Turn in your Bibles to the book of Mark chapter 9 in verse 38 as we continue in Mark chapter 9. The title of the message this morning is Allegiance to Christ. We want to make certain of that of course. We've been talking about these last set of verses here at the end of the chapter about how the world's view of being great doesn't really agree at all with God's view of being great. We've been talking about, so far we've seen that we should be obedient in everything, we should be a servant to all. Today we're gonna look at our allegiance to Christ And probably from a little different perspective than you might think, as we shall see from our text, but we're gonna see how this affects or should affect our tolerance of those Christians who are not part of us, quote unquote, us. So let's read our text, Mark 9, verse 38. And John answered him saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us, and we forbade him because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name because you you belong to christ verily i say unto you he shall not lose his reward let's pray dear only father we thank you lord for these words we have just read and for your holy spirit who will who even already has begun to teach us the meaning of these verses. Just speak to our hearts, write these words upon our heart, O Lord, and truly may our allegiance be found to be stronger to you when we consider the meaning and impact of these verses. Lord, we thank you that we can be in this place here this morning, and we pray our worship has been found acceptable in your sight. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. As I said, we're gonna look at this kind of from a little different perspective because we're gonna look at it from that of others who are serving Christ who are not like us, part of us, you know? And what that should teach us about being faithful to Christ. To be faithful to Christ, our first point, we must not believe that we are the only ones to follow. Now as we come to verse 38 there, and you keep this in the perspective and in the context of what we've been talking about, what we've been seeing, we've seen the disciples, well Jesus and the three disciples come down off the Mount of Transfiguration to find the rest of the disciples have been unable to cast out a demon. And so Jesus casts out that demon and it gives him a teaching opportunity for the disciples because they want to know why they weren't able to, and so he teaches them. And we've seen where he addresses an issue as they were traveling on their way from the Mount of Transfiguration to Galilee, on their way to Jerusalem, they have begun to talk among themselves about who would be the greatest in the kingdom, and they end up being reproved about that. and what it means to be a servant first, and those who should be first would be last, and last would be first, along those lines. So there have been some things here where the disciples have been reproved by Jesus about some things. And then John pipes up. And I believe that when he says verse 38, he's really wanting to prove himself to be in the right, and maybe his fellow disciples there in the right, you know, in light of what we've just seen them be instructed about in light of the previous discussion that's been going on. And so he brings this up. John answered him saying, now notice he's answering Jesus. So this is a continuation for John of what Jesus has been telling them, and he wants to bring this out. He wants to touch on a point, and I think he wants to kind of get Jesus to approve of what he's going to say. That's his intention and his expectation. So he answers him saying, Master, term of respect for Jesus, We saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us, and we forbade him, because he followeth not us. So what's his concern here? He's telling Jesus, and this probably was when Jesus had sent them out two by two to go out into the countryside to preach the gospel, preach the kingdom, to heal, to cast out demons. Those are all things that they did. And by all accounts, it was a very successful time for them and a great learning experience for them. And it probably was something that happened at that time that he refers to here, but he says, you know, we came across somebody and it's kind of, I get this kind of a tone, it's like, and would you believe he was casting out demons in your name? And he doesn't follow us. He's not part of us. He's not following us. So I want you to note, that the fellow, whoever this is, was casting out demons. He was successfully, apparently, casting out demons in Jesus' name. And there's a lot of dispute about this. What does this mean in Jesus' name? Did he really know the Jesus that the disciples knew? Well, likely not. Could he have been a follower of John the Baptist and had just a general understanding of who the Messiah is and been casting demons out in the name of the Messiah? Possibly. We're not sure. Whatever the case is, he has no particular affiliation with Christ and his intimate followers, those closest disciples to Christ. Whatever the case he is successfully casting out demons He was ineffective warring against Satan and that puts him on the same side as the disciples He just wasn't following them Could it be that John's concern here? Is that these disciples or this man rather is not following them? Is that his concern? Are they thinking that in order for people in this kingdom, they're gonna have to obey, everybody's gonna have to obey their orders and follow them directly? Is that what he's thinking? And that would connect back to what they have been talking about? Here's the point that I wanna make on this. We're not to follow other men. We're not to follow the disciples, we follow Christ himself. Many ministries have been built, not just during our time, but over the course of history, around following a person rather than Christ. The ministry will take on the particular characteristics of that person. And that's not a good thing. That's not the way it should be. Now we must have leadership, of course, and there's always someone who is in charge of the ministry, say in a congregation, but yet we do follow Christ. Christ is the head of the church. So we may be led by others, but we must also follow Christ. I want you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Numbers 11. In verse 25, and we see a similar situation that arose in the days of Moses. On this occasion, the Lord has come down, his spirit has filled 70, of the elders came upon them, rather. And they, when that happens, as we see, they prophesy. But there are two outside of that group that raises a concern here. So Numbers chapter 11, verse 25. And the Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto him and took of the spirit that was upon him, that is Moses, and gave it unto the 70 elders. And he came to pass that When the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease. But there remained two of the men in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other was Midad. And the Spirit rested upon them. And they were of them that were written, but went not out into the tabernacle, and they prophesied in the camp. So these 70 are in the tabernacle prophesying. These two men are out in the camp amongst the people in the camp somewhere. And verse 27, and there ran a young man and told Moses and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. They're out there, they're not with everybody else. They're doing something else out there and they're prophesying. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men answered and said, my Lord Moses, forbid them. Now this is very similar to John, the disciple, the apostle John, who says much the same to Jesus, only he said that they had forbidden the man who was casting out the demons. But he says, forbid them. And look at Moses' answer, verse 29. And Moses said unto him, envious thou for my sake? Are you saying this out of envy, Joshua? Are you saying this because you think somehow this takes away from me, from Moses and the leadership I've been given and the ministry I've been given? Envious thou for my sake? He then says, would God that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. Moses is saying we can't limit this to just a few. We ought to be praying that the Lord pour out his spirit upon everybody, and everybody be a servant of the Lord. That would be a great thing. That's something we ought to pray for. So you see, both Joshua and John are concerned because someone is serving God, but not following them. We need to be very careful about these feelings. We who hold to the doctrines of grace can sometimes think that everyone ought to believe just like we do and follow the same practices that we have. This can be very dangerous thinking that is born of pride and is thus sin. By no means am I saying that we tolerate heretical teaching. Not saying that. What I'm saying is that just because someone does not do things the way we do them, or maybe does not believe certain aspects of the scriptures the way we believe them, those things that are not clear in the scriptures and that there could be a legitimate disagreement about. And the big one that always comes to mind is eschatology. So if someone's out there believing a little differently than we do on that, or maybe they do things in their church and their service to God that are different than what we do, as long as they don't go against the scriptures, then we ought to not stand in judgment of that. And we shouldn't be thinking that, oh, you know, they need to do things just the way we do things. We've figured it all out. That is a spirit born of pride. I believe that the Lord can have his people in any denomination. Now, I am Baptist, and I probably ought to say something along the lines, I'm a historical Baptist. You gotta be careful about that these days. because I believe that we hold most closely to the scriptures. But it is not up to me or you or our church to decide who belongs to the Lord. And the Lord is fully capable of raising up people wherever he wants to raise up people, as long as they are of his elect. And so there can be people in other kinds of churches that are believers, that have been born again and believe. And we should understand that and have some tolerance for that. Doesn't mean, again, that we tolerate false teaching. That we stand against. But we ought to be a little bit more tolerant sometimes in the way we look at others. Who are we to say who belongs to the Lord? Second point, moving to verses 39 and 40 in our text, to be faithful to Christ, we must realize that he that is not against us is for us. So we're continuing the same line of thinking. Verse 39, we see our Lord's response to what John said in verse 38. But Jesus said, forbid him not. For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me, for he that is not against us is on our part. I'm sure John was looking for approval in what he said. They've been reproved, they have been chastened of the Lord in some of the things that they had said and the actions they had taken over these last several verses. Now I think he's trying to bring it back around to where the Lord will pat him on the back again and say, oh yeah, good deal. But he's disappointed, I'm sure, because he doesn't get approval. Jesus says, on the other hand, don't stop him. Let this man do what he's doing. You stop what you're doing in trying to put this man out away from us and against us somehow when he is obviously serving the Lord. You see, anyone who's doing something like what this man was doing, casting out demons, must be doing it by the power of God. It is evidence of God's call on their life. So Jesus is saying, don't stop him. Help him. Rejoice with him. Don't stop him. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12, verse three. We see a similar situation here. And more insight on this, 1 Corinthians 12, verse three. Paul says to the Corinthians, wherefore, I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now he's testifying to a one who has been born again, okay? One who could truly call Jesus Lord can only do so because he has been born again and because the power of God is in him. No man speaking by the spirit of God will call Jesus accursed. You can't do that and be born again. It goes against the grain, not in being your right mind anyway. And so to actually perform a good work in Jesus' name is a testimony that one is born again and that one is serving Christ. And they may have a different name on their church than we do. They may have different practices than we do, but anyone who is faithfully serving the Lord, we ought to support. We ought to say amen. We might say, I don't, we are not going to do things exactly like that, but if they're serving the Lord and it seems that they are, and that seems to be a evidence that they are born again, we ought to praise the Lord for that and go on about our business. Okay. Turn to Philippians chapter one now, verse 15. You see, whoever is not against us is for us. Philippians chapter one, verse 15. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife. and some also of goodwill. The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel." What Paul was telling the Philippians, by the way, he's writing to them out of jail, he's saying that there are some out there that preach Christ even of envious strife. And what I believe he's referring to is they are envious of Paul. Paul as an apostle had a certain authority and a certain power, if you will, to do some things that others could not. And so there were some out there, I'm sure, that were envious of Paul. That's the way we are, okay? That's just the way we are. Our flesh sometimes will get the better of us. And so they're out there preaching Christ now, But they're saying things and doing things, envious of Paul, and they are striving, they are trying to get something over. Then maybe they're saying, look at Paul, he's in jail. Surely you don't wanna listen to someone who's in jail, trying to discount the fact that the reason he's in jail is because he was preaching the gospel. But they're trying to throw something at Paul, drag him down and puff themselves up. but they're preaching Christ. That's what Paul's saying here. He said there are others that preach of goodwill. They have a goodwill, goodwill towards Paul and his situation, and they're preaching Christ. And so some do this out of contention, hoping to add affliction to Paul. Others out of love, knowing that he is in jail, in prison, because he is a preacher of the gospel, and that's his offense. He goes on then in verse 18 and says, what then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. He's saying these fellows may be speaking ill of me in my circumstances, in my situation, but they're still preaching Christ. And in that, I rejoice. That's a powerful statement when you think about it. That's a powerful statement that ought to bring some conviction upon us. They're preaching Christ. There are others out there who will rail against us because we believe in the doctrines of grace. But if they preach Christ, then we should rejoice in that. Maybe they don't see things the way we do, but they preach Christ. Let us rejoice in that. Now again, I'm saying fully preaching the gospel of Christ, the truth of God's word. They may not understand the truth that we understand, but they're still preaching Christ. Let us rejoice. We may not agree, We may not even approve of their motives, but if Christ is preached, we can still rejoice in that and we must. And why is it that we can do that? Because God will not let his word return void. If they are preaching Christ, God will use that to his purpose. God is not limited by you and I and how perfectly we preach the word of God. Praise the Lord. He's not limited by us. We should try to be as faithful as we can to preach the truth of God's word. God will take that and he will use that to his purpose. And if others are doing that, we cannot speak against them. Again, we need to take care of what we've been given to take care of. And then the last point, to be faithful to Christ is to be rewarded by Christ. Verse 41. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. For whosoever, whosoever means anybody, not just the prophet, not just the righteous man, but also even the least of our Lord's servants, the most humble of servants, The most limited of servants, if they give a cup of water in Christ's name to you, that is a service to God that will not be overlooked, but rather that Christ will reward. Turn to Matthew chapter 10, verse 40. Matthew chapter 10, verse 40. In a similar teaching is the passage where we are at. Our Lord says this as Matthew records it. Matthew 10, verse 40. He that receiveth you, receiveth me. And he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. He that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water, only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. It doesn't matter where you're at in your understanding of the word of God. Understand what I'm about to say? It doesn't matter what your experience is. It doesn't matter what your particular calling is to do something, an act of service, especially towards another Christian and believer. That can be done by anyone and should be. And God will reward that. He will reward that. You don't have to be the pastor to help someone. You don't have to be a deacon to help someone. Everything we do should be done in the name of the Lord and to the glory of God. And you'll be rewarded for that simple act of service. Some people get to thinking they gotta do great things to be considered great in the kingdom of God. That was what the problem these disciples were having was, okay? Well, Jesus is saying, no, anyone can do, can serve, do an act of kindness and love and service, and they'll be rewarded for that. This person serves Jesus. and is faithful to Jesus by serving his servants. Jesus will see this service and will reward it because this reflects his heart, his love, and his concern for all people. Jesus has set an example that we must follow. I'll give you some scriptures here. Psalm 34, 15, you might want to write it down. I'm just going to read it real quickly. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. In 1 Peter 3, verse 12, for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And then Mark chapter 10, the next chapter over from where we're at, verse 45, for even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. Our Lord took the whole servant thing to the ultimate level. And I remind you that he did this for people that hate him. Okay. What an act of service that is. What an act of love. You cannot demonstrate love in any greater fashion than that. So our Lord rewards his faithful servants in many ways and in great abundance. I ask you this morning, are you faithful to Christ? Do you believe that he gave you eternal life? Have you made a profession of faith, a public profession of faith that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you been baptized? Then I would ask, do you follow Christ to serve him and to worship him? If not, what is in your way? Is it pride? Is it some besetting sin, as the old writers speak of? If it is, then repent and be faithful to Christ. I give you one last passage, Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. In some respects, being a servant of Christ, a faithful follower of Christ, is really pretty easy. You just do things in the name of Christ that are acts of service, acts of love, that are help to those around you. We make it difficult because of sin, our own sin. We make it difficult because of pride. We make it difficult because we get to thinking too much of ourselves and more highly of ourselves than we should. But it's really pretty simple. If you wanna follow Christ, than love like he did, help like he did, be kind like he was. What an example to follow. We'll never be Christ, but every little thing we can do that is a sincere desire to follow Christ and do in his name, and he will bless, and he will use, and he will be glorified by that. Let's do that. Sunday school class, we've been talking about the little things and taking care of the little things. Those are little things, but they need to be taken care of. Are we doing that? Are you doing that? That's the question this morning. Let's bow our heads for prayer. Dear only Father, oh Lord, again, we're thankful to be in this place here this morning, and Lord, we pray that you would take these words and deed, that you would bring conviction upon us, that you would teach us, that you would reprove us, that you would set us back on the right path, oh Lord, as your word will do. Lord, we want to be servants of Christ, and we want to rejoice with those who serve Christ. Help us to see that, to understand that, and above all, to be faithful to Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Let's all stand. What number shall we sing?