Have you ever been jealous of another church's success or felt that you were competing with another ministry? Now that's not the attitude that God desires. Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah shares of a time that Jesus had to deal with his disciples' feelings of jealousy and competition.
Continuing his series in search of the Savior, here's David. To introduce today's message titled, Leadership. Some say you lead through friendship. Some preach unity. Some preach individuality. But when you come to the Bible, you find a very different set of principles and practices when it comes to being a leader, and we're going to learn a lot about it. And I want to tell you, I've tested these principles out and they work. This is the way to lead. This is the way Jesus taught us to be leaders in our families, in our businesses, in our churches, in our schools.
These principles are wide-ranging in their impact. So be sure and be with us today and tomorrow as we talk about leadership. I'm going to tackle a really tough one on Wednesday and Thursday. This is in Mark chapter 10, verses 1 through 12, what Jesus said about divorce. I'm only doing it because it's next. It's there.
I'm not going to jump over it. I think you'll find help as we talk about that on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, and we'll continue moving through these last chapters of the book of Mark. Well, let's find out. What Jesus has to teach us about leadership. My father was a Baptist preacher and ultimately the president and then the chancellor of a Baptist university. Somewhere along the way, we both sort of got the idea that God was doing an exclusive work among Baptists, and especially among the particular kind of Baptists that we happen to be. When I graduate from high school, I went to a Baptist college, and when God called me to preach in college, I needed to go to a seminary. So I decided to go to the Dallas Theological Seminary, and it was quite a shock to both of us. When we arrived in Dallas and we began to know professors and students at the seminary, and we heard stories of God's blessing in their lives and ministries, and believe it or not, some of them were Presbyterians, and others were Methodists, and we even met a few Episcopalians. And we realized that we had grown up with a very narrow view of how God works in the world. Along about that time, someone told me a story about Saint Peter meeting some folks at the gates of heaven and pointing them to a community of people over in the corner, and Peter told the new arrivals to walk quietly by that gathering because they were the Baptists and they thought they were the only ones there.
I need to tell you that I'm proud to be a Baptist, and I am one because I believe the doctrines we embrace are the closest to the doctrines of the Word of God. But I've also learned that God is working across many denominational lines and in many places where there aren't any denominations, and we seem to be a lot more concerned about labels than God is. Is that the problems that we face in our evangelical circles seem to have had roots as far back as Jesus and the disciples when Jesus walked upon this earth. And as you read these verses that are before us, though some of them are very difficult to process and comprehend how they fit into the total picture, there's one thing that seems quite clear, and that is that our Lord has a much different view of ministry, than we do, and that we can never really be God's choice servants and do his work as he wants us to do it unless we get on his page instead of trying to drag him onto ours.
As you open this text in the 38th verse, you begin to see how leading by cooperation rather than by competition is illustrated for us. Now, John answered Jesus, saying, Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us. I have to believe that Jesus must have had some very discouraging moments as a human, and though he was the God-man, he was also the Son of Man, and he had human feelings as we do, and he was a teacher, and oftentimes he must have wondered where were my pupils when I was teaching, because they don't seem to have been present in the class. And it seems as if every time he teaches an important lesson, one of his disciples immediately violates the principle he has just taught.
Such is the case in the paragraph from Mark chapter 9. As you will remember, Jesus has just verbally and visually taught his disciples that true greatness is found in serving those who are thought to be insignificant. In our last study, we saw Jesus hold a child up in his hands and say to his disciples who had been arguing with themselves over which one of them was the greatest, Jesus said in Mark 9.37, whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me.
The message could not have been clearer. How could anyone not understand our Lord's sermon? But where was John when the Lord preached this sermon? Was he not in the room?
Was he not listening? It seems as if the words are hardly out of Jesus' mouth. When John begins to tell Jesus about this man who has been casting out demons, but had not been doing it the way that he and the other disciples had been doing it, and therefore the disciples had told him to stop, John was so concerned about those who were following them that he forgot to figure out what it means to follow him. And the disciples were not setting any records, if you remember, in exorcisms. In the last paragraph or so of the eighth chapter, we learned that the disciples had tried to cast out a demon and they couldn't do it. While Jesus and James and John and Peter were up on the Mount of Transfiguration, the other nine disciples got into an argument at the foot of the mountain with the man who brought his demon-possessed son to have the demon cast out and he didn't get anything for it because the disciples couldn't pull it off. And Jesus had to explain to them that they couldn't do it because they weren't prayerful. He said this kind doesn't come out except through prayer and fasting. And so here are the disciples who have not been able to cast out a demon, critical of a man who has been casting out demons only by another method than the one they have used. They are not only upset that this man is casting out demons, they're primarily upset because he's doing a better job of it than they have been doing. It is interesting that as you read the Bible and you become sensitive to an issue like this, all of a sudden other stories begin to come to the top in your memory bank. You know there's at least three other places where this sort of thing happened.
Let me just review them for you. In the Old Testament, on one occasion, Joshua discovered two people, Eldad and Medad, who were prophesying. In other words, they were preaching. And Joshua called Moses and said, Moses, you need to stop them from doing that. They're preaching. Stop them from preaching. John the Baptist disciples reacted in a similar fashion. When they observed Jesus becoming more popular than John was, and in John 3.26, they came to John and they said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him. In other words, John, if you don't hurry up and do something, you're going to lose your crowd.
Jesus is stealing your crowd. And when Paul was in prison in Rome and they came to him and told him that some of his contemporaries were taking advantage of his imprisonment to advance their own careers, we read about it in Philippians 1.15, some indeed preach Christ, even from envy and strife. How often this is the scenario in your day and in mine. If we see God at work in someone else and it happens to be someone who's more successful than we are, we are prone to become jealous and critical of that person. I remember reading something about jealousy that helps me understand how it works. The little thing was called jealousy runs in circles. In other words, I will never really probably be jealous of the plumber who services my house or the lawyer who works downtown or the person who runs the 7-Eleven at the corner. I'm not apt to be jealous of them because jealousy runs in professional circles. My problem is going to be some other pastor, some other leader, some other person that God seems to be blessing mightily doing the very thing that I do.
And the same is for all of us here. Your jealousy issues are not going to be of me so much or anybody but of the people that are in your world who do what you do. The reason the disciples were jealous of the man who was casting out demons is because that's what they did and this man was doing it better and he wasn't following the proper formula to do it. How narrow we can become when it comes to the progress of the gospel.
If you travel around very much, you discover that God uses all kinds of people and means that you would never believe to bring folks to himself. And we do ourselves great damage when we think that we're the only ones who know how to do it right. I have a friend who runs a major ministry and his favorite mantra is, we do it right, which basically means the rest of us are all doing it wrong. Someone gave me a bit of verse that describes how narrow we become if we are not careful. It goes like this, believe as I believe, no more, no less that I am right and no one else confess, feel as I feel, think as I think, eat what I eat and drink what I drink, look as I do, do always as I do, then and only then I'll fellowship with you. And you know what, you think that's a silly little piece of verse, that describes a whole lot of people that I know.
If you're not just like me, if you don't do things just like I do, we can't be friends. It is a sad fact that pride and competitiveness often lead us to work against others who are on the same team. And the result of it is, if you stop and ponder it for a moment, the result of it is that those who are living in the kingdom of darkness who need our witness are left in their oppression and suffering while we argue about what is the right way to reach them.
The competitive attitude. Now Jesus doesn't let that sit, he's going to deal with it. So in verses 39 to 41, the Lord Jesus answers the question of a competitive attitude. First of all, he tells his disciples that we have the same goal. Verses 39 and 40, Jesus said, Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterwards speak evil of me, for he who is not against us is on our side. Jesus corrects John by declaring that this exorcist who is casting out demons is on their side. Even though he isn't a part of the 12 who are following Jesus, this man who is casting out demons is doing it in Jesus' name and no one doing such a thing would ever speak evil of Jesus.
The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12, 3, Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now let's go back to Moses and John and Paul and see what happened and what the answer was for them in this little exercise of ministerial jealousy. Listen to how Moses responded to Joshua when Joshua was worried about Eldad and Medad prophesying. Here's what Moses said to Joshua.
Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all of the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on every one of them. Moses said, Joshua, I don't want you to be worried about these two preachers who may not have been licensed or ordained.
Oh, that God would choose everyone to be a preacher and that he would put his Spirit on all of them. Listen to how John responded to his disciples when they were worried about the crowds that were coming to Jesus. John answered and said to his disciples, A man can receive nothing unless it's given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear witness that I said that I am not the Christ but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.
He must increase, I must decrease. Every time this shows its ugly head in the scripture, the answer is almost scripted by Almighty God. John said, I came into this world with a specific purpose to be the forerunner of Jesus Christ.
What is a forerunner? He's someone who announces that someone else is coming. It was John who said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And John said to his disciples, If everybody is leaving, quote, my church and going to, quote, Jesus' church, I must be doing a good job because my purpose in coming was to point everybody to him and he must increase and I must decrease. And what about Paul? Paul's in prison and his friends come and say, Paul, you know all your contemporaries that you hung out with before you got thrown into jail? All your pastor buddies, they're out taking your itinerant opportunities.
They're using your imprisonment to advance their career. What do you think about that, Paul? He answered almost off of the same page as both Moses and John. He said, What then? Only that in every way, whether it is in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and in this I rejoice.
Yes, I will rejoice. Paul said, Let them preach. I'm not responsible for their motives, but let me tell you what I know. If Jesus Christ is being preached, praise God, I rejoice at the preaching of the gospel.
Shouldn't that be our attitude when we're tempted to be critical of others who don't necessarily do it our way or don't, quote, follow us? We should stop and back up a little bit and say, Are they preaching Christ? I mean, truly preaching Christ, the Son of the living God, the one who came back from the grave victorious over the death. Are they preaching Christ? They may not do it in our language.
They might not do it in our style. Some of them might have robes and collars on. They might look altogether different, but if they're preaching the truth of Jesus Christ, we should take Paul's approach and say, If they preach Christ, I rejoice and thank God for it.
There's a wonderful story that took place at the end of the 19th century. If you had visited London during that time, you would have immediately been aware of the fact that there were two very famous preachers in the city of London. One you've heard me speak of often, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and the other, who has written many books to help us understand the Scripture, was a man by the name of F.B. Meyer. Charles Haddon Spurgeon had one big church.
F.B. Meyer had another one. It seemed at that time as if London was barely big enough for the two of them because they were superstars, if you can use that term for a preacher. The great preacher, G. Campbell Morgan, came back to London. Morgan was a world-class Bible expositor, and all of London was buzzing with his arrival.
F.B. Meyer said it was easy to pray for the success of G. Campbell Morgan when he was in America. But when he came back to England and took a church not too far from mine, it was something different. He said, the old Adam in me was inclined to jealousy, but I determined to do right. So he said, I began to pray for his success. Actually, I prayed day and night for the success of G. Campbell Morgan. Even as I was worrying about losing members from my church to his church, I was praying for his success. He later explained in one of his books, F.B. Meyer said, my church gave a reception for G. Campbell Morgan, and I told him at the reception that if I hadn't had to preach on Sunday evenings, I'd go to his church and hear him preach. Here's what happened. He began to pray every day for G. Campbell Morgan. He said, Mr. Spurgeon and Mr. Morgan became so popular and drew such huge crowds that our church caught the overflow, and we grew more than we'd ever grown in a long time from the overflow of the blessing of the other two churches.
Wow. I just want to go back and remind you that we have the same goal. We're trying to reach this lost world for Christ, and as everything around us seems to be crumbling, and as all of the things that used to separate us seem to be so insignificant and foolish, if we're going to make an impact on this world for Jesus Christ, we've got to quit playing the silly games we've been playing for so long, and remember that if we're on the same team, we should fight in the same way, work with one another, and try to make a difference in the world where we've been called to make a difference.
We have the same goal. But notice Jesus added one more thing. We have the same God. In verse 41, he says, For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.
Here's the question. Does he belong to Christ? If he belongs to Christ, I don't mean he just by word belongs to Christ, but genuinely belongs to Christ is a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ.
That's the core that you need to care about. Does he belong to Christ? These words, if kept before us, will deliver us from a party spirit and from petty bickerings and from jealousy in Christian service Does he belong to Christ? Romans 14, 7 and 9 says, For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and rose and lives again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. We serve the same God.
Let us not forget that. So the first part of Jesus' instruction that day was to his disciples, and I want to just pause for a moment and remind you that here in this section of the book of Mark, we actually see Jesus Christ doing a little leadership training for his disciples. He knows that one of these days he's going to be out of the picture and the whole thing will rest on them. And I believe that some of these lessons which are so very to the soul were lessons meant to help the disciples after Jesus had gone back to heaven.
For we know for a fact from the scripture that when Jesus went back to heaven, the Spirit of God brought back to their minds many things that they had learned from Jesus while he was on this earth. Well, we're in the midst of a discussion on leadership from the lips of Jesus, and we're going to finish that up tomorrow. I already mentioned to you that on Wednesday and Thursday, we're going to tackle the subject of divorce.
And then on Friday, the two rich young rulers, part one, we are moving through the last chapters in the book of Mark during the month of November. I hope you're doing well. I know these have been some tough times.
People have told me recently that they hope nobody ever mentions the year 2020 to them again the rest of their life because it's been so hard. But it will also be true when we look back that we remember that God taught us some things during these days. I remember thinking that when I went through cancer that what I learned most of all was that God was enough. And he's been enough for these times, even though we've been frustrated and stressed out and all the rest. We know that without God, we'd be in real trouble. Thank you, God, for your leadership in our lives.
Have a great day, whatever you do. Join us tomorrow here on Turning Point. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's current teaching series In Search of the Savior, please visit our website, where you'll also find two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio.
That's davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Now when you do, be sure to ask for your copy of O.S. Hawkins' new book, The Bible Code, finding Jesus in every book in the Bible.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version, filled with helpful notes and articles by Dr. Jeremiah. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hooke, join us tomorrow as we continue the series In Search of the Savior. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
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