0:00 Good morning. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your goodness, Lord. Thank you for the songs, what was shared with the memory verse and the children's verses. Lord, you are so worthy of our praise and all honor 0:12 and glory. Lord, please speak to us, Lord. There's so many words that could be said by so many people, Lord, but only if you speak to us, Lord, can we be changed, Lord. Help us to see Jesus. Fill us with the Holy Spirit in Jesus 0:25 name. Amen. Okay. Hey, if you want to turn to Mark chapter 6, I want to share some things the Lord has really challenged me and encouraged me with lately. We'll be in Mark chapter 6 and then some 0:43 other passages, but um talking about the feeding of the 5,000 to start off with in Mark 6:29. And I encourage you if you're able to turn to these passages. I'll try to go slow enough as we turn to different ones to that we could see it in your own 0:59 Bible. And uh verse 29, this is talking about when John the Baptist was killed. He was murdered. He was first imprisoned for doing the right thing and then he was murdered um innocently. But verse 29, when John's disciples heard about 1:15 this, they came away and took his body and laid it in a tomb. And and in one of the other gospels, it's told to Jesus what happens. And Jesus hears this. He knows it. And the disciples hear this and they know this. And I imagine the disciples kind of 1:31 wonder what's next. Are we going to be on the list? But in verse 30, and the apostles gathered together with Jesus, and they reported to him all that they had done and taught. So before this time, if you remember, Jesus had sent 1:44 them out two by two to preach, to heal, to cast out demons, to preach the gospel of of Jesus. And they had all been dispersed and spread out for some period of time. And they all came back at this time. And they were all telling Jesus 1:59 what they had done. They were supposed to go by faith. They were not supposed to take a bunch of money, a bunch of extra clothes. They were supposed to lodge with people in the different towns. They were very busy. It it was 2:09 not a vacation and it was no easy road. We can imagine all the all that they went through and they were coming back together. They were all excited telling Jesus, telling each other what they went through, their testimonies. And verse 2:20 31, and Jesus said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while." And there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have so much time to eat. And if you've been, you know, there's busy periods of 2:34 time where maybe you're working a lot or traveling or maybe you just had a new baby or something where life is just upended and you don't have a regular schedule. It's just you barely have time to eat. Usually we may have those times 2:45 in our life, but they're pretty short. They're not they don't last a long time, but this was the pattern for Jesus and his disciples. It was so busy, so much in serving others, so much in doing what the father had appointed for them. And 2:58 it said they didn't even have time to eat. And Jesus said, 'Hey, we lost John. You guys are back. Let's get away for a little bit. Let's come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while. And I appreciate that that Jesus 3:10 sees what we're going through and he offers us that rest. And but we'll see that we may not even always get that what what might be offered. We'll see the reason why. But in verse 32, and they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. 3:26 And I I can't help but think about Jesus picking four fishermen out of the 12. And those fishermen have boats. And that was back then the best way to to get to one place to another to carry 13 guys and all their stuff very quickly. So 3:40 they went away in that boat to a lonely place by themselves. But the people had more and more people had heard about Jesus through Jesus himself, through the disciples. There was more excitement. More people wanted to hear him. And 3:51 Jesus had done some miracles but not a whole lot at this point. And they were they were hungry to see more of him. Verse 33, the people saw them going in the boat and they many recognized them and they ran together on foot from all 4:04 the cities and they they obviously all the cities can't see the boat at one time. So the word is spreading. Hey, tell these people we're going to go. We're going to try to find Jesus again. They're on the boat. Let's go see where 4:13 they're going. And they're supposed to be going to a lonely place. And I can't help but put myself in here as a if I'm a disciple having gone through all these things. I want to do it for the Lord, but I'm also tired and I'm also Jesus 4:26 said, I can have my rest. Jesus said, we're going to go away and we just get away from people for a little bit. Let's have a little rest. But they don't get that. In verse 33, all the people, they ran together on foot from all the cities 4:38 and got there ahead of them. They were so excited. They were going to do everything they could. And verse 34, when Jesus went ashore, he saw the great multitude. And these are thousands and thousands of people at this point. And we'll see that in a 4:51 minute how many. But he saw a great multitude and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. So Jesus here, even though he's been day after day serving others and the disciples day 5:06 after day serving others, he's he sees them and his heart goes out to them. He's thinking about them and he starts teaching them many things. Verse 35. And when it was already quite late, excuse me, his disciples came up to him 5:20 and began saying, "This place is desolate." By the way, Jesus, remember you said, "We're going to a lonely place. Remember what we're supposed to be doing? And you're you're talking to these thousands of people. Do you remember that, Jesus? We're supposed to 5:31 have a little quiet time. The place is desolate and is already getting late. Send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat." I can't help but put myself that would 5:44 be what I would thinking. Jesus, you said we could have this quiet time. We got here. Yeah, we want to take care of the people, but where's a little time for me? And they say, "Go ahead, Jesus. Can you just send them away?" And it's 5:55 interesting how as disciples, we we think we want to tell God something he doesn't know. Like, "Hey, Jesus, I know you're busy with stuff, but you should think about the logistics of feeding all these people. You know, by the time you 6:07 release them, it's going to be dark by the time they get to the city. Let me help you Jesus and explain this. So many times I think as we pray or as we are the anxiety or care that we carry as Josh said that we need to give that to 6:17 him but he knows all about it. We don't have to explain that to him. And I think if that you know like if we're I've been driving with with one of my children when they were younger and they would say, "Daddy, are you do you know where 6:28 we're going?" "Yes, I know where we're going. Don't worry about it." So I feel like a lot of times we can be like that little child. Daddy, do you know what you're doing? Yes, he knows what he's doing. In verse 39 or 37, sorry. He 6:39 answered and said to them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to him, "Should we go and spend 200 dinari on bread and give them something to eat? Are we supposed to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to go buy food and 6:49 then come back? What are you saying?" And he says in verse 38, "How many loaves do you have? Go look." And when they found out, they didn't even know. They weren't keeping that great a track. And they they said, "We have five loaves 7:01 and two fish." And he commanded them all to recline by groups on the ground. And they reclined in companies of hundreds and 50s. So Jesus talks to the disciples. They don't know what's going to happen. It's so easy for us because 7:14 we know the story to kind of jump ahead. But try to put yourself in this place where you don't know what's going on. You just know you're tired. You might prefer these people. Go do something else so you could get your rest that 7:25 Jesus told you you could have. But in verse uh 44, we find out that there were 5,000 men who ate the loaves. And um just being a conservative guess, if there's 5,000 men, assuming 5,000 women, assuming two kids, each family, maybe um 7:41 that's 20,000 people. And that's a lot of people for five loaves and two fish. But Jesus tells the the disciples to go tell all these people, get into groups of 50 and 100. Go spread out. Let's kind of sit down in an orderly way. In verse 7:54 41, and he took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up towards heaven, he blessed the food and broke the loaves. And he kept giving them to the disciples to set before them. And he divided up the two fish among them all. 8:07 And so Jesus in this wherever he was standing, he took this bread and this these fish and he prayed and God blessed it and God multiplied it. And the disciples had to come to him. If they had blankets or baskets or whatever, 8:21 they'd fill that up and they'd go to this group of 50 and feed them. And then when that ran out, they'd have to come back. And while that was happening, the other 11 disciples, it was a rotation. You know, try to try to actually picture 8:30 what's happening here. And try to picture how much space 20,000 people take up. That's that's like a large baseball field or some or, you know, professional sports venue. 20,000 people. Imagine how far away if I'm Peter or Thomas, I have to load up my 8:45 basket with this bread and fish and I have to walk all the way over there and maybe I have enough for 20 people and I go all the way over there. I carry it. I feed the 20. I'm empty. I got to come back to Jesus. He fills me up and I go 8:56 over there and we talk. Okay, Thomas, where'd you go? John, where'd you go? I I'll get this these group. They literally had to walk probably miles that evening and it's already quite late and they're already tired. They've 9:08 already been through this. They've already had to let go of their quiet time that they thought they'd get. But they do see Jesus working. And if if you just did the simple math of 20,000 people being fed by 12, that's 1,700 9:20 people that each one had to feed. Just try to think about that how much work that was. How this is not the the rest and the RNR that they thought they might get. But this was because Jesus is hearing the father and and being led by 9:32 the Holy Spirit. And he's not thinking about himself. He's not he's not thinking on his own interest. And he's trying to as the disciples follow him, it's easy for Jesus to sit there and preach to them, but he's has to show 9:43 them through their life, through living what it's like to follow him. Jesus said, "If you want to follow me, this is how I am. Do you want to follow me or not?" Do you want to go feed 1700 people when you're already tired, it's already 9:53 late, and you want them to go away? Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to lay down your life? And that's following Jesus in all these ways. It's easy to preach. It's easy to listen to sermons. But when the Lord brings us 10:03 through situations where are we going to think on the interest of others or are we going to only think about ourselves? They're carrying these full loads back and forth. And how many hours this took? I have no idea. But verse 42, it says 10:17 they all ate and were satisfied. Jesus made sure that they weren't just given just a little bit to hold their hunger pains over till they could get to town. He made sure they were thoroughly satisfied with what they needed. And 10:29 verse 43, they picked up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces and also of the fish. And there were about 5,000 men who ate the loaves. And they all ate plenty. But what I see in verse 43, so we talked about how all these the the 12 disciples 10:45 had to do all these running back and forth, full loads, come back, get a refill, take care of all these people, deal with them. Maybe they're picky, maybe there's issues here, whatever it is, it took a long time. They're tired. 10:55 But verse 43, and they picked up the 12 full baskets. Who is that? That's the disciples. So after all the people are done eating to not waste anything, Jesus is careful to not waste anything. He sends the disciples out back to remember 11:09 how much space 20,000 people takes up. Huge, huge area, many, many acres. And the disciples are the ones that go and pick up all these scraps. But what I find, what I'm what I'm encouraged is that Jesus doesn't push us beyond our 11:21 limit. And I don't mean to make this like Jesus is a hard taskmaster. He's certainly not. But when we follow him, he's going to take us through things that we might not rather sign up for. We might not think I know what I'm getting 11:31 into. None of us know what we're getting into with anything we do in life. But the Lord uses everything to teach us. But what I'm encouraged by in verse 43, they picked up 12 full baskets of the broken pieces and also of the fish. And 11:45 how wonderful. 12 disciples, 12 baskets. And if we go back to the original inventory, they have five loaves and two fish. And maybe that would fill one basket. Maybe that's enough to fill one. But now here, every disciple gets their 12:00 own full basket of leftovers for themselves for the next couple days of journey or to share or whatever. So that was encouraging. And I I remember seeing that a long time ago and thinking, wow, this is wonderful. The Lord, they go 12:12 through all this. They have to get disappointed. They have to let go their little vacation. Um, and but the Lord blesses them for their hard work. They worked hard. And the Lord says, "Here you go. I'm going to give you a full 12:21 basket, way more than you ever would have had. If we would have just sat by ourselves, you guys might have had to share five loaves and two fish. Now you can have as much as you want." But as I read this recently, I saw another 12:32 miracle in this. And I call it a miracle or a sign, something that helped me to see Jesus in a new way that I hadn't seen before. But it's interesting that there's not 13 baskets full. If there were 13, then you'd have one for each 12:45 disciple and one for Jesus. But Jesus was so in tune with his father, so interested also in the needs of others, of all these 20,000 people, of his 12 disciples, he didn't even make an extra basket for himself. He could have. He 12:58 could have turned stones into bread if he wanted. He could have made just an extra basket. What's that? No big deal. But I just saw the glory of Jesus that the Lord of heaven and earth when he came, all these things that he went 13:09 through, he was concerned about others. He had compassion on the crowds. He stayed for hours and hours, taught them. He blessed the He blessed the food and broke it and spent hours with them. He worked with his disciples and he made 13:20 them an extra basket full and they were all good to go. And I don't know if maybe one of the disciples, maybe not, maybe they didn't even notice. Jesus didn't have one. And Jesus didn't complain. There's no no issue with that. 13:32 He's just a quiet life before his father. He didn't need that. He wasn't interested in making sure he was taken care of. And um I I I thought of this in as as I saw this, I thought of this in contrast to a few chapters before when 13:47 they're on the sea and uh the storm is gonna swallow up the boat and they're going to drown. And this is early on when the disciples are just getting to know Jesus. When he speaks and calms the storm, the disciples are amazed and 13:58 filled with fear and they say, "What kind of man is this? This must be the son of God. He stopped the storm." And it's easy for us, too, to look at these outward big things and say, "Wow, that's amazing. But how about these little 14:09 things? I think these little things are more miraculous that someone with the power to make himself plenty of extra food who can take care of himself with just a thought. He he he doesn't he doesn't use his miraculous powers to 14:23 serve himself. And I saw that living selfless selflessly was is just amazing. And I I see that as a bigger miracle than stopping the storm. That's even Satan can control the weather. He Job he caused a tornado to kill Job's children in the house. I 14:38 mean, controlling the weather is miraculous. I'm not making light of that. But to live a life where you're not thinking about yourself, but nobody might notice. There's no exclamation here in Mark 6 where the disciples are 14:48 like, "Wow, Jesus is so great. He doesn't think of himself." That nobody even notices. They're just thinking about, "Oh, wow. This is great. I got a basket of food now. Thanks, Jesus." And so, I saw that and I and that really 14:57 encouraged me that the life of Jesus, it was a quiet life. He didn't he wasn't looking for everyone to notice all the things that he was doing. He was living before his father day in and day out. And it continues even in verse 45 15:10 when he's when everyone's done when the disciples go collect all the scrap food and they have their baskets and it says verse 45 and immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side of Bedada. 15:22 While he himself was sending the multitude away and it's just wonderful this is here. And after bidding them farewell he departed to the mountain to pray. I just can't even I wrap my head around someone. Imagine, you know, 15:35 there's these mega meetings where there might be some preacher and thousands and thousands of people come and they have workers who help, ushers and organizers to have that preacher when he's done dismiss all the workers say, "You guys 15:47 go home. Thanks for your help." And then to to one by one greet all these thousands of people as they go home and to bid them farewell to make sure you guys have a good meal. Did you get enough? Are you okay? All right. Well, 15:57 hope you have a safe trip. All that. He sent the disciples away. So they got there quiet that they wanted. They're on the boat. They're on their way to the next town. Jesus is still there with everybody. He's not thinking about 16:07 himself. He's thinking about others. He's thinking about his disciples still. He's not focused on himself. And it's just such a blessing. He he bids them farewell. Then he departs to a mountain to pray. And after this uh another 16:20 miracle, we won't go through this part, but as he walks on the water during the storm and he comes and he says, "Take courage is is me. Don't be afraid." Verse 50. Verse 51. He got into the boat with them and the wind stopped and they 16:34 were greatly astonished. There it is again. Another time he calms the storm and they're just I mean I I don't blame them. I would too if sometimes we have downpours here on a Sunday and if somebody went to the door and said stop 16:44 and it stopped, we'd all Whoa, what just happened here? But if somebody quietly day in and day out, maybe a mother or a child at home just quietly does service for others, who isn't focused on themselves, someone just who's thinking 16:58 about others and how can I please my father? How can I what Lord what do you want me to do today? Not always focused on on our needs and our our interests. And so they were amazed by that. And verse they were greatly astonished in 17:10 verse 30 52 for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves but their heart was hardened. So we can have all these things we can have a generous savior who makes sure you know we ser they served him and we can serve 17:23 him with a hard heart still and we he he blessed them. He gave them a full basket of leftovers but we can still have a hard heart who doesn't have insight who doesn't have understanding. Jesus wasn't mad at them. He didn't rebuke them 17:34 sharply. He didn't tell them get out of here. I'm going to replace you guys. And the same with us. He's patient. He bears long. But he wants us to have insight. He wants us to see his glory. He wants us to follow him. And as we go through 17:44 this uh we're going to look in Philippians 2 about that progression. But before we do that, I want to look in Mark 8 and verse 8 just quickly on our way there another time. So this was the feeding what's known as the feeding of the 5000. And 17:59 another time there's a great multitude in verse chapter 8 and verse one. And those days again when there was a great multitude and they had nothing to eat and he calls his disciples and I feel compassion. Verse two again it's he's 18:13 not thinking about himself. He's not saying, "Oh, I'm hungry. Go get me something." He does that in John 4 when he's at the woman at the well. He sends them away to buy food. So don't make a law that you can never buy food or eat. 18:23 You know, don't don't take any of these things and make some heavy religious law about these things. It's living in the Holy Spirit. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. And as we listen and as we obey and do what we know what to do, the Lord 18:34 will lead us as we are to live. But again, verse two, I feel compassion for the multitude because they have remained with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their home, they might faint 18:45 on the way. Some of them have come from a far distance. Jesus is so thoughtful. It's not the disciples coming, you know, they could have learned from the last one and say, "Hey, maybe we should think about others." It they didn't catch up 18:55 with that. In verse four, all they're thinking about is what will anyone be able to find enough food to satisfy these men with with bread here in this desolate place? And it goes on there, but Jesus does the same thing. He thanks 19:08 his father. He blesses it and multiplies it miraculously in verse 8. And so again, the disciples are serving the same thing in verse 8. And they were eight and were satisfied. And they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken 19:22 pieces. And I thought about that and I don't get too caught up on the numbers and all this and that has some, you know, special magic meaning or something, but I thought about, okay, Lord, the first time you gave 12 and 19:33 that's not a coincidence. You gave each disciple their own basket and now here they still got 12 disciples and you, Lord, and so there's 13 of you and you only give seven baskets. And I thought about why did he do that? And one thing 19:45 I thought of is that as we as you know, if you think about your your little children, you're teaching them, maybe they're in kindergarten and you want them to brush their teeth every day and make their bed and put their clothes and 19:56 toys away and maybe you say, "If you do this a couple days in a row, we'll go get ice cream." You give them a treat because you want them to learn. But then when when they're a teenager, you just say, "Hey, pick up your stuff, right?" 20:06 You expect more because they've been with you more. They know more. They're more mature. And so my thought on that was initially Jesus blessed them abundantly. They each got a full basket and they they could take that away and 20:17 do whatever they wanted with. But here they had seven so they had to share. They had to die to themselves. Maybe they wanted a whole basket. Maybe they said, "Hey Jesus, last time you gave me this. Why are you doing that different?" 20:26 The Lord will change everything on us. When we think we figured out the Lord or his ways or if we think we know what we deserve, what the Lord should do for us, he'll change it up because he wants us to let go. He wants us to think of 20:38 others. And that's my thought on why it's only seven. Because he wanted to shake them up. He didn't want them to expect every time I serve the Lord, I'm going to get a full basket. And now they have to die to themselves. Now they have 20:48 to share these seven. So I I was blessed by that, too. The Lord doesn't do it every way, the same way every time. But you can turn over to Philippians 2. One thing that really has challenged me this summer that I've been thinking about a lot that 21:04 kind of led to these things I'm sharing that the Lord has helped me with uh Philippians 2 is that one of the messages brother Zach spoke to us this summer on Zoom. He said he said something that really uh when I was honest about my 21:19 answer I I was not happy at what I saw in my heart but it was needed and I was thankful for it. But one of the things he said is that as you sit there and you think about the your life and the situation here is are you the the least 21:34 important here at ACFC? And I remember I was sitting there and I thought wow no I don't think that I don't think I'm the least important person here. I think I am, you know, I'm not at the bottom for sure. And that really it bothered me 21:48 because I saw it but I I was thankful. It wasn't I wasn't condemned but I was like Lord why is that? Why do I think that I'm not the the least important thing? Your your word says I know Philippians 2 and we'll read it, but it 21:59 really started and it months and months. So, and it's still in progress for sure. But just be encouraged that if the Lord if you ever hear a word in a meeting or from a brother or sister or from the scripture, if there's not an instant 22:11 change in your life flips 180 in a moment, don't be discouraged. It's a process. The Lord works with us. Look at these disciples for over three years. Jesus is with them day in and day out. and the last supper. They're still 22:21 fighting over who's gonna be the best. You know, it gets better when they get filled with the Holy Spirit. And it is much better. It's what we need being filled with the Holy Spirit. But don't be discouraged. Take the word from the 22:31 Lord, however he speaks to you, and take it to heart and be honest. Just be honest and say, "Lord, no, I I can't." You know, whatever whatever it is he might be putting his finger on. That's what it was for me. And so, I I was I 22:42 was asking him. I was meditating as I read through the scripture. It's on my mind. And so in the feeding of the 5000, I just marveled at how Jesus was not thinking about himself. He was not the most important person there. He was no doubt. No one 22:56 could argue that. But he didn't have that attitude. He was the main speaker. He was the one with He was the son of God, the miracle one. But he didn't have that attitude that I'm the most important person here and my rights 23:08 count and we're going to do it my way and all this stuff. These things that we can have in our hearts. I want to read from a paraphrase first in Philippians. We'll be looking in chapter 2, but just to kind of to to plant a seed of another way to look at 23:21 this, but Philippians 2 and verse three, I'm just going to read a brief paraphrase. Don't push your way to the front. Don't sweet talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with 23:35 getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. And that's from the message uh paraphrase. But so if you look at it in your Bibles, verse three, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but 23:51 with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. There's so much in these scriptures, it's hard to go over because there's there's so much in each word. But do nothing from selfishness or empty 24:04 conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. And it goes back to what I heard this summer that from the Lord was, are you the most important person here? Are you the least important 24:17 person here? That's where I want you to be the least important. And even, you know, if it's in the church, if it's in your marriage, think about that. Am I the am I the more important person in the marriage? Yes, by the way, I act. I 24:28 I tell you what I believe. You could say the right answer. That's easy. But how do we live? Are we living as if in our marriage we're the most important person or in our families or in our neighborhood or in our work or our 24:40 friends or whatever it is. Are we the most important person by the way we live? We we give that answer and do doing nothing from selfishness or empty conceit and selfishness and conceit. And I looked up the word because I thought I 24:56 knew what it meant. I'm I'm learning that so many words we just read quickly and we think we know what it means. But the word conceit literally means it means a thought or a notion which is conceived in your mind. So if we think 25:09 about selfishness coming out of my heart that I'm the most important person and conceit this thing that's just a madeup manufactured thing in my mind that I'm puffed up and I'm better than the others. And it's called he says empty 25:21 conceit. It's empty. It's just in your mind. It's not the reality. Anytime we're conceited, anytime we are puffed up or looking down on others, it's complete emptiness. It's just fabricated. It's just something that we've conceived in our mind. It's all in 25:33 our head. And he says, "Don't do anything from selfishness. Don't do anything if you have this empty conceit." And then the opposite with humility of mind. Let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. And I want to just say as we 25:48 read through these verses, don't think about how you're going to do this today or tomorrow. Because you can do this in your own effort. It's going to run out after maybe a day or two. We can do we can do stuff in our own strength and our 25:59 own flesh, but it's going to wear out. We're going to be tested and it's we're going to fail. We need the Holy Spirit. If if nothing else, as you read these things, may it put a burden in our hearts to cry out to be filled with the 26:08 Holy Spirit. But in humility of mind, regarding one another as more important than yourself, selfishness and conceit will never think of others. We're only thinking about ourselves. In verse four, do not merely look out for your own 26:21 personal interests, but also for the interests of others. We saw this so clearly in the in the story from Jesus in the feeding of the 5000. Do not be focused on myself and what is in it for me and what I need. Jesus lived that 26:35 selfless life. And like I said, we can try and self-effort to think, okay, I'm going to grit my teeth. I'm going to try real hard. I'm not going to do that. We're going to do that in our own flesh. You can try hard as you want. We're 26:45 going to fail. And may that help us drive us to the Lord to cry out to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but also to be honest when we see that we fail. Lord, I fail here. I want to I want to live this life. I want the Holy Spirit 26:55 fill me so I can live this life. And it's it's important. I know it's been said before, but I want to re-emphasize because it's easy to misunderstand. When we consider others as more important than ourselves, we're not saying they 27:07 are more spiritual than us. We're not saying they're more mature than us. We're not saying anything else because that would be dishonest. I can't say that someone who's less mature than me is more mature than me or someone who's 27:18 just not following the Lord is more spiritual than me. We can't say those things, but it's order of importance. It's the order of importance. Like Jesus, he was the most spiritual person there. He was the godliest, most mature, 27:29 the perfect one there. But he didn't put himself first. He put others first. And that's the example to help explain that. So just that we not have this wrong idea that a false humid humility of just putting our heads down. I'm just a 27:42 worthless person. All you are better than me. You guys, you know, whatever. Take whatever you want from me. All these things that we can in a religious way try to obey. We need the Holy Spirit and it's not about anything else but 27:53 just putting others first in verse five. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. It's what he's talking about the first the verses before three and four that we just talked about. And he's also going to tell us more about this 28:06 attitude that was in Christ Jesus. Verse six, who although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. have this attitude that he did not regard equality a thing to be grasped and for me like I said 28:24 with these words when I had heard this verse I never understood it properly when I would hear it I heard I I mistook some of the words so let's say we had a a doctor up here or a scientist and they were going to explain some very 28:36 complicated thing to us and try as they might it'd be very complicated and we wouldn't be able to understand or comprehend what they're saying if they got too detailed on it and we won't be able grasp what they're saying. And for 28:47 some reason, somewhere along the way in my mind as I read that verse, I read it as grasped as in understood or comprehended. And it's certainly not what it means. It never made sense. But but the Lord helped me to to get the 29:01 correct understanding. He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. That is to be held on to and grabbed onto firmly. He was able to let go. Verse seven, he emptied himself. He let go. He took the form of a bond servant. He didn't come as all 29:19 flaming and fire like we see in the visions in Ezekiel Revelation where someone would see him and fall over as dead. He didn't come as that. He he let go of that even though he had that. That's who he was, who he is. He let go 29:31 of that. He humbled himself. He emptied himself. He became verse eight found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. So that that really helped me. I don't know 29:45 if anyone else tripped on that word, but it wasn't something that he held on to and he became he emptied himself taking the form of a bondervant and being made in the likeness of men. And I thought about that word bondervant too. That's 29:59 another phrase that I've heard a lot of and I never really thought about. What does it mean? How does it does it mean I just come here to church and I'm busy and I'm doing all this stuff or I'm going and feeding the poor? I'm doing 30:08 this that running around all the time. Maybe if that's what God calls you to do, but that's not really for most people aren't able to do that. The attitude of a bondervant is everything he's been talking about in verse three, 30:20 verse 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, the rest of the chapter. That is what a bondervant is. A bondervant doesn't look at what rights they have. They don't uh they're not interested in only their own things. They're interested in the things of 30:34 their master. They're not doing things through selfishness or empty conceit. They're humbled. They're not looking out for their own interest. They're letting go of their rights. They're a bondervant. And an an illustration from something that 30:47 happened to me this last week. I would never have thought this would be something where the Lord helped me see what a bondervant is, but I had to do some traveling and I was at a hotel and it was a long day. I had to drive eight 30:58 hours or so and I got to the place and it was a nice hotel. I try to pick nicer ones if I can. And I pulled the sheets back and there were two big long black thick hairs on the sheets and there was other stuff on the bed. I was like, "Oh, 31:11 this is so gross." Um, and my first reaction was, "All right, uh, was was upset. I was like, I can't believe this. I picked a nice place. This is dirty. They they they made the bed. They covered it up. They would have saw this. 31:23 What why is this? What what what should happen?" And I even, you know, I was considering what am I going to do? Thankfully, the bedroom had two it was a two bed uh room. I was just by myself. So I pulled back the other one that was 31:35 clean. I was like, "All right." And I laid down. I was very tired. It was late. And the Lord said to me, "Are you a bondervant or are you a king?" And I thought about a king in his palace. If he would go up to his room after a long 31:46 day of being king and if he were to find a hair on his bed that wasn't his, he could be upset and he could fire the guy or have him executed, whatever he wanted, because he's the king and he deserves the best. He has his interests 31:57 on him. And that's fine. That's he's the king. He can do that. Who's going to stop him? And if my attitude is one of a king, I better have everything in order. I better have a clean room. I better have this. I better have that. My 32:08 expectations like the disciples, Jesus, you said, we go, we could come away and rest a little while and it may not happen. And one thing I learned from that is being a bondervant, letting it go. How, you know, the bondervants in 32:19 that king's kingdom, those that served him in his castle or whatever you picture, they went to their bed. If there was a hair on it, so what? Go to bed. Be quiet. Just set just accept it. And so the Lord encouraged me with that. 32:32 And I'm not saying if you get a nasty hotel room, please get a new room. That was something for me. The Lord wanted me to go through. He wanted to shake me up. He wanted to speak to me. He couldn't have he couldn't have told me that any 32:42 other way except through going through that little nothing of a little thing. So yeah, feel free. Don't make a law of that. Get a new room if you need. But I I'm thankful for that those hairs on that bed because it showed me my 32:51 attitude was one of a king. It was not of a bondervant. It was one of self. It was one of conceit. I deserve a clean room. I deserve this or that. And in my travels, I ended up going to another hotel the next day and there were hairs 33:03 on the bathroom sink and I wasn't upset. Praise the Lord. So, he helped me with that. But so, if we go back to verse 7, he emptied himself. Jesus, I can't imagine Jesus getting to a hotel room, finding hairs on the bed, and getting 33:16 upset about it. I just can't imagine that. So, praise the Lord. As we see him more, we'll be more like him. He took the form of a bond servant and made in the likeness of men. being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself 33:28 by becoming obedient. So as Jesus remember, he let go. He was not grasping on to to his God, to being God in heaven. He let go of that. He took on the form of a man, of a body, and he came. He suffered so many things. And 33:45 the natural his natural uh response in verse eight to being a man is he humbled himself. And that's the only reasonable response that any of us can have to any situation under the sun is that we humble ourselves because we're not God. 33:58 We're not God. We we don't have that. He had to let go of that to come to take be a man. We don't have that. We never were, never will be. The only response we should ever have to anything is humility. And as the Lord the Lord, 34:11 there can be wrong ideas of humility. Like I said, we can hang our head and say, "I'm worthless. I'm all that." That's not humility. One thing that has helped me a lot over the years I've heard was humility. This is one 34:21 definition, not the whole thing, but one phrase that helped me is that humility is not thinking of myself less. I'm sorry. It's not thinking less of myself. It's not thinking I'm just a loser. I'm worthless. I'm a bad person. All this 34:33 stuff. It may be true, but it's not focusing on that. I'm thinking less of myself. It's thinking of myself less that I'm just not thinking about myself. I'm thinking about others. I'm thinking about the Lord. Jesus, when he fed 34:43 5,000, he had no thought for himself. He had thoughts for others. It was compassion that moved him. It was the Holy Spirit leading him. So the natural response, the response should be as people is that we humble ourselves. And 34:55 verse uh 8, becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross. And you or I will never be asked to die on a physical cross. We will not have to go through that. But there are many chances every day to die to 35:08 ourselves in our marriages, in our with our children, in the church, in our work, in our neighborhood, at the store. time and time and time again. If you have a hairy bed at a hotel, so many times we can die to ourselves and the 35:22 Lord says, "Here it is. You can follow me." Nobody might see it. Nobody might see it. And I'm embarrassed to tell you about how upset I was at the hair. I'm not doing it for glory, but nobody might see it. Those times where we die to 35:34 ourselves, where somebody, our spouse may say something, they're having a rough day where we die. or our children, the way the way we react or the guy cuts us off in in the traffic or our boss whatever or a brother and sister 35:45 irritates us or whatever it is many many chances to die every day. And Jesus, this is the following him. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. If our obedience, if we say we have obedience, but it never 35:58 leads us to death, then I don't know if it's really obedience. Obedience led Jesus to death. He died daily and he died on the cross. He's asking us, he's not asking us to die on the cross. He's asking us to die daily like Paul said, 36:10 like Jesus said, "Take up your cross daily and follow me." Take it up. If you seek to save your life, you will lose it. If you seek to make yourself the most important one, you will lose it. And when he says lose it, he means you 36:22 will lose that life. But also, I think of the phrase, man, that guy lost it. He's going crazy. And I found that in my own life when I try to hold on to my life, when I won't let go, Jesus let go of a good thing. Being God, that's the 36:34 best thing that there is. But Jesus let go of it. And God may ask us in our life, in our hopes and dreams or our will for this. It might be a good thing, but he might ask us to let it go. And Jesus let go for his father. And he 36:48 became obedient. And the obedience led him to death. And our obedience will lead us to death to deny oursel. But there's life at the end of that. Verse 9. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him a name which is above 37:01 every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and in the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. There like he said many many times those who humble 37:14 themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves will be abased. And so we see what happened with Jesus. That day has not yet come, but it will. Where he will be exalted above every name and every knee will bow and every tongue 37:26 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And he sees all these every choice, every chance we have that we choose him, that we choose to let go, that we choose to die. He sees all those. He sees all those. And he will not let that go 37:39 unrewarded. He sees all those secret dyings that we do. He saw that day when Jesus didn't try to make himself an extra basket of food. He saw time and time countless examples we have in the gospels that he did not seek his own. He 37:52 did not seek his own will to but to do the will of his father. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. That's what Jesus did. And these things are verse 5. Have this attitude which 38:05 was in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. We can have this attitude by the Holy Spirit. This is not some burdensome thing that he wants to put on us or that I'm trying to put on anyone. This is the life. This is the life that 38:15 he wants us to have. And quickly, we'll go to Matthew 11. This has also really encouraged me and I'll I'll be brief with it, but Matthew 11, it's also a warning in 38:34 how Jesus came and how he had compassion, but also how he gives warnings when needed. In verse 20 of Matthew 11, when he began to reproach the cities, which most of his miracles were done, but they did not repent. So we have miracles that were done in 38:53 these towns that were in the area. It was Corazin, which is near Capernaum, where Peter lived, where his headquarters kind of was in Bedada. These towns saw miracle after miracle. These towns were not wicked, outwardly wicked towns. They didn't they weren't 39:09 they didn't have the Jews worshiping idols. The Jews were here were were seeking the Messiah. They wanted to hear Jesus. But when they heard him and when they saw the miracles, they were like, "Eh, I don't know. Yeah, that's good and 39:19 stuff, but they didn't repent. They didn't respond." Verse 21, "Woe to you, Cors and Beda." If the miracles had occurred in Ty and Zidon, which occurred in you, they would have repented. And Ty and Zidon, if you remember from the Old 39:31 Testament, they were the enemies of Israel. They were so proud and God had to humble them. But Jesus tells these religious, imagine these Pharisees, these Jews who were outwardly good, that Jesus says, "If if Ty and Zidon, your 39:45 enemies, if they would have heard this, they would have repented. You guys aren't doing anything." Verse 22, "Nevertheless, I say to you, it be more tolerable in the day of judgment for them than you." And the same thing for 39:54 Capernaum, where Jesus stayed at Peter's house so much of the time. So many miracles done there. in verse 24, it'll be more, I say to you, be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than you because you had me. You had all 40:08 this, but you didn't do anything about it. And I think we are all very accountable because we hear so much and we're exposed to so much and it's not to condemn us, but it's to take it seriously. If we're not, what's what's 40:19 holding you back? What are you hanging on to that if you won't repent and respond to him? In verse 25, I love this verse. At that time Jesus answered and said,"I praise you, oh father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hide these 40:31 things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to babes." In in the Luke passage of this, it said, "He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit." Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit when he said this. I don't know of any other 40:44 place in the Bible where it says Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, except when he said this, "Father, you are so good. I praise you because you hide things from these wise and intelligent people. The people who are 40:54 only interested in themselves and their own who will not humble themselves who are selfish and conceited these towns here who have seen my works have heard my word and they won't respond. I praise you that you are actively if you read 41:07 verse 25 you are hiding these things from the wise and intelligent. God is actively hiding things from us if we're walking around in selfishness and pride and thinking that we're all fine and we got this. You can have a really good 41:19 outward life and we can fool a lot of people, but God will hide things from us. But who here's who he reveals himself to, he praises his father because at the end of verse 25, you've revealed these things to babies. Yes, 41:33 father, for it is well pleasing in your sight. And so many things as you meditate on babies as we see babies, young children here or just think about babies. There's no selfishness. There's no conceit. They're not looking out for 41:45 their own interests. They're helpless. They know it. They cry out for help. And that's who God will reveal himself to. And he's so faithful. He's actively hiding himself from the wise and proud and prudent. And he's actively revealing 41:58 himself to those who are like babies. And Jesus became like a baby. He emptied himself. He literally came as a baby when he could have showed up as a man or anything. He started from zero and he came up. He humbled himself, took on the 42:12 form of a man, became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. And he let go of everything that God asked him to go to let go of. He wasn't let letting go of sin. He didn't have any sin to let go of, but he let go of the good things. 42:23 And even as God calls us to follow him in our different paths, they're going to look differently, but he's going to call us to let go and follow him. And he is worth it. But we need the Holy Spirit for that. To empty ourselves, to let go, 42:35 to look on the interest of others, to humble ourselves, to put away selfishness and empty conceit, to become like a baby, to be empty with no with helplessness. But Jesus is very pleased. He's rejoicing in the Holy Spirit when 42:46 he sees people in this room. If it's today or if it's tomorrow when nobody else sees it, when he sees us humble ourselves like a baby, Lord, I need you. Help me in this temptation. Help me to let go of this. Help me to know you 42:56 more. He knows our struggles. He was tempted in all points like as we are. Hebrews 4:15, "Yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain grace to help in time of need." We have a savior in 43:08 verse in uh Hebrews 7. He intercedes. He always lives to intercede for us. He is completely on our side. We mess it up like the disciples. We don't get what he's saying like the disciples. We may have a hard heart. We may not see. We 43:19 may not believe fully. He's patient and he's long-suffering and he wants us to come to him. He wants us to respond. So, I just praise the Lord for his word and how he's working in all of our lives. And may the Lord help us follow him 43:30 more. Thank you brother Jared for all the nuggets from Mark and Philippians. 43:48 I think many years ago I heard one sermon from brother Zach. He said this. He started with Philippians 2:5 and as soon as he said this, have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus. He said that if you forget 44:01 everything else in the Bible, if you just remember this one verse, we can live our Christian life by looking onto Jesus. And in any sermon when Jesus is lifted up high and when we see the excellencies of Jesus Christ, his character, his mindset, my heart 44:20 rejoices. That's what we need to we come here to become like Jesus. That's our goal. And that's why we need to meditate on the life of Jesus. And uh Jared nicely uh took us over some of the incidents that happened and where Jesus 44:36 truly humbled himself. The hope for all of us is we can learn humility from Jesus. Uh we can become nothing and so that he will become everything to us. And this universal law when we humble ourselves, God will exalt. Let the 44:52 exaltation come from the Lord. Not we don't have to exalt ourselves. If we humble ourselves, God will take care of everything. And one sign of humility uh that I myself checked what is a sign of humility? One thing is how do I receive 45:06 criticism? How do I receive um correction or rebuke? Uh if I'm still getting offended, uh I have a lot of work to do. That's where I can look at Jesus and become more more humble. And then recently also I was thinking about 45:24 uh as Jared was mentioning Matthew 11 about infants. I'm so glad that I have a little one who's a six-year-old in our home. Uh he brings that pure joy of heaven in our home. Uh so it's such a blessing to meditate on the life of 45:40 infants. One is to see the life of Jesus and to see the life of an infant and a child. the purity and the humility, the innocence that brings us some uh some that helps us to taste what it is heavenlike. And when we humble 45:55 ourselves, when we become like infants, the the reward is the revelation about Jesus, revelation about God's love and uh through the revelation we build the church. Um so lot if I am proud lot of things are hidden. That's why when Jesus 46:11 is rejoicing when these things are hidden from wise and intelligent but they are revealed to the baits. Um just one final thought uh about Mark Mark 6. I see people going ahead of Jesus. I saw their hunger and thirst to hear from 46:29 Jesus and Jesus met their need. So if any of us here have come here to hear from the Lord, I I trust that the Lord has spoken according to this word. He has met your need. Rich and uh he will send the rich empty but he will feed 46:47 those who are hung hungry and thirsty. Um and um when we even when we bring a little bit like that boy uh five uh loaves of bread and two fish Jesus could multiply when we come to a meeting like this may we also be like that boy where we could 47:06 bring whatever is a little and place it at God's feet he will multiply and it'll make a blessing make us as a blessing to others u it's it's not the quantity it's the quality of the offering widows too heights were much worth much more than 47:22 all the riches that the people were pouring in. Uh we can bring that because the true church is built by that prophetic word. Uh use every opportunity even if it is a one verse, two words, one minute sharing use it those those 47:36 loaves of bread and two fish can be multiplied and many people will be satisfied and God will do the most difficult part of multiplying it but I can do the small part of bringing that. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord 47:50 Jesus, we thank you for speaking to us and thank you for your life and for your example. Uh continue to fill us with your Holy Spirit as we seek to humble ourselves. Uh Lord, make uh this our ambition Lord to have your mindset to 48:05 have your attitude in every area of our lives. Help us to become like infants so that we will have the revelation Lord. Uh the things that are hidden from wise and intelligent you will reveal to the babes. May we be like that Lord with the 48:17 purity and innocence and humility and so that we can continually hear from you and teach us uh the true humility what true humility means and help us to meditate on your life and the way you humbled yourself. You went all the way 48:31 to the cross to die for us who are your enemies. I pray Lord that you bless our church today uh with the word and I pray that we would all go back meditating on the things that you have taught us today. Bless our times of fellowship. 48:44 Bless every conversation in everything. help us to please you in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Okay.
