Mark 9:14–50 | The Jesus Way

Well, it was a trip of a lifetime. Our dream trip. My wife and I had been married for almost six years at that point. And we were students for most of that time. So as you know how the student life goes, we didn't have a lot of money, so no vacations. Every time we scraped together something, we used to go back to India for ministry. And so we had never taken a proper vacation. So we planned this dream backpacking trip to Europe. My wife and I are so excited about it. It was actually supposed to be in May of 2020, and you guys know what happened then with COVID and all the shutdown. But it was October 2019, and we were just hanging out one evening, and we go, why are we waiting till May of 2020? Can we just go this December? You know, it was like, well, two months? It's a three-week backpacking trip. Could we plan? Go, let's take it on as a challenge. And so we did. And, you know, think of it, God was behind it because we would not have gone if it was May of 2020. So I was in charge of all of the macro planning, the cities that we were going to go to. We were going to nine countries backpacking. So I was in charge of booking the flights, the trains, and everything. And my wife, she was in charge of the places that we needed to visit and You know, what are the museums that we are visiting? What foods are we trying? And all of that. So she was the micro, I was the macro. And you know, we were just excited. We love traveling and just to see other cultures, just the world out there. But my wife was particularly excited. about learning all of these different languages of the countries that we were visiting. You know, if you know anything about her, she loves languages. You know, she speaks Spanish, so my kids are fluent in Spanish. I don't know a lick of Spanish, so they have a secret language that they communicate in, and it's okay. I try to teach my kids my native language, which is Tamil, but they don't seem to get it. That's okay, you know. So she's all excited about learning this language. So we hop on the plane. It's a nine-hour flight to Barcelona. And all I hear is her practicing her language skills. And I go, Katie, is this what you're going to be doing for about nine hours? I want to sleep right now. And she goes, no, you know, I'm just so excited. I want to learn. I think she was practicing German, actually. She goes, no, I got to know this. And I go, that's great, but I want to sleep. She goes, this is the only time I have. So I'm going to do this. And so I just let her on for a few more minutes. And I go, Katie, I can't do this. I just got to rest. I'm tired. I think we were just, we had, if I'm not mistaken, Torrens, you might remember this. This was the Sunday we had Matt Forte at 180. So you were still there. So we had just finished service and then just hopped on the plane. And so I said, Katie, I just can't do this. You can practice somewhere else. And she goes, you're such a cultural bum. I go, where did that come from? I said, I'm trying to learn all of these languages, and I want to really be immersed in the culture, and you're stopping me. You know what? You should be learning it as well. I go, no. No, I'm not doing that. And in fact, I wear this as a badge of honor that you call me a cultural bum, because I'm doing my vacation right. You know, I'm not using my brain power for all of this. You be the language expert. I'll just follow you. So we arrive in Barcelona. And that was fun because she's very fluent in Spanish. So it was a true vacation for me. I didn't have to do anything. She's ordering food. She's talking to the taxi driver. Everything in Spanish. And I go, I could live with this. You know, it's like not having to do anything. And then we go to our next country. And that's where her language skills are put to the test because it's the language that she doesn't know. And so now she's stuttering and stammering. Oh, by the way, before that, I got to say this. In Spanish, every time, you know, the waiter serves us, you know, she goes, gracias. And then I go, thank you. Right? And so she's got that eye roll. She's just so infuriated with me. She goes, you're a cultural bum. Little did she know when she was not there, I did say gracias. So it was just before her. And so we go to this next country, and she's stuttering and stammering. And I'm standing behind her, and I go, God. Can she just talk in English right now? You know, because that guy is getting frustrated. No one is able to understand what's going on. What are we doing right here? And so after a point, I had to like, you know what, Katie, it's okay. You know, let's stick with English for a little bit. She goes, no. You know what, I want to go all the way in. So we did that. We navigated nine countries. The last country we were in was Egypt. It was Germany, and this was the last day. I still remember we had just gone around. It was New Year's Day of 2020. We had gone around the main city center and all of that, and we had to use the restroom. So it was urgent, so we're like running, trying to find a place to use the restroom. We see this big restaurant, and we go in, and it was almost a dining hall where people were drinking. They all had these huge, big glasses. beer jugs and they were all having fun. It was hopping. So we go straight and Katie's like, you know what? I got to go to the restroom. I said, you know what? You just go down wherever the restroom is. Let me talk to the waitress. Let me check in. I guess we have to buy something and I'll follow you. So I go to the waitress and she says, no, it's fine. Just go to the restroom. So it was almost like I was just 10 seconds behind Katie. So I come down and then I see The men's restroom, there wasn't even a sign or anything that suggested it was men. It was just a German word for men. And so I was like, well, this is where I got to go. And I go in and guess who I see in the men's restroom. My wife is in there. And she's trying to go to a store. I go, Katie, what are you doing? What are you doing? I go, well, it's the men's restroom. She goes, no it isn't. I was like, yes it is. So there we are, we come out and we're fighting, and we're on Google trying to find out if this was men or women. There's not even those icons that they have, right? And so I was obviously right. And then I look at her, I look at her and I go, guess who's the cultural bum here? Right? So we have this running joke in our family as to who's the cultural bum. We're almost at the end of our series in the Gospel of Mark called The Jesus Way. And we're putting the spotlight on Jesus, looking at his life, his teachings, his actions. All with the purpose of learning from him and following his way. This is the foundation of being a disciple of Christ. The word disciple in its essence just means a learner or a follower. So it's someone who observes the life and teachings of their master. And then they strictly adhered and followed that. And there were many disciples in Jesus' day who followed other rabbis. And those who committed to being disciples of Jesus, they were supposed to closely observe the life, the teachings, the actions of Jesus so they would become like Him and do good. what he does. In fact, in Matthew 10, 25, it says a disciple is like his teacher. And that's the whole point of being a disciple. We are like Jesus. And that's what Jesus is calling us to do as well, to be a disciple. And like Katie's language learning journey, the process of learning how to imitate someone or something is often a little bumpy. We start out optimistic. We're fired up to be disciples of Jesus. But when the rubble meets the road, the stuff that we got to do, turn the other cheek, love your enemies, bless those who persecute you, and then it goes on and on. Gets a little hard, right? And that's exactly what the disciples themselves during Jesus' day, Jesus' disciples, are experiencing. They're trying to imitate Him. They're trying to learn Him. They're trying to be like Him. But it's harder than they expect. And oftentimes it feels like sometimes they're just on a completely different path. But Jesus is patient with them and he works with them. And the quality that we're going to look at is that trips them up in today's passage in their discipleship journey is humility. So in this passage, Jesus teaches them and us what humility in discipleship actually looks like. So the title of my sermon today is Imitating Jesus, the Path of Humble Disciples. And we're going to quickly look at four things. Ways that humble disciples imitate Jesus' humility in everyday life. So let's jump in. Number one, humble disciples know that a prayerful life fuels a faith-filled life. A prayerful life fuels a faith-filled life. Just to give you some context before we read from Mark 9, verse 14. This is Jesus and Peter, James and John. They're away. They're just on a mountain where Jesus is transfigured. His face shines like the sun. His robe is as white. And, you know, there's Moses and Elijah speaking to Jesus. There's just a monumental event that just happened. And then now Jesus and his three disciples, they come down from the mountain. And this is what they encounter in verse 14, Mark 9, 14, if you follow along with me. When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, what are you arguing about with them? And someone from the crowd answered him, And he answered them, Oh, faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy. And he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, If you can, all things are possible for the one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe. Help my unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again. And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose again. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Humble disciples know that a prayerful life fuels a faith-filled life. A couple of initial observations you see here. You know, the disciples here are at work, even though Jesus, James, and Peter, and John were absent. And there's a pattern in the book of Mark, wherever these disciples are not with Jesus, they get into trouble. Whenever. Whenever. Jesus is not with them. You know, the last time, a few chapters ago, they were on a boat. You know, Jesus ended up praying. There's this great windstorm that arises and now they're fearful of their life and they see Jesus walking on water to come and rescue these disciples. So you see a pattern where when they start doing stuff without Jesus, man... That's trouble. And we can relate to that as well, right? Without Jesus, we're in trouble. And so here, the commotion is because these disciples, the nine disciples who are left at the bottom of the mountain, they're trying to drive out this demon. Nothing's happening. The scribes are arguing. The crowds are like muttering. So there's chaos going on. And Jesus comes into this situation. He goes, what's going on? And then this father comes and says, you know... My son has been going through this all his life and we brought them to your disciples and your disciples can't heal them. And I love the exchange that happens between this father and Jesus because I think it brings out the raw emotions that actually a lot of us face when we go through trials and suffering in life. The father goes, you know what, I've tried everything that I possibly can. I brought them to your disciples to help and nothing's going on. And so Jesus says, well, tell me. Tell me the story. And he says, well, from his childhood... The spirit has taken over and when he starts conversing and he's thrown himself in the fire, he's jumped into the water. And you can imagine the grief, the anguish, the desperation in the heart of this father who sees his son without any help. And he asked Jesus, but if you can, you can make him well. And Jesus says, if you can? All things are possible for one who believes. And I love the answer of this father because he's just so honest. He goes, I want to believe. I want to believe. Please help my unbelief. could see this father he's tried everything and he wants to really believe that Jesus can come through in this situation and he goes to God and he goes I really want to believe Jesus that you can help please help my unbelief you know a lot of us we might be praying for things to happen in our life and sometimes it doesn't happen the way we want it to happen the conclusion might not be what we want but we know that God's will does happen right But what God wants us to do, I mean, unlike the Pharisees and the scribes, their unbelief led to a hardened heart. Here, this father, his unbelief led him to the feet of Jesus, asking God to even help with his own unbelief. And that's the posture that we want to be. You know, even when things don't go the way we want it to go, we go to Jesus and we go, God, I want this to happen, but I know this might be your will. God, help me believe. That's the kind of raw honesty that God wants us to have with him. Jesus can take it. We don't have to be sanitized in our prayer, try to look good in front of God. That's not the kind of prayers that God wants. He wants us to be as raw as possible with him. And you know what's interesting about the rest of this passage? is that Jesus proceeds to heal this boy, but we don't know the response of the father. We don't have the response of the son recorded. We don't even have the response of the crowd. Was the crowd amazed? Did they glorify God? We don't know what's going on. But the narrative immediately goes to, the scene almost shifts to Jesus and his disciples in their home, and the disciples have a question. They go, Jesus, why couldn't we cast out the demons? And his answer was, well, this kind doesn't happen without prayer. And there's an interesting thing that we got to learn as well from here. Because the disciples had a really valid question. Because if you go back in Mark chapter 3, when God actually, when Jesus chose his 12 disciples, he gave them three objectives. He chose his disciples to be with him, to preach, and And then to cast out demons. So that was the objective why these disciples were chosen. And then you come to Mark 6. These disciples were actually sent out. Jesus gives them authority. Sends out specifically to cast out demons. And the disciples go out and demons are cast out. And they're all excited. So now they believe that they have the power to cast out demons. They're gifted. Right? And so here, even though Jesus and the other three disciples are up in the mountain, the other nine are going, you know what? We have the power to cast out demons. We're going to do it right now. And so they start doing it and nothing happens. And Jesus goes back here and he says, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. And the context of this passage shows that Jesus is not talking about some magical incantation, some formula that you use that, you know, you do it. And then these demons are cast out. He refers to a pattern of prayer, a lifestyle of prayer which is nothing but a lifestyle of dependence on God. You see, even Jesus, the God of heaven and earth, He takes time off from His routine of ministry, the routines of daily life, to commune with His Father. How much more we as his disciples are to cultivate a lifestyle of prayer. A lifestyle of dependence where we go to God much like this father. We go, God, we're helpless. We're desperate for you to work. We want to tap into you as the source of our power. We don't want to live out this life in our strength. We want you to move through us. The disciples thought that now that they had the gifting, they could do whatever they want. But they found out. That a life that isn't attached to the source of power, which is God, is a powerless life. I think prayer is something that, if I were to be honest, we all struggle with. Now, I've never, maybe I have. There's a professor at Moody who was a man of prayer. In fact, at our 180 home each week, we were doing his book on prayer. Prayer, on learning how to just cultivate a lifestyle of prayer, of dependence with God. But pretty much 99.9% of the people that I, if I were to ask, how's your prayer life? We go, oh, I got to improve. I got to improve. I'm not doing that great. But I think at the bottom of it, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what prayer is. Prayer is not supposed to be a barometer of our spirituality. It's not supposed to be just because I pray, I am so spiritual, right? That's not what it is. At its essence, it's us being dependent on God, us talking with God, communicating with God. There's no set formula. There's no set perfect prayers to pray. And you can pray wherever you are. You can pray while you're driving your car with your eyes open, of course. You can pray at work. Martin Luther is stated to have said, Martin Luther was the father of our Protestant Reformation. He wrote about 65 commentaries that were this thick. If you go to some of the library of theological schools, his books just pretty much take a couple of sections. That's how much he wrote. He translated the Bible into German, first did the New Testament, did the entire Bible. He led a church. He was a busy man, and it was stated that At the beginning of each day, he would go, my day is so busy that I have to pray for a couple of hours before I get going. He knew what the source of his power was in communication with God. And we don't, well, if we can pray a couple of hours, that's great. But even if you can, the first thing if you can do, five minutes of prayer. Just setting our minds, our focus on God every time we wake up and depending on him makes a huge difference to how we live. And humble disciples know that a prayerful life is what fuels a faith-filled life. Jesus' disciples have no power to live out their God-given calling without prayer. How does your prayer life look? Just talking to God. You can be praying right now as you're processing stuff with God. And I promise you, once we start to lean into this, once we start to look at prayer as just communication with God, and it's not something that's supposed to be a marker of our spirituality, things are going to change for all of us. We become more and more dependent on Him. We... Get connected. We abide in him. And that just changes how we live. Secondly, humble disciples measure greatness by service, not status. So the narrative goes on in Mark 9.30. It says, they went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise. But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them, What were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve, and he said to them, If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. And he took a child and put him in the midst of them. And taking him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. Humble disciples measure greatness by service, not status. And you see there's a huge contrast between Jesus' humility and just the posture of the disciples. Here you have Jesus predicting his death. Here, the God of heaven and earth, the second person of the Trinity, he comes in human form. Philippians 2 says, he humbled himself, became obedient even to the point of death. And here he was getting ready to suffer one of the most brutal, gruesome ways, shameful ways to die. To be crucified on a cross. Just shows the path of humility that Jesus is choosing. And then you see the contrast with his disciples. They're arguing. They're arguing as to who is the greatest among them. And so when Jesus asked them, well, what were you talking about? What was their response? Silence. Silence. Absolute silence. They know, man, I would love to have seen this unfold, right? You know, you kind of see like how Jesus interacts with his disciples. A lot of times we have such a romanticized view of Jesus, but Jesus was firm sometimes. You know, he was a God of love, compassion, but he was firm. So here you see the disciples are afraid of Jesus. They can't tell him what they were talking about because they know they'd be reprimanded in some ways. But you know, this is Jesus. You can't hide stuff from him. So he goes straight to the point. He goes, if you want to be the first, you got to be the servant of all. Humility. Service. That's the pathway to greatness in God's kingdom. David Garland is a New Testament commentator that I love, and this is what he writes about. What Jesus even says here is countercultural. It was not the norm in his culture. And this is what he says. In Jesus' time, people were preoccupied with rank and standing. Much like even today. And he goes, And argue that the just would sit nearer to the throne of God than even the angels. So earthly orders of seating at worship, at meals, or authority within the community, or dealings with... Inferiors and superiors were seen as preparation for the eternal order to come. So there's actual writings that talk about who gets to be closer to God in paradise, in heaven, right? And also there's the rule of community at Qumran, which was the document that governed life among a Jewish sect called the Essenes. This is what it says. So they prescribed the proper order of procession in even entering worship. So even the processional order. First you had priests and then you had Levites and in the third place all the people shall enter one after the other in thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens so all the children of Israel may know they're standing in God's community in conformity with the eternal plan. So people were obsessed with where they sit. Who was first? Who was last? All that mattered to them. And Jesus says, if you want to be first in my kingdom, you got to be the last. The commentator goes on, he says, at no point does the way of Jesus diverge more sharply from the way of the world than on the question of greatness. Jesus does not exactly repudiate prominence and greatness, but he redefines them. The world today teaches us to measure Our greatness by what we accomplish, how much influence we have, our credentials, our titles, how much money we make, how many people notice us, how many likes, views, followers we have on social media. That's how we measure our worth and our greatness. But Jesus turns that upside down. In His kingdom, greatness is measured by service. How much do we serve people You know, I think of one of the things that I think about is just all of the missionaries who serve in hard areas. You know, we had one guy in our mission plant in India who had five people in his church for almost eight years. Faithfully serving five people. not worried about numbers, just doing what he's supposed to do. I'm sure he was discouraged. In fact, I've had conversations with him where he wanted to give up at some point. Imagine the rewards that he's going to get in heaven just for his faithfulness in bringing the gospel of God to a community that, you know, when he was there, that was the only church that was there in this village. Humble disciples measure greatness by service, not status. Moving on. Humble disciples don't act like God only works through them. They celebrate how he works through others. Mark 9.38 says, John said to him, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us. But Jesus said, do not stop him for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. Again, we see how ironic this is. We started the section today by seeing how his disciples could not cast out demons, right? And now here's someone who's actually casting out demons in Jesus' name, and his disciples go and says, Jesus, they're not following us. They're not supposed to be casting out demons, so can you stop them from actually casting out demons? You can see how self- Engrossed they are. It was all about them. It was all about them having access to Jesus and then doing signs and wonders and works. And anyone else who's not part of their tribe, part of their group, they can't accept the fact that something else is going on. And you see Jesus' response. You would think Jesus says, oh, you know, well, stop them. Maybe that's what the answer is. expecting. But Jesus goes, who is not against us is for us. And he goes the other route. He says, for truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. On a side note, here you see Jesus self-proclaims himself as the Christ. He says, you belong to Christ. And just one chapter before, Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So if someone asks you, well, Jesus never mentioned that he was Christ. Here's a verse that says that Jesus is Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah. And so Jesus says, you know what, whoever does something for you, For those who belong to Christ will have a reward. So humble disciples don't act as though they have exclusive rights to God's work. They partner with all and everyone to be able to do that. And so we need to keep checking our attitude towards other ministries, other churches. Especially the ones that look and sound different from us. I'll be very tribalistic in how we view how ministry happens. Or more so, maybe we're not. Maybe we're just so, it was all about us. We don't even care about ministry. We don't even celebrate others. Because it's all about us. Humble disciples, if we were to follow the path of Jesus, we don't act like God only works through us. But we celebrate what God is doing in the life of others. Finally, Humble disciples sacrifice anything that hinders their walk with Jesus. I'd love for you guys to listen carefully to this because it's such an important passage that we're going to read. Mark 9, 42. It says, whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and were thrown into the sea. So Jesus opens with this warning. And Jesus is saying it's a really serious thing to cause someone who's here. It's not actually referring to kids, but those who are new or vulnerable in their faith to stumble. So he's warning them, don't be a stumbling block for those who are new in the faith. And then it goes on, and if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell. Where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And then he uses another imagery, verse 49, 50. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. Did you know that Jesus spoke about hell and judgment more than any other figure in the Bible? No. And his descriptions are really detailed and stark. Our Christian life is really serious here. Jesus is saying, whatever is causing you to stumble, whatever is causing you to sin, take extreme measures. so that you overcome that sin. He said, it's better if you lose an eye, it's better if you lose a hand, it's better if you lose a foot than being in hell. Again, Jesus' own words here. What Jesus is not saying is to do this literally because he's using hyperbolic speech. In fact, you can go back in church history where people actually did follow this literally There's a couple of church, father's church, really good men who actually did something like this only to find out that you could lose your hand, you could lose your foot, but still it's about the thought, you still sin, right? But Jesus is saying here, take extreme measures to get rid of sin in your life. So the question is, do we, do I take my walk with Jesus? Do we take our walk with Jesus so seriously? Or do we treat sin as something that we got to manage, something that we got to overcome, but, you know, we leave it for another day? Jesus is calling for spiritual seriousness. He's telling us to deal radically with anything that comes in the place of God. Sin at the core of it is missing the mark. It's anything that might go against what God has for us. And do you know how costly or how serious sin is? It required Jesus to come from heaven, come down to earth, live a perfect life, and die on the cross, bear our sins on the cross so that we have eternal life. That's how serious sin is. How do we treat sin? I still remember this was a huge cultural shock for me. The first year I was here from India, I was going to Moody. I was being part of this church. And so, you know, I wanted to be part of small groups, right? So we had this men's group we used to meet at Moody. And so we had the associate pastor and some of these men. And we'd go, we'd start that small group. We go, well, I want to confess. I did this and I just feel so bad. I'm stuck in this addiction. And so we would go around confessing all of our sins. And for me, this was new. We never did something like that, this public. So this was a culture shock in itself. So I'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible, you know, right? And so we all prayed for each other. And then week two, same thing. Week three, same thing. And I go, wait, wait, everyone is just confessing all the time. Where is the actual victory? I mean, I don't see any progress. We seem to be just soothing people, comforting people, managing people's sin. And we stop there. There's no progress. Direction. There's no counsel. There's no why in the road. And we call it, and one of the things, you know, we, with our discipleship leaders here at 180, all of those who are leading our 180 homes, our small groups, one of the things we tell them is, we got to place a why in the road for people because it's always a choice. It's a choice. And if we go through our small groups, even if you come here on Sundays and I don't get to challenge you and I'm just going to share things that you like to hear, we're missing it. There's got to be a why in the road where we go, you know what? Repentance. 180, that's what our church is all about, right? When you do a 180, you say no to the world. You turn away from the world and you say yes to God. So you say no to sin. Are we going to be fully free from sin? No. Not until Jesus comes back again. But God wants us to be in that sanctification journey, our discipleship journey, where we take our life seriously and we're honestly dealing with the things that's holding us back from God. Things that stop us. from living the abundant life God has from us. And His word is very clear as to what sin is. Even a couple of weeks back, we saw how it's God's desire for us to be holy. You know, a lot of us, we're always wanting to know what God's will is. 1 Thessalonians 4, it says, For this is the will of God, your sanctification. So if you are a disciple of Jesus, and if we don't take sin seriously, There's something wrong right there. And today, we have so many people in churches, not just in the United States, across the world, who think just because you come to church, just because you say the right things, we do the right things, we serve, we're good. And we go back to Matthew 7, where Jesus says, on that day, many will come to me. And say, God, Lord, I did signs in your name. I did wonders in your name. I preached in your name. I cast out demons in your name. And you know what Jesus says to them? Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. That's what Jesus says. And imagine, these are all people who, if you were to put it, they were all the pastors, people who are doing stuff, you know, who are actually doing stuff. So it's a warning to me. What about for all of us? It's not my intention to scare you. This is just God's word that we're speaking. But we do have hope in God. And, you know, one of the things we firmly believe in here at 180, we call it our creed. And it's just three defining statements. You come as you are. And we want everyone to come as you are. We don't want any pretenses. We don't want your Sunday best. No. Come as you are with your struggles, with the things that you're going through and experience God. But then we don't stop there. We want to work with you. We want you to work with each other and help overcome what seems impossible in your life so that you can live as you've never imagined in the fullness of life that God has for us. That's the journey that we're all in. Going to have the worship team come up on stage as we end today. But I want to leave with you guys with a turning point. Because we at 180, the turning point is our keyword for application. And we don't go back home. We don't go back after any service without a clear action step. Right? Because we want to be doers of God's word, not just hearers only. And this is my challenge for you. How can you imitate Jesus' humility in your own life? This week, choose one practical step to focus on. Just one. Well, if you can do all four, that's great. But just start with one. Maybe God's asking you to grow in prayer. And by extension, dependence on him. Maybe all that you got to do is the first thing that you do when you wake up, instead of going to your phone, checking your messages, your emails, which by the way, I do too. You know, and I have to sometimes repent of that. Go to God for a couple of minutes and just ask God, I don't know how to depend on you. Could you please help me? Or maybe God wants you to take that step, serve others without seeking recognition. When no one's looking, serve others. You know, I so appreciate all you guys. We have 90% of our church that actually serves and volunteers here at 180. It's a great thing. There's so many of you who come in at 7, who set up Teardown, you're not recognized. That's how God's kingdom is meant to be. You know, Jesus is going to recognize us. So maybe God's asking you to serve others without seeking recognition. Or maybe God wants you to look beyond yourself. Notice and celebrate His work in people outside your usual circles. Or finally, and perhaps more importantly... Remove something that hinders your walk with Jesus or causes others to stumble. You can go to God. Ask God to reveal the sin in your life, in our lives. I want to do that too and I do that every day. God wants us to be part of the sanctifying journey. He wants you to become like him and he is calling you even today. Let me pray for us. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for calling us to be your disciples. And thank you that you give us access to an abundant life. One that can be lived abundantly. Independence on you with your grace, the power, the enablement that is needed to live out our lives, God. And God, we pray that you would help us to live this victorious life that you have for us, God. And I just pray for each and every person who's here. I pray that they would be doers of your word and not just hearers only, that you would reveal to them what practical step that they need to focus on this week. God, in your spirit, could you remind us, even as we go through today, you know, there's games, NFL games, there's a Chicago Marathon. So we're going to our lives. We pray, would you still remind us? Help us to take that next step in becoming more like you. God, I specifically pray for those who might be caught in any addiction and sins that you want us to move away from. God, you know that we can't. Do this in our own strength, in our own power. And I pray that you would help every person here who needs that freedom to depend on you. And I pray you would also supernaturally bring in friends, good folks in their life to help them, to disciple them so that they can gain victory over what's kicking them. God, we want you more than ever. We want to be your disciples. Help us. We know you will do that, God. Thank you for your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.