."

You may recall that this was Paul's great concern for his brothers and sisters in Corinth. And by extension, his concern for all believers. You will remember that they were, they were polarized in their congregation because of their philosophical ideas, which was typical of their culture, where they promoted various opinions and philosophers, and they formed cliques. And ultimately, they would promote themselves and discredit other people. And they brought all this stuff into the church, you will recall, "I am of Paul, I'm of Apollo's, I'm of Peter, I am of the Lord." And there you have it. And confronting that arrogance in First Corinthians four and verse seven, Paul says, "For who regards you as superior?" In other words, who made you keeper of the gate, who puts you in charge of determining who is better? It reminds me of Diotrophes, you will recall in Third, John nine, the phony church leader who likes to put himself first and does not acknowledge our authority, who refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Well that is always a sure symptom of pride, to criticize others to make you look more important.

Psalm 101 verse five, "Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. No one who has a haughty look at an arrogant heart will I endure." And of course, the Corinthians arrogance burst into full flame in regards to spiritual gifts, you will recall that they want, they wanted the ostentatious showy gifts in order to show off and garner the most attention and receive the most praise.

And as we come to our text this morning, you must understand that pride was considered a virtue in the first century. In fact, it was very much a product of Aristotle in what is called the Nicomachean Ethics written in about 350 BC. Aristotle said this, and I'm going to quote him. I don't often quote Aristotle when I'm preaching, but I will today so that you get an understanding of where the people were thinking, including the disciples. He said, "Now the man is thought to be proud, who thinks himself worthy of great things being worthy of them." He goes on to say, "the proud man, since he deserves most, must be good in the highest degree, for the better man always deserves more and the best man most. Therefore, the truly proud man must be good, and greatness and every virtue would seem to be characteristic of a proud man." And on it goes.

And of course, the Jewish scribes and Pharisees were the proudest of the proud. They were the striding peacocks with the most colorful plumage. We read about this, for example, in Matthew 23, Jesus said in verse five, "But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and being called Rabbi by men." In fact, Jesus illustrated the kind of wicked contempt that the self-righteous had towards others that they deemed beneath them. In Luke chapter 18, beginning in verse nine, a little parable here, "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying that this to himself, 'God, I thank you that I'm not like other people swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week I pay tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collectors standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, 'God be merciful to me, the sinner!'" Jesus went on to say, "I tell you, this man, went to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Well, this was the proud culture in which the disciples existed. These were many of their role models, until they met Jesus, who described himself in Matthew 11, verse 29, as quote, "gentle and humble in heart." And to think as we read in John 13, for example, the creator of the universe, humbled Himself and washed their feet.

Now, remember the context here, as we come to our passage this morning, Jesus has just instructed His disciples concerning faith and now he's going to address the issue of pride through both precept as well as example. And he's doing all of this in preparation for his departure, back into glory, preparing them for the battles that lay ahead. Battles, not only from without, but also from within. He wanted them to grasp, for example, the magnificent truth that we read about in Isaiah 66 verses one and two. There we read, "Thus says the Lord, 'Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool, where there is a house you could build for Me, and where is a place that I may rest for My hand made all these things, this all these things came into being declares the Lord.'" The most exalted sovereign of all right? But he says, "To this one, I will look to Him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word."

To be humble and contrite of spirit is to be fully aware of the damage that has been wrought by your sin, and your personal inability to stand before the presence of a holy God. And a person who trembled at God's word is a person that has a passionate longing to please God to honor God in his life, to honor him in his heart, the spiritual temple where God dwells with His redeemed. And what we read in this passage, is that God's loving gaze is fixed upon those who bow, the lowest, in worship of Him. And those who are most fully aware of their sin, and their undeserved mercy. Those are the ones that will have a scrupulous sensitivity to the Word and the will of God and they will tremble before it. That's what gets God's attention.

So back to our texts in verse 30. We read, "From there," in other words from the Gentile region of Caesarea Philippi, where Christ had been transfigured. "From there, they went out and began to go through Galilee and He did not want anyone to know about it." Remember, now, Jesus priority is now on instructing his disciples. And so he's not going to do as much with the public as he has been doing. There's going to be less contact with the public. Verse 31, "For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, 'the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.' But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him."

Now remember, this shocking statement is coming on the heels of Jesus astounding exorcism of the little demon possessed boy, absolutely overwhelming. So for him to now say this seems like a non sequitur. It's like, logically it doesn't flow from the majesty that we just witnessed. I mean, how could the Messiah who has power over demons allow men to kill him? So they're, they're wrestling with all of these things, and Jesus knows it. To give us further clarification, Luke tells us in Luke nine beginning of verse 43, "But while everyone was marveling at all that He was doing, He said to His disciples, "Let these words sink into your ears, for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.' But they did not understand this statement. And it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about the statement." You see, what Jesus is doing is, is planting the seeds of redeeming grace in their mind, Some magnificent truths that would be fully revealed later on after His death and His resurrection. But he did not want to communicate to them the horrifying details of his torture, and of his execution, it would be too much for them to bear.

Moreover, as I say, he would conceal the full implications of his atonement, until they could better understand it after his resurrection. In fact, later on in Luke 24, you will recall how Jesus suddenly comes in appears before his forlorn and his amazed disciples in his resurrected body. Remember, he shows them his hands and his feet and ate some broiled fish and some honeycomb. And we read this in Luke 24, beginning in verse 44. "Now, He said to them, 'These are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets, and the Psalms, must be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and He said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all of the nations beginning from Jerusalem.'" So later on, they're going to understand all of these things and later on he's going to open up their mind. And they will get it, but right now he has bigger fish to fry, so to speak, concerning an issue, namely, their pride. Verse 33, Mark nine, "they came to the Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, 'What were you discussing on the way?'"

Now, he was well aware of what they were discussing. But he wanted to highlight their immature, childish bickering. He wanted to expose all of that talking about their status, who's going to be the greatest? And certainly for the disciples, they're thinking, okay, Jesus is talking about dying. Okay, who's gonna take the lead when he's gone? Don't you know that had to come up? We don't necessarily read that in scripture, but it would appear that that would be a logical topic of conversation. And some of them were probably also saying why, why is it that that Peter, James, and John got to go with Jesus up on the mountain? We didn't get to go. And maybe Peter, James, and John, were thinking, boy, we got to go up on the mountain. Y'all didn't get to. I'm sure all of those types of things. And that's just part of the flesh. Right? How we operate.

Later in Mark 10. Mark is going to record how James and John put in a bid to Jesus to be the most prominent in his kingdom. There we read. And Mark 10:37, "They said to Him, 'Grant that we may sit one on Your right and one on your left in Your glory.'" My, talk about throwing Peter under the bus, you know, you got a left and a right. Where's Peter gonna be? Right? Obviously, they had not yet understood the humility of Jesus dying on the cross. You know, it's really sad when you think about it. You've got calloused, self serving disciples that were more concerned about their own status than Jesus suffering and death, rather than mourning over Christ's humiliation, they're scheming about their exultation. Now I'm sure I would not have done that our you would have done that. But sadly, they did. Can't you just see our own flesh and all of this type of stuff.

So here Jesus is painting a jarring contrast between selfless humility, and their self-exalting pride, their lust for status, their lust for power, and, you know, really, if you think about it, they're still clueless about the real cost of following Jesus. The lessons that Jesus is now going to teach them can be summarized in four sentences. Let me give them to you just as they come.

Number one, we're going to see that pride fuels jealousy and strife, resulting in disgrace and judgment. "What were you discussing on the way?" Verse 34, "But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another, which of them was the greatest." I smiled when I read this. Their response was the same of the Pharisees, who kept silence because of their guilt and their shame when Jesus asked them in chapter three, verse five, "'Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?' But they kept silent."

Sadly, when you think about it, the difference between Christ's greatest enemy and his chosen disciples was somewhat negligible even at this point." They kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another, which of them was the greatest." Why don't you know that was an uplifting conversation, right? Sounds like a bunch of toddlers trying to one up each other, or politicians slinging mud at their opponents right? Beloved, again, pride fuels jealousy and strife resulting in disgrace and judgment. It'll happen in a church, it'll happen in a family. It'll happen in the workplace. James three, verse 16, "Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing." Proverbs 11, verse two "When pride comes, then comes dishonor," or it could be translated shame.

It's interesting in Proverbs 16, verses 18 and 19. Pride is likened to robbery. There we read, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling." In other words, the pleasures of, of of pride and the prosperity of the and all of the things that you're proud about are really short lived and they lead to misery. Then it goes on to say "It is better to be humble and spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud." In other words, what he's saying is the arrogant are like criminals, who thinks they are too clever to get caught, and who are so self centered, they care nothing about the welfare of other people. Make no mistake, dear friends, if you want to place yourself in the pathway of divine chastening as a believer, just live for yourself in arrogant indifference to God and to others.

Luke 14 Verse 11, Jesus warned "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." I've learned over the years that Facebook is the playground for the proud. I've learned that broken marriages and families are the legacy of the proud. Prisons are filled with the proud and hell will be the eternal abode of the proud.

What a contrast to Paul's admonition for believers in Ephesians, four, remember, beginning in verse one "I, the prisoner of the Lord," he says, "implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace."

So again, Jesus asked him, "What were you talking about?" They kept silent, they knew that they were talking about who's going to be the greatest. And then we read in verse 35, "Sitting down," it says, that was the posture of a Jewish teacher; i's like an event is about to occur here, you can just see it. Now he finds a spot and he sits down and he knows, or the disciples know that they're about to get an earful here, the teacher is going to speak and, "He called the 12 and said to them, 'If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all.'"

So first, we see number one that pride fuels jealousy and strife resulting in disgrace and judgment and number two, humility prevents jealousy and strife, and results in honor and blessing. "If anyone wants to be first," to be first means to be first with respect to godliness. If anyone wants to garner God's esteem, and God's blessing, "he shall be last of all, and servant of all." Well, this is just the opposite of what they were used to, the opposite of the scribes and the Pharisees who craved attention, craved affirmation, craved applause, again, who "did the all their deeds to be noticed by men," Matthew 23 and verse five.

We read more of this in Jesus words in Matthew six beginning in verse one, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them, otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full." And of course, seeking the spotlight and constantly tooting your own horn may garner some short term praise from undiscerning people. But dear friends, please understand, it does not impress God. Man looks at the outward appearance right? But the Lord looks at what? At the heart.

You know, the world considers those who follow Christ to be last right? To be the foolish inferior people, the last ones who deserve any honor. Unlike the rich and the famous, we are considered to be the naive the ignorant, the inferior, the dregs of society, but God sees and God rewards the faithful, not the successful. As a steward, we're to be found faithful, not successful. When we stand before the Lord, he's not going to say, well tell me how successful you were. He's going to ask you how faithful you were. How faithful were you with the gifts that I gave you, with the opportunities that I gave you with the responsibilities that I gave you?

Later on in Mark chapter 10. These types of things were going on in the minds of the disciples. And Peter says beginning in verse 28, he said to Jesus, "Behold, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters, or mother or father or children or farms, for my sake, and for the gospel sake, but that he will receive 100 times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters, and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions and then the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first." So again, here, Jesus says, in our text, if anyone wants to be first he shall be last of all, and servant of all. In other words, if you want my praise in the kingdom, you must reverse the common self-assertive, self-aggrandizing human values that dominate Satan's world system in your culture. Choose the loneliest position, prefer the most humble space and out of love for me and others seek to serve rather than to be served.

Paul will summarize this in Philippians two, you will recall beginning in verse three, he says, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another is more important than yourselves. You're not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also the interests of others." Again, humility prevents jealousy and strife and results in honor and blessing. And Paul will go on to give the most magnificent of all examples of this kind of humility. He goes on to say, "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard the equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Christ, Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Now with this in mind, to illustrate this kind of humility, notice what Jesus does, in verse 36, it says,"Taking a child, He set him before them." He probably took a child and had the child stand before Him. And as we would often do kind of leaned down and put your hands on the child's shoulder or around their chest and kind of loved them. And then it says, "And taking him in His arms," and now he picks the child up. And he says to them, verse 37, "Whoever receives one child like this, in My name, receives Me; and whoever receives me does not receive me but Him who sent Me." You see, to receive literally means to welcome, to willingly allow a person into your company for meaningful, loving relationship. This was utterly foreign to the Jewish culture. Children were a bit of a nuisance, they were to be seen and not heard. The lowest rung on the social ladder. In fact, rabbis believe that teaching any child under 12 the Torah was just an exercise in futility. But here Jesus takes a child into his harms. I find it interesting, the child was not afraid of Jesus. A helpless, ignorant, powerless, dependent child, human being that has no honor, no status largely ignored, but one that is in desperate need of love and attention, and training and protection. Why would Jesus choose a child? Because this was the perfect illustration of God's adopted children in Christ. This pictures us as believers.

This brings us to our third little sentence, we see that humility is validated by love for fellow believers and glorifies Christ. In fact, we must become like children. According to Matthew 18 three, Jesus said, "In order to enter the kingdom," let me read that text for you. Matthew 18, beginning of verse three, Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted, and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest of the kingdom and heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me and whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, which literally means to cause to sin, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." In fact, Mark will say the same thing later in verse 42, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believed to stumble, it would be better for him, if with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea." In other words, any person that would deceive or entice or trap or influence an unsuspecting believer and cause that believer to believe lies, or to be mistreated, or to live a life of sin, If a person does that, even unwittingly, what Jesus is saying is they have committed a crime that is so heinous, that it would be better for them to experience the horrifying and inescapable punishment, that sometimes the Romans would do, of putting a large millstone, the type that the donkey's would turn on an axis to put that around your neck and throw you into the sea. Now, Mark isn't calling people to become like a child to enter the kingdom as Matthew does, although he will do that later on in chapter 10 in verse five, he'll do the same thing. But instead, Mark's emphasis here is on reversing the the conventional status criteria based upon perceived value, and to humble yourself as a child. Disciples, please hear this. And his point is, this is how we are to treat fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Dear friends, you must ask yourself this question. Does this describe the attitude of my heart? Or do I have a tendency to ignore other believers, to maybe use them, maybe even deceive them? Or to give a bad example before them.

Fathers on Father's Day, we really need to ask this question of ourselves. Because our children, and our wives, and our grandchildren, all of our family, and our friends and neighbors are watching. Like, again, verse 37, "Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me and whoever receives Me does not receive Me but Him who sent Me." Oh Child of God, we must learn to abandon our perceived importance. We must learn to deliberately subordinate ourselves to meeting the needs of others. That's what honors, God that's what brings blessing into our life. You know, this must have had an immense influence on the disciples. Because they had to have been thinking, Boy, we've we've been exposed, you know, in their mind, they're thinking we just got through raking each other over the coals about who's going to be the greatest and now he's showing us how bad that is. And of course, when you act that way, all you do is produce envy, envy and jealousy, and strife.

You want to ask yourself as believers, do you welcome, do you receive other believers into your life? Are you glad to welcome them into your home and into your relationships to care for them? What kind of influence do you have with other Christians? Do people see Christ in you? Or do they just see you? Beloved submission to God as manifested by our submission to others, our love for God is manifested in how we love others. Humility is validated by love for fellow believers and it glorifies Christ. That's why he says, "Whoever receives one child like this, in My name, receives Me and Him who sent Me." You see, this was of enormous importance to Jesus. And the idea of any other believer, luring a little child, even another believer, and certainly that is the analogy here, to do that, to get somebody to believe a lie or to practice evil, to somehow abuse them.

Zechariah tells us that that is like poking your finger in God's eye. Zechariah two eight, "For he who touches you touches the apple of His eye." You know, I've lived long enough to see arrogant, self-centered, self-aggrandizing selfish Christians, even in this church, professing believers, treat others with absolute contempt. Many times, it's subtle, and you don't see it until later on, and then you begin to witness it and you just think, Oh my, I can't believe this is happening. I've seen them demean and deceive and abuse and manipulate and control and even seduce them. And I've also seen God punished them in ways that would stagger your imagination. God is serious about this issue. And this is one that the disciples had to learn.

Fathers, if I can digress for a moment, what kind of godly impact are you having on your children? Your family, your wife? Ephesians sixth verse four, "Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord." Is that what you are doing? Is that the passion of your heart? Is that the priority of your heart? What would your wife say? What would your children say? May I remind you that the progressive left, which is basically the Democratic Party is waging war, against fatherhood, against marriage and against the family. I recall one of their own Barack Obama when he was running for president made a speech where he claimed that children who grow up without a dad are more likely to live in poverty, commit crime, drop out of school and go to prison. But what was fascinating is by elevating fathers had absolutely infuriated his progressive supporters and as a result, Democrats removed all references of fatherhood, from their 2016, and their 2020 party platforms.

You see, progressives never talk about marriage. They never talk about fatherhood, because they believe that social outcomes are primarily determined by public policy and systemic forces, not individual decisions. Moreover, they believe that it is the state that must control families. Not a father, not a mother, not a family. Or as this is the satanic world system that we're fighting against, and dads, you need to hear this. There is a war going on. We have an enormous responsibility to humble ourselves as fathers, and to love our family love our children, enough to teach them to protect them, to warn them.

So again, we've seen the pride fuels jealousy and strife resulting in disgrace and judgment. Humility prevents jealous jealousy and strife results in honor and blessing. Then we've seen that humility is validated by love for fellow believers and glorifies Christ. And finally, we're going to see that pride fuels unwarranted intolerance and exclusivity.

Now, before we will look at verse 38, and begin to wrap this up, I believe that all that Jesus was saying, was really getting to them. And John is thinking about how he and the others treated a fellow believer that was outside of their group outside of their circle. That's why he says in verse 38, "John said to Jesus, 'Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.'" Now, it doesn't say this, but I believe what he was thinking to himself was, you know, I guess we shouldn't have done that.

Verse 39, "But Jesus said, 'Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.'" Obviously, this person was a believer. And then he adds, "For he who is not against us, is for us."

So here we see Jesus warning about unwarranted intolerance and exclusivity. You know what it is, "us for no more, bar the door." We've got the corner on the truth. Now, to be sure, we break fellowship when professing Christians distort the gospel and deny the authority of Scripture. Things like women preachers and churches that do the hokey pokey with all this crazy stuff that's going on these days. We're going to break fellowship with that, that is so dishonouring to God. And by the way, that's the vast majority of evangelicalism today, as we see in Matthew seven. We're told in Second Corinthians six, verse 14, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what is a believer in common with an unbeliever." But folks, this is a very different dynamic than what we have here, what Jesus is talking about. Although even now, in our culture, we may differ with some churches, some denominations on non essentials. But we must never be so proud is to think that we can have no fellowship with them, and that we are somehow better than them, that we are the only ones honoring Christ, we must guard against that.

Let the Lord sort all of those things out. You know, we would do well, to have the same broad minded attitude as Paul expressed in Philippians one, verse 15, interesting passage. There we read, "Some to be sure, are preaching Christ, even from envy of strife, but some also from good will." In other words, some preachers are out there, they don't like Paul, and some of the things he's saying or whatever. They're preaching out of envy and strife. And then he goes on to say, "the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the Gospel. The former," in other words, the one preaching out of envy and strife, "proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then?" In other words, okay, so what are we going to do here? He says, "Only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice." In other words, even when there are men who are insincere and they're preaching, and their underlying motives are not what they need to be, If Christ is being preached, then let's rejoice. Let's rejoice. His word is going to be unleashed even by ungodly people at times, but His Word will either harden or soften hearts. Remember, it's the message not the messenger of God that he uses to save and to sanctify sinners.

Well, finally, Jesus completes his reasoning with a with a final clause that really underscores just the veracity and the solemnity of what he has been saying, verse 41, "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, He will not lose his reward." Beloved, here in the eternal rewards of humility, divine recompense that exceeds the limits of our imagination that will be revealed to us, given to us and experienced by us in heaven someday. rewards for even the smallest gesture of humble, selfless love, like giving someone who is thirsty, a cool drink of water.

So I challenge you this morning, to contemplate these divine lessons on pride and humility. Examine your life under the light of divine scrutiny and let's humble ourselves and serve Christ by serving others, remembering that if anyone wants to be first he shall be last of all and servant of all, amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank You for these Magnificent Truths. My how they speak to each one of us because we all battle with that unredeemed humaneness that is still within us. May the Spirit of God help us to see these things more clearly and to repent of them, to put them off and put on Christ in a new in a fresh way. We thank You for Your humble, selfless love for us. May we live that out in the lives of our families and our friends, that Christ may be exalted, for it's in his name that I pray. Amen.