Why Shouldn't I Oppose Other Ministries?
- Because it's about Jesus' NAME , not yours. (Mk 9:38-39)
- Because Jesus draws the LINE , not you. (Mk 9:40)
- Because Jesus is the JUDGE , not you. (Mk 9:41)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:05
Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark, in chapter 9.
00:06-00:15
I'm going to be honest with you, sometimes you come into church and there's like a little bit of an excited buzz and energy and then there's mornings like this.
00:16-00:17
We're in a bit of a lull this morning.
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Anybody?
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I see some heads nodding, okay.
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So, I want you to turn to the person next to you and grab them and shake them violently.
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No, don't do that.
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No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:30-00:32
Some of you are a little too eager to take that opportunity.
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Like, "I've been waiting for this and the preacher said I can do it." Well, it's a rainy day outside and some of us had a very late night last night and this is very important.
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We're going to turn to God's Word and it's important to God.
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Is it important to you?
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All right, so let's go after it.
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I know something that will shake us out of the lull.
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You want to hear a joke?
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You want to hear a joke?
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All right.
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So this guy was shipwrecked and got stranded by himself on this deserted island.
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And he was at this deserted island for three months.
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Three months he was there.
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Three months by himself on this island, when eventually a team showed up, spotted him, and rescued him.
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But when they came on the island to rescue him, they saw that the man had built three huts.
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And they said, "Well, that looks very productive "for only being here for three months.
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"What's this hut over here?
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"What's this first one?" And the man says, "Well, that's my house.
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"You know, that was the place that, you know, "at night I would go there, "and that's where I'd sleep, and you know, "that was my house." And they said, "Well, what's this hut a little bit to the right of your house?" And he goes, "Well, that's my church." You know, that was just a place that I built.
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I would go there and I would pray, and I would think about Scripture and just sort of talk to God.
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And that became my church.
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And they said, "Well, what's this third hut over here?" And the guy said, I don't really want to talk about that hut.
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What do you mean you don't want to talk about that hut?
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The guy's like, it's a little bit of a sensitive subject.
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And I'd really rather not talk about that hut.
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And they're like, come on, come on.
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Tell us what the third hut is.
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Come on.
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The guy's, no, I don't really want to talk about it.
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Let's just let it go.
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And they said, come on, please, tell us.
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What is that hut?
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We're dying to know now.
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What is that hut?
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And the man said, "All right, that's the church that I used to attend." How about another joke?
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Okay, did you hear this one?
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Since that one was like, "We're on a roll here," right?
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So the story goes about this man who died, went to heaven, and Saint Peter was showing him around.
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That's not theologically accurate, right?
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But it's a joke, and you're going to get the point here in a second.
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So St. Peter is showing this man around and Peter says, "Yeah, you know, we have heaven sort of divided up into neighborhoods.
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Did you know that?" He goes, walking through here, he goes, "Right here, these are the Presbyterians.
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Presbyterians have a nice little neighborhood here.
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Yeah, these are the Presbyterians.
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Say hi to the Presbyterians." And walking along a little further, Peter said, "These are the Baptists, okay?
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This is the Baptist neighborhood.
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It's a big neighborhood and it's a good neighborhood.
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These are the Baptists." And he walked along a little further and a little bit further down the road, Peter turned to the man and he said, "This is where the Methodists are." The guy goes, "What?" The man says, "Well, why are you whispering?" Peter said, "Because they think they're the only people up here." Those are funny, right?
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But, those jokes are actually very sad when that's actually a real attitude being reflected.
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The question is, what do we do with these other churches? I mean, seriously, what do What do we do with these other churches?
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There's a lot of churches in the North Hills.
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There's a lot of churches north of Pittsburgh.
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There's a lot of churches in the Pittsburgh area.
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There's a lot of church plants in Pittsburgh.
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What do we do with all these other churches?
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What do we do with these ministries that are different than ours?
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Well, just to remind you where we were last week in Mark chapter 9, look at verse 37 again.
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Remember Jesus said, "Whoever receives one such child in My name, receives Me.
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And whoever receives Me, receives not Me, but him who sent Me." Then in verse 38, John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name." in my name." And John was like, "In my name, in my name." Receiving in Jesus' name, and in Jesus' name, and doing things in Jesus' name. And it seemed like that sort of kick-started a memory, a recent memory for John.
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And John was like, "I need to confess something to And we tried to stop him.
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Because he was not following us.
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Notice it says "casting out demons in your name." So, this was somebody who was succeeding at it.
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John didn't say, "we saw someone trying to cast out demons." We saw someone putting on some sort of a religious, spiritual show.
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John said, "We saw someone actually casting out demons in your name." And here's what we did about that.
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Notice John says, "We tried to stop him." Well, why did you try to stop him?
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He wasn't following us.
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Ok?
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John says, "We tried to stop him because he wasn't following us." Imagine that scene where the disciples come across this man who's doing ministry in the name of Jesus and going up to this man, "Who are you?
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Excuse me, excuse me.
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Yes, I heard you mention Jesus.
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And who are you?" Well, first of all, do you know who I am?
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I'm like one of the twelve.
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I'm sure you've heard of the twelve.
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Okay?
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We're even more popular than the Beatles, okay?
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I'm sure you've heard of the Twelve.
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And who are you?
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And why are you doing this again?
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I'm legit.
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You have a license for that.
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Listen, pal, you can't do that.
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You can't just go around doing things in Jesus' name.
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Why not?
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Because you're not one of us, man.
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That's why.
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You're not on our team.
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You don't have one of our jerseys.
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You can't do that, man.
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You just can't do that.
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You just can't go around doing things.
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So Jesus is talking about receiving others and John, he's like, "Well, here's kind of how we handled this situation and is that okay?" I think of verse 39 of Jesus' response.
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It says, "But Jesus said, 'Do not stop him.'" "Do not stop him." I don't know what answer John was looking for.
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Part of me thinks that John was looking for Jesus to commend him.
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Like, you know what, John? You're right.
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We just can't have people running out willy-nilly serving the Lord.
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So John, good job.
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And I would expect if it would come to violence, John, that you are ready to handle that.
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Because we just can't have this.
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But that's not what Jesus said.
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You see what he said?
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Look again, what does your Bible say?
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Verse 39, "Do not stop him." Do not stop him.
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So the question on your outline today, "Why shouldn't I oppose other ministries?" Why shouldn't I oppose other ministries?
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Like I know what we're doing here, right?
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And we're like really striving to seek the Lord and understand God's Word and apply God's Word and grow in that love relationship with Jesus Christ and to serve others.
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And I know what we're doing here.
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And these people down the road that, well they're not at Harvest Bible Chapel.
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I mean you've got to go all the way to Monroeville before you catch the next one.
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Pittsburgh language, you know, from here to Monroeville, they might as well be in Portugal, okay?
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But still, who do these other churches think that they are?
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So why shouldn't we oppose them?
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I'll write these things down.
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Number one, because it's about Jesus' name, not yours.
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Because it's about Jesus' name, not yours.
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Look at these verses again with me.
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Verse 39, "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.'" Okay, so understand, this is very important.
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We're not talking about someone who's teaching a different doctrine, okay?
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You know, battling false doctrine is why most of the books in the New Testament were written.
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Did you know that?
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Read Paul's letters.
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The occasion for writing many of his letters was because someone was out there teaching false doctrine, and that is something that we must oppose.
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That obviously is not what's going on here.
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Did Jesus have a hard time opposing false teachers?
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Did He have a hard time opposing?
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Was Jesus shy about that?
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Like, "Well, live and let live." No, not at all.
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When someone was misrepresenting the Lord, Jesus was not shy about speaking up.
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Read Matthew chapter 23.
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Not shy whatsoever.
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That's not what was happening here.
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Ok, this wasn't some ungodly message.
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This wasn't some anti-Jesus message.
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What it all boiled down to for the disciples is this.
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He was not with us.
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This person just wasn't on our team.
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We know the ones that you picked, Jesus.
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We know you called us twelve.
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He wasn't one of us.
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That's why we opposed Him.
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But you notice twice in this passage already, verse 38, John says that, "He was not with He was doing it in your name.
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And then Jesus says again in verse 39, "No one who does a mighty work in My name." Did you see that twice?
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Two times in two verses.
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It's about doing a work in Jesus' name.
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Which means you're accurately representing Jesus Christ.
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Jesus said someone who's doing a work in His name won't be able to speak evil of Him soon afterward.
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The problem is, really it just boils down to exclusivity.
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For the disciples in their minds it wasn't about Jesus, it was about who?
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About them.
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They weren't concerned with Jesus' name, they were concerned with their name.
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And I wish I could say that this problem was dealt with once and for all in this passage, but church, this is a snare that we can so easily fall into as a church and as Christians individually.
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You know, you serve Christ because you love Him.
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And you get into ministry because you love Jesus.
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How does stuff like this happen?
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Or all of the sudden you start out doing what you're doing because you love Jesus and now all of the sudden you're trying to stop other people from doing the same.
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You're criticizing other people that are trying to do the same.
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How does that happen?
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I want you to write two words down.
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I'll tell you exactly how it happens.
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This is straight from God's Word.
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First of all, write down the word "jealousy." Jealousy.
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I wonder how much jealousy might have played a part in John trying to stop this man.
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You know why?
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Oh, do you remember way back when we were in chapter 9 and verse 18?
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You remember the man had a son who was mute and he was deaf.
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He had a demon.
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And the man brought this son to the disciples to cast the demon out.
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How did that work out?
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Remember?
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He said they weren't able to do it.
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And I have to wonder how much that account plays into this, that were there some of the disciples that were like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
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Obviously we're the real deal because we're the people that hang out with Jesus, so shouldn't we sort of have the market cornered?
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This guy did something that we were unable to do ourselves.
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I don't know.
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But I do know for a fact, jealousy over the success of other people's ministry is destructive.
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I'm not going to read this passage, but I want you to just jot this down.
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First Samuel chapter 18 verses 6 through 9.
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First Samuel chapter 18 verses 6 through 9.
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You know what an earworm is?
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How many people know what an earworm is?
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A couple of you, I guarantee you all know what an earworm is, but you might not know what that term, might not know that the term is associated with that.
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An earworm is a song that gets stuck in your head and you can't get it out.
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How many people have had an earworm like in the last week?
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Has that ever happened to you?
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That happens to me all the time and it drives me insane.
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Like, "Gotta stop thinking about that song." I actually looked this up online several months ago.
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What are the most popular earworms?
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You know what they are?
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You know what they are?
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Like, why are you sharing this?
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Because I want to put some earworms in your head.
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And I want you to be thinking about this sermon for like the rest of the day, because you can't get this song out of your head.
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Here's some popular earworms.
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YMCA by the Village People.
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OK, you ready?
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Ready?
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It's fun to stay at the-- come on.
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YMCA.
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Oh, come on.
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Come on.
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Everybody now, come on.
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It's fun to stay at the-- there you go.
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Now good luck getting that out of your head.
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I hate that song.
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But if I'm flipping through the radio and I hear that, That song is tattooed in my skull.
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Days.
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That's a popular one.
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Here's one.
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It's a Small World.
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You know that-- It's a small world after all.
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It's a small world after-- You know that horrible, horrible song that we torture our children with?
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It's a small world after all.
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It's a small, small world.
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We rode that ride at Disney.
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Remember riding that at Disney?
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Like, ah, you ride through this, this boat goes like, you know, one mile per hour through this endless maze and there's all these dancing puppets.
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♪ It's a small world after ♪ Oh look, they're singing it in Sweden and they're singing it in, you know, France and they're singing it in Moldova and, ah!
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You're welcome for that one.
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Here's another one.
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Some of you are totally gonna get this.
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young people, you know, grab somebody older to explain this to you on your way out.
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Elvira.
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Elvira.
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I haven't listened to it in a while. I was going to sing it for you.
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I'm sure I'm going to butcher it, but...
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Eyes that look like heaven.
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Yeah, lips like cherry wine. Remember that one?
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Elvire up.
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Come on, somebody do the low part.
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Elvire up.
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There you go.
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Mbappamow mow.
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For some of you, you're welcome for that one for the rest of the day.
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And, uh, one more.
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There's a whole list of them. One more.
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You guys are going to be shopping for a new pastor after this one.
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"Achy Breaky Heart" You can take my heart, my achy breaky heart.
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I don't even know all the words, but that tune, right?
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Might blow up and kill this man, or take the song with you.
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Those are all earworms.
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At our house, Owen doesn't talk very much, but sometimes he catches parts of commercial jingles and those become our ear worms. For the longest time it was "do a dollop, do a dollop of daisy" like he was singing that all the time and then I'm singing it "do a dollop of daisy" like why are you talking about this?
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Because in what reference did I tell you, 1 Samuel 18? Saul the king and David the soon to be king, they were both were both being used by the Lord.
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And your Bible says that the women started singing this song.
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And it was "Saul killed his thousands.
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David killed his tens of thousands." And that became an earworm for Saul.
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That was all he could think about.
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That song, he just kept hearing it in his head.
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"Saul killed his thousands.
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David killed his tens of thousands." That song drove him insane.
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That song drove him to constant attempted murder of David.
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That is a destructive ear worm.
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But why?
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Why?
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It was over jealousy.
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Instead of Saul saying, "I'm grateful that the Lord used me in this capacity, and I'm grateful that the Lord's using David in an even greater capacity." See it wasn't about the Lord's name.
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For Saul it was about two names.
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It was about Saul and it was about David.
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And he couldn't handle it.
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And that story still plays out.
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I'll be honest with you, you hear other churches, "We baptized this many people and we just built our fifth edition to our wing and we're doing this and we're doing that." And it gets real easy to compare ministries one with another.
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And to start to get annoyed with another ministry, because we think, "What?
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No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, God should be doing that here.
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Why is God doing that there?" The truth is, God is doing much here.
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We have so much to be thankful for that God is doing right here.
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We have so much to be thankful for.
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And it becomes so easy to get our eyes off of what the Lord is doing here.
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Or to be embittered towards what the Lord is doing somewhere else.
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Because they are not Harvest Bible Chapel, we are Harvest Bible Chapel.
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So jealousy, jealousy.
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Write this one down.
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Why does this happen?
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Why do people start opposing other ministries?
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Another one is pride.
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Pride.
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"Surely God is only working through me.
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I'm the chosen one.
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I'm the only one." That's pride, man.
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Numbers chapter 11, verses 26 through 29, just to paraphrase the story, you can go back and read these, but there were two men in the camp of Israel, Eldad and Medad, and the The Bible says that these two men were prophesying.
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Okay, and Joshua, you know, another guy brought the report back and Joshua goes to Moses.
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He goes, "Moses, you're gonna stop them.
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Do you hear what's happening?
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Do you hear what's happening?
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We got two guys in a camp that are prophesying and you're gonna stop them." You remember Moses' response?
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He got it.
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Bible says, "Moses said to him, 'Are you jealous for my sake?
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Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit on them.
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Like Moses, we have other preachers in the camp, and Moses is like, "Man, I wish we had more.
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I wish the camp was 100% preachers, preaching." Like Joshua, you're jealous for my sake.
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You're looking at this the wrong way, pal.
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You're looking at it the wrong way.
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God's agenda is bigger than your individual ministry.
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God's agenda is bigger than Harvest Bible Chapel, Pittsburgh North.
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God's agenda is bigger than Harvest Bible Fellowship 105 or whatever churches all over the world.
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God's doing great things through this fellowship.
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Great things, but I want to tell you God's agenda is even bigger than what He's doing in this fellowship.
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And listen, I love you in the Lord, you know that.
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But I have to tell you, you're not the only person that God's working through.
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God.
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The Apostle Paul got this, Philippians chapter 1 verses 15-18.
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Remember, Paul said that there were some people who were preaching out of envy and rivalry, out of selfish ambition, and they were trying to afflict Paul while he was in prison.
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As a preacher, I read up to that part, and I sort of get offended for Paul. Like, you know, that stinks. Here Paul's in prison for the gospel, and you have these other preachers out there preaching Christ, apparently not motivated because they love Christ. According selfish ambition. They are wanting to afflict Paul while he is in prison. And I am kind of mad for Paul about that, but Paul got it.
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He said, "I am just happy that people are talking about Jesus." Read it. Paul said, "I am rejoicing that Christ is being proclaimed." Like, Paul, do you know that they are preaching Christ out of selfish ambition? And Paul is I stopped listening after you said, "Do you know they're preaching Christ?" Because that is awesome.
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But their motives are messed up.
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Paul's like, "Pfft, it's not about me.
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It's about Jesus." Happy people are talking about Him.
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It's about Jesus' name, not yours.
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It's about Jesus' name, not Jeff Miller, not Darren Miller.
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Jesus name, not Randy Campbell, not A.J.
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Rotenberger, not Deb Simons, fantastic people that I love in the Lord.
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It's not about that.
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It's about Jesus.
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It's not about Harvest Bible Chapel, Pittsburgh North, or Pittsburgh East, or Rolling Meadows.
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It's not about victory.
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It's not about Northway.
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It's not about covenant community.
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Those aren't the names at the end of the day that really matter.
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It's about Jesus.
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So why shouldn't I oppose other ministries?
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Because it's about Jesus' name, not yours.
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Secondly, write this down.
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Why shouldn't I oppose other ministries?
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Because Jesus draws the line.
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Not you.
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Look at verse 40. Jesus said, "For the one who is not against us is for us." "For the one who is not against us is for us." See, Jesus is saying, "Okay, well they're working in my name. This guy's working in my name. He's exalting me.
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He's on my team.
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What does it mean to be against Jesus?
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What does it mean to be against Jesus?
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Again, I mentioned earlier, it's false teaching.
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You're against Jesus when you misrepresent Him.
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When you deny the truth about the cross and the empty tomb.
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When you deny the truth about who He is.
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That's being against Jesus.
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You're also against Jesus when you preach a gospel of hate, like the Westboro Baptist Church.
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But again, I have to remind you that that's not what was happening here, or Jesus would have corrected that.
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Jesus just simply said in verse 40, "For the one who is not against us is for us." Jesus took a specific incident, this man casting out a demon in Jesus' name.
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He took that specific incident to make a general principle, and he's saying, "Disciples," and I'm echoing, "Church, it's time to expand your horizons." Because Jesus draws the line.
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Because He is the line.
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There's no neutrality when it comes to Jesus.
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I don't want anybody walking out of here saying, "Well, Pastor Jeff was preaching this ecumenical message." Absolutely not.
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This is a black and white issue.
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There are people who are dead in their sins.
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There are people who are born again in Jesus Christ.
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There's no middle ground.
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There are no people who are kind of saved.
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The issue is ultimately heaven and hell.
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Like, well, where does that line get drawn?
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You know, I'm looking at our church, what we do, I'm looking at this church and like who's really with Jesus and who's not and where do I draw the line?
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You don't have to draw the line.
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Because Jesus drew the line because Jesus is the line.
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The one who is not against us is for us.
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And yet church, we are really good at criticizing, aren't we?
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We are really good at looking at other ministries and criticizing.
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I don't like their worship.
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I don't like their music style.
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I don't like the size of their church.
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Listen, find a church that exalts Jesus Christ, plug into that church, but let's be done with the criticism.
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Let's be done with the criticism.
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I have heard more than enough criticism about other churches and about other ministries in my time.
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Can we just be done criticizing?
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You know this week I picked up another part-time job.
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I've been helping out with the Three Rivers Festival of Hope.
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Have you heard about this?
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You know Franklin Graham is in town?
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And I volunteered to help out because I think it's a good thing.
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And we've already seen hundreds of people come down to receive Jesus Christ or to rededicate their lives to Jesus Christ or even to ask questions about what this all means.
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Hundreds already.
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I didn't even get a count yet.
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But hundreds.
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I have pictures.
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But you know when it comes to things like the Three Rivers Festival of Hope or Promise keepers or things like that, there's always somebody that comes after that with the criticism.
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I don't like how they do that. I don't like the way that they encourage shallow decisions.
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You know, people just get caught up in the emotion of it all. I don't like that. You know how they do that. You know how they do that?
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They get the counselors to grease the aisle. That's what they do. They send the down first and they greased the island.
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That's why those other people come down.
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So when you see all those people coming down, understand they're not all coming down because of Jesus.
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Some of them are just coming down because they're working there.
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I don't really like that.
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That's not true by the way.
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The counselors follow the people that are going down.
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Those conversions that happen there, they don't last.
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They're caught up in the emotion and boo-hoo and you know what?
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They don't last.
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They're not real.
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Here's what I want to say about the Three Rivers Festival of Hope.
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They have a system where they invite people to come, we're going to preach the gospel, and we're going to follow up with the people that come forward to get them plugged into local churches.
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They have a plan.
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And yet there's people that criticize that.
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And my response to the criticism is this, you know, I don't really like this festival of hope thing.
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I don't really agree with that.
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I don't really go with that.
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I don't really think that's a good thing.
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Okay, what's your plan?
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I want you to share with me how you're reaching people for Christ.
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What are you doing to get the Word out?
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Let's hear your plan.
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If it's better than Franklin Graham's, I will call him personally and say, "Dude, you've got to hear what this person's...because their thing is way better than yours. What's your plan? But do you see how quick we were to criticize? There were somewhere around 1,100 volunteers there on Thursday night coming to train, giving up their time. Why?
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Because they...I've talked to a lot of these people. They want to see the Pittsburgh area reached for Jesus Christ. They are like, "This is something that we can get behind." So what is your plan?
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I would like to remind you that criticism is not a gift of the Holy Spirit.
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When you read Galatians 5 and Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, when you read 1 Corinthians 12, what are the gifts that God the Holy Spirit gives, criticism is not one of them. We need to get past the insiders versus outsiders mentality. We need to drop Draw the line where Jesus drew the line, because He is the line.
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Like I said, church, I've been behind the scenes with the training and talking to the people organizing this.
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There was no watered down gospel message.
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And we've seen people respond.
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Not to mention the fact that I know people personally, maybe you do too, that have given their lives to Christ through such a thing.
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whether it's this or promise keepers or whatever.
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Okay, so can we let Jesus draw the line?
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Can we let Jesus be the line?
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When He is, we find that we don't need to oppose other ministries.
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And finally for today, because Jesus is the judge, not you.
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Look at verse 41.
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So 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.
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Jesus is the judge, not you.
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Exalting yourself gets you nowhere.
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But an act of compassion in the name of Jesus sees reward, according to this verse.
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Also notice, I'll jot this down, it's all important.
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It's all important.
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Like what do you mean by that?
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If I said to you, "Which ministry is more important, sending Darla to Moldova or working in a local soup kitchen?
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Which one's more important?" Ah, trick question.
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They're both important.
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See that?
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Jesus said even the simple act of giving somebody a cup of water, He notices that.
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I'd really like to serve Christ but I can't go to Moldova.
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You don't have to go to Moldova.
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There's need right here.
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He's watching.
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He sees it.
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He notices.
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Our problem is we fail to evaluate ministries as Jesus sees them.
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And honestly I don't have the time or the energy or the responsibility to judge other churches.
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The Lord called me to be here.
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The Lord called me to plant this church.
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I really only care about what happens at this church.
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Don't get me wrong, I get a lot of wonderful pastor friends in the area.
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I'm not saying I don't care about them.
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You understand what I mean, right?
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This is the church that I'm concerned about.
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If you feel the need to evaluate, I just encourage you to use Jesus' checklist right from this passage.
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Is Jesus' power on display in that ministry?
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Is Christ being preached in that ministry?
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The works of compassion being done in that ministry?
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By that criteria, Jesus said, "For the one who is not against us is for us." Should you condemn what God may be doing there?
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Or should you commend the things that God commends?
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Our worship team would make their way forward.
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I'll give you one more reference to write down.
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Revelation chapters 2 and 3.
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In Revelation chapters 2 and 3, those two chapters are really about one thing.
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And that's Jesus evaluating His churches.
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Read those.
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Jesus is evaluating His churches.
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He doesn't have a committee that does that.
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I'm not on that committee.
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You're not on that committee.
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According to Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus Himself is the one that is evaluating churches.
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Honestly, Harvest Bible Chapel, we have plenty to do here without trying to do Jesus' job.
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So what about these other ministries?
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So these other ministries, they seem to preach Jesus They seem to be empowered by Jesus, and they seem to be doing acts of compassion in Jesus' name.
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What should we do about them?
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The answer is, according to Jesus, don't stop them.
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Don't even criticize them.
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Let's just rejoice Jesus Christ is exalted.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 9:38-41
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another!