We'll be in Mark chapter two this morning. Talking about individuals in scripture that were never named, but did something that we can learn from. And I think as we study through Mark chapter two, the first 12 verses this morning, we'll see some unselfishness demonstrated today. And if we're going to accomplish anything in the Lord's work, We have to be able to do it unselfishly and we have to be able to work together and we have to strive together without caring about who gets credit for things. And that's what we'll see this morning, these four men without a name in Mark chapter 2. They were concerned about a needy friend, trying to get him to Jesus for healing. And so we'll see what we can learn from these four men without a name in Mark chapter two, and we'll read these first 12 verses here this morning. And again, he entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noise that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together insomuch that there was no room to receive them. No, not so much as about the door. And he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they shall reason within themselves, he said unto them, why reason ye these things in your hearts? whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise and take up thy bed and walk. But that ye may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he sayeth to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise, take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house, and immediately He arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all, insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion. Isn't it interesting to read through that passage just to see some of the different aspects of what's taking place here? The crowds that would follow Jesus, how some of the religious people in the room, they're all thinking to themselves, you know, who is this guy? How does he have the authority to do this? And Jesus answers their thoughts. Did you notice that? Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking and answered them. They never even had to say it out loud. But this morning, we'll look at these four men that are just kind of briefly mentioned here. We're not told anything about them other than they got this man to Jesus and this man is healed. This man is forgiven. This man comes to know Christ because of four men who were concerned and unselfish to get them there. And that's kind of one of the keys to living for Christ is dying. The key to living is dying. Dying to self. Dying to ourselves. Not living for our flesh. Jesus said in the book of John, he said, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. The key to living for Christ is dying to self. And in Mark chapter two, these four men are determined to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus and to heal him. And each of these four guys, I mean, they could have probably only thought of themselves that day. It talks about the crowd that had gathered. They couldn't get this man into the house because of the gathering of the press, the amount of people that were there. If they hadn't been concerned for the need of their friend, each of these four individuals, you know, they probably could have gotten through the crowd. They could have gotten there earlier. They could have gotten a closer seat to the front of the room. They could have been closer to Jesus. They could have been more upfront to the action of what was going on if they had only cared about themselves. But these four guys didn't just care about themselves, did they? They were concerned about somebody else's need. And how can we get this guy to Jesus? And so rather than worrying about their own needs, did they have needs in their lives that they needed met? Probably so. I mean, everybody here this morning, we've got needs that we need met in our lives. Who wouldn't want to get right up there to Jesus and try to have their need met? But they put their own needs on the back burner to get this guy closer to Jesus. And they see this need for their friend. And they realize one of these guys, he's not gonna do a whole lot, is he? They needed help. One man couldn't do it all. And so on their own, they can't do a whole lot, but they join together, they band together to help, and they work as a team. And because of their teamwork, because of their cooperation, they're part of a great miracle that's recorded forever in scripture. These four men in Mark chapter two, they had a cause that they rallied behind, that they worked together for. You think of David, you know, He gets ready to go out and challenge Goliath. He asks the question, is there not a cause? We have a cause this morning as believers that we should gather around and work together toward, the faith of the gospel. And so they're going to accomplish a task that otherwise wouldn't have been accomplished because they got together for the sake of the cause that they were invested in. First of all, I want you to see this morning they had an unselfish compassion. There's a lot of different things that go into having a selfless life, but one of the major factors is the love that God gives us for other people. There should be a compassion in our lives. We see that in the life of Jesus. It continually talks about the compassion that he had on people. In the book of 1 Peter 4, it says, above all things, have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. We're to have fervent charity, a great compassion, a deep compassion, a deep care for the people around us, for their needs. And when the love of Christ, when it's constraining us, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, he says, the love of Christ constraineth us. It compels us. It urges us and drives us forward. When the love of Christ is constraining us, you know, it's easier to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them somewhere else on somebody else's need. These four men, their eyes weren't focused on themselves. It wasn't about them. They were concerned about the welfare of their friend. We know that we live in a selfish time. I mean, you could probably open up your camera roll this morning, there's a section in your photo app on your phone that'll say selfies. And you can just scroll through and see how many selfies you've taken. Selfishness. These guys, there was a selfishness that they had denied. And the Bible talks about, the closer we get to the end times, that they would be days of selfishness. In the book of 2 Timothy, it says that it would be a day when men were lovers of their own selves. There'd be selfishness. We see a lot of selfishness in our society today. And we've mentioned this before in other classes, but in the book of Philippians, and I think this is interesting, you have Philippians chapter one and Philippians chapter two, verse 21 of each of those chapters present us with two different types of Christians. And it's up to us to decide which one we'll be. In Philippians 1, verse 21, Paul writes, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. There's the first option that we have as believers. For me to live is Christ, we can be a living for Christ Christian. And then in Philippians 2, verse 21, we have the second one. We can be a seeking our own Christian, for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. So every single day you get up, you have the option, today, am I gonna be a living for Christ Christian, or am I going to be a seeking my own Christian? That's the options that we have. To die to self means sacrifice, right? That would be a sacrifice. Paul talks about it in the book of Romans that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. We're to be a living sacrifice for the Lord, a dying to self, offering our lives. I like what John Goetsch said. He said, the problem with a living sacrifice is that it's always trying to crawl off the altar. A living sacrifice. And so maybe through the testimony of the Apostle Paul, God gives us a remedy for us trying to crawl off the altar when Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul said, I die daily. He woke up every morning and he died to self. He said, I'm not going to be a seeking my own Christian. I'm going to be a living for Christ Christian today. And it's been said every morning we have to get up and we have to conduct a funeral service for ourselves. Get up today, let's have a funeral service. We're going to die to self today. So that way we can walk in the spirit. Those are the options. And you may have to conduct several funeral services throughout the day as you die to self over and over again. And Paul wrote in Galatians chapter two, verse number 20, he said, I am crucified with Christ. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. We have to die to self. If we're gonna be one of these guys, like we see in Mark chapter two, that cares about their friend, getting people, Jesus, working together, accomplishing something great for the Lord, it begins with dying to self. denying selfishness. And then not only do we see that, but we see a service that was delivered because self didn't matter to these men, service did. They weren't concerned about themselves. They weren't seeking their own kind of people. They were living for Christ kind of people. And so service is what mattered. And too often in our lives, service doesn't matter because self does. We care so much about ourselves that we forget about service. And 1 Corinthians 10, verse 24, this might be a good verse to adopt for our lives, where Paul said, let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. Don't be so focused on your own things. Go out and help other people. Yes, we have freedom in Christ. Yes, we have liberty. Yes, we have grace. We have all of these things. But don't just look on your own things. Look to build other people up. Look to help other people. In your marriage, are you working to make life better for your spouse? Are you working to make the place where you work a better place? Are you working to make your employer more successful by being there? You see, the more successful that you make your employer, the more successful you are. Are you making life better for those people? Are you serving in ministry to see other people grow in Christ? Are you serving in ministry to see other people saved and grow for the glory of God? Supposedly, that's what we would all say that we want in our lives, we want to have. a marriage that's great. We want to make our spouse better. Are we actually living that way? Sometimes selfishness sneaks in and it keeps that from happening. We look at the accomplishments and we marvel at the accomplishments of the life of the Apostle Paul. And we should. His missionary service was incredible. But the truth is, the secret to Paul's life of service was his death to self. That's why he wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, he said, I will very gladly spend and be spent for you. The more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. Paul was willing to pour out his life for other people. Sometimes we struggle with that in our lives. Why? Because self sometimes becomes more important than service. So these guys had an unselfish compassion. But they also, secondly, they had a unified cooperation. One man, like we said, one man alone. Was he getting this man with this disease, with palsy, some kind of paralysis? Was he getting this man to Jesus? Probably not, but these four men working together could do something special. Word had gotten out that Jesus was coming to Capernaum. That's what we read there in Mark chapter two. That he was coming to preach in Capernaum. And the crowd is so packed into this place. There wasn't room on the outside to even get close to the door. And so first notice that there was an individual inadequacy in these men's lives. There just wasn't a way to bring a grown paralyzed man through this dense crowd of people. and any other method to try to get this man to Jesus, it would have been too great for one man to do alone. And you know, that's kind of the good news. The work that God has given us to do, it's bigger than what any one of us can do on our own. God never intended for you to try to do the work of God by yourself. The church is not about one man, one family. The church is about everybody working together to accomplish the mission that God has called us to for his glory. It's bigger than ourselves. We can't do it on our own. We can't do it in our own strength. We can't reach our community with the gospel on our own. We need a team of people working together. Paul said, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. In our own strength, we're insufficient. We don't have the strength, we don't have the ability to do anything for God on our own. And if you recognize that you're inadequate to do what God has called you to do, like these four men, on their own, they were inadequate. On your own this morning, yes, you're inadequate. You're not going to accomplish everything that God wants you to do on your own. I am inadequate this morning. The pastor's inadequate. It's not about a single individual. So when we realize that we're inadequate, what do we do? Does that mean, well, I guess we just give up. We go into despair. Well, you know, I'm not capable of doing it. I'm gonna go sit on the sideline. Is that what God wants us to do? No. No, what are we supposed to do? We recognize that God gives us great assignments so that we can partner with other people. That's what God has put this local church here together for, so we can partner together to reach our community with the gospel, to see people grow in faith in Christ. God understood the principle that we learn in school, something called synergy. You remember learning about synergy in school? What is that? Well, that's that two parts can do more than they can on their own by themselves. You know, you could hook up a horse and have a horse pull something. And you would think, okay, if I hook up two horses, they could just pull the same amount. But no, two horses can pull more than what two individual horses could pull on their own. Why? They're working together as a team. You've got the principle of synergy at work. And so we see an increased industry here as what these guys are doing is greater than the sum of their individual parts. And that's one of the reasons that God instructs us throughout the Bible to labor together or to strive together. We did a series a few years ago called Striving Together. In the book of Ecclesiastes, it says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Two are better than one. What does Paul write? This is where we had this series out of, Philippians 127. Only let your conversation, your lifestyle, your manner of living be as it becometh the gospel of Christ. That whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs. Here's what he wants, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind. You see those next two words? Striving together. Say that with me. Striving together. Again, striving together for the faith of the gospel. One of the great keys, people wonder, you know, how was that early church? When you look in the book of Acts, it was so on fire for the Lord and people were getting saved and the church was growing exponentially. What is the, what is the keys to the early church's success? Well, one of the great keys to their incredible power to this church in Jerusalem that we read about in Acts chapter 2 is the great unity that existed in their church. It produced that synergy that we talked about, that striving together, laboring together for the Lord that made God's work possible. In Acts chapter 2, verse 44, it tells us about this church. All that believed were together. Now, that's a good word, together. Unified. Synergy, going the same direction for the same cause. We talked about everybody having a cause and we're gathered here this morning at Liberty Baptist Church for a cause. They were together. They had all things common, sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. They continuing daily with one accord, we see unity again. in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Our church benefits when we have this kind of unity at work. When everybody's pulling together, we're all in the harness, like a team of horses, we're all together in the same harness, pulling that forward. And we do it a lot better when we're working together as a team than if we all just had our own harness hooked up trying to pull it on our own struggling along. Two are better than one. We're to be striving together for the faith of the gospel. The picture that we used for that series, you remember what it was? It was a group of men in a rowboat all rowing together. You watch in the Olympics. We did this during the Olympics probably back in 2016. We talked about that. You watch those Olympic rowers all working together as a team. They accomplish a lot more together than if it was just one man sitting on the boat trying to row it, don't they? They're going forward. Our church, it's necessary to have that type of unity, cooperation, togetherness, that synergy. here at Liberty Baptist Church if we're gonna accomplish the work of God. And that's what these four men in Mark chapter two had. They all knew that they had a cause. They wanted to get this man to Jesus. They wanted to get their friend to the Lord. We can't do it on our own, so let's band together and we can make something happen. And that brings us to number three this morning, the unstoppable creativity that they had. having unselfish compassion, and having unified cooperation, that's a great start. But sometimes, most of the time, a lot of times, you'll know this is true, we can have those two things, but when we get energized and we start going forward and we're gonna do something for God, you know what happens? There's gonna be some roadblocks that come into our way. There's gonna be some difficulties to our mission. And these guys faced some problems. The need was obvious. They have a sick man that needs help. And the solution was obvious. They need a miracle from Jesus. But there was an obstacle, and so we see that there was a restraint here. Something is blocking them from getting this man to Jesus. The room is too crowded to bring the man. He had to be carried on his bed to Jesus. They can't get him there. They know what the man needs. They know what the solution is, but how do we get past the obstacle? See, this is gonna happen in our church, and it has time after time. We're going to see needs, and we can think of solutions, but there's gonna be some things that come in that try to stop us from accomplishing what God has called us to. So the crowd's filling the house where Jesus is teaching. There's a massive group there. No doubt, do you think that there was anybody in that crowd that considered their need unimportant? No, everybody that showed up there to see Jesus that day, they have to believe that their need is important. They want Jesus to do something for them. And so there's always going to be barriers for serving. A lot of times, you know, People see a roadblock and stop. And sometimes we don't even have to see a roadblock and we kind of just give up. We declare, you know, well, that was impossible. There's sort of a humorous proverb that talks about this. In Proverbs chapter 26, it says, the slothful man saith, there's a lion in the way. There's a lion in the streets. If you woke up tomorrow and you looked out your window and there was a lion in your driveway, After you've finished, you know, snapping some pictures and texting your friends and posting about it on social media, you're probably at some point going to call, I don't know, animal control. I don't know who you call for a lion in your driveway. That's not something we usually have a problem with, but you probably don't want to go out and confront the lion yourself. Probably not a good idea, but at some point, the lion has to be confronted. You can't just live with a lion in your driveway forever. The lion has to be moved. Pizza Hut probably ain't going to—you know, you tell them, hey, show up. When Pizza Hut shows up and they see the lion in the driveway, I don't think that the delivery driver from Pizza Hut or DoorDash or Uber Eats, they're probably not getting out to confront the lion either. At some point, the lion's got to be moved, and the slothful man says, well, I guess I'm just not going to be able to do anything because there's a lion in the street and there's a lion in the way. And sometimes we're like the lion, we're like the slothful man in Proverbs that sees the lion. Something, God, we feel like he wants us to do something for him, but all of a sudden we see some sort of roadblock and we're just like, well, you know, there's a roadblock, I guess I can't do anything for the Lord. Well, these four men, there was a restraint to doing what was right. They knew they needed to get this man to Jesus and they knew what the solution was. And so now they say, Sorry, bud, there's a problem. I guess you're not getting to see Jesus today. And they gave up. No, that's not what they did. They continued going forward. You know, they didn't just wave the white flag and surrender and say, maybe next time Jesus is around, maybe then you can get healed. No, they knew that the need was great then. There's going to be ministries that we try to have in our church that we feel like sometimes has an obstacle. There may be hindrances to ministry that we want to see accomplished. The question is, can we become as creative as what these guys were? Because next we see the restraint, then we see the resourcefulness that they had. They got really creative here. A restraint requires resourcefulness. Now this is a quote I'd read some time ago, and I've never forgotten this. should be a catalyst for creativity. Conflict should be a catalyst for creativity. These men, they knew they were going to have to come up with a strategy that was unconventional. I mean, it's pretty unconventional what these guys did. Things didn't just work out easily. They get this idea, we want to get our friend to Jesus, but it was going to have to require more than just them walking through the door. This was gonna take some effort. This would take some creativity. There's gonna have to be some resourcefulness on their part. It was going to take effort. This might even have been expensive for these guys to get this man to Jesus, because what they do is destroy somebody's house. So they probably had to fix the mess that they made. So that's probably gonna require some sacrifice on their part to get this man to Jesus. Verse number four, when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was, and they had broken it up, and they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. They didn't just say, you know what, I think the door has been closed on this opportunity and we move on past it. Sometimes God closes doors that are actually closed by God. But sometimes we just kind of see something as being a closed door that's not necessarily locked. This morning I was sitting in my office in there and there was a door that kept me from going out into the hallway. It was a closed door. But you know what I did? I got up, and with a little bit of effort, I walked over, and I turned the handle, and I opened it, and I walked into the hallway. The door was closed. Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, he saw an open door, even though there were obstacles, things that were setting him back. He said, for a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. See, Paul recognized there were adversaries and there were hindrances and there were obstacles to accomplishing ministry. And he could say, you know, I think the door's just closed. But he said, no, I'm gonna walk over and I'm gonna open the door. God hadn't closed that door. Sometimes we use that when God really doesn't close the door. It may just be an obstacle in your way, and we just kind of get in a hurry to say, well, God shut that door. But maybe there was an obstacle there that we need to see, did God close the door? Or is this just a hindrance to ministry? Is this just a restraint? Do I need to get creative? Do I need to get resourceful to see how I can get around this obstacle? Not only was there a restraint resourcefulness, but then we see the resilience. Imagine you're there that day and these men start breaking up the roof to get their friend to Jesus. I have a feeling that there may have been some people in the crowd that questioned these four men. We know the religious people in the room did. Why are you moving the sick man from his house? I mean, he's sick. He probably needs to stay there. Why are you doing this to this man? Why are you carrying this sick man up to the top of the roof? These are the people. They're not involved doing anything. They're just kind of standing on the sidelines, questioning you because you're involved doing it. Why are you destroying the roof? People paid good money for this. You can't be tearing this stuff up. You guys, Jesus is holding a service here. Why are you disturbing Jesus? I mean, imagine the questions that these guys may have been presented with as they were trying to get their friend to Jesus. I mean, if any of these things had happened today, there probably would have been a lawyer there slapping a lawsuit on these guys faster than we could, you know, get the roof torn apart. It's been said that the measure of a man's character is what it takes to stop him. These men, They were getting this man to Jesus. We have to be resolved. We sing that song, we'll sing it at church tonight. I am resolved. These men were resolved. They were resilient. They were committed. Are we? When we're presented with some sort of obstacle, does it stop us? In the early church days, on these missionary journeys that Paul went on, there were a lot of hindrances. There were a lot of obstacles. There were a lot of difficulties. But Paul wrote in Acts 20, verse 24, it said, none of these things move me. None of these things move me. Shipwrecks, beatings, jail, questions from other people. None of these things move me, neither can I my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we are faced with obstacles and setbacks and resistance to doing the work of God, we shouldn't give up. If God puts you into doing something for His work and His ministry here at the church, and there's some resistance to it, don't give up. Don't get discouraged. Get resourceful. See who you can bring in to help you. Get that cooperation going, that striving together, that synergy, people working together for a cause. Because sometimes you're going to have difficulties, and it can be discouraging. And on our own, when we face discouragements, we can find ourselves down and out. If we have a group of people working together, when we get discouraged, we can encourage one another in the Lord to keep going. and apply some creative resourcefulness to overcome the challenges in front of us. There's going to be opposition and hindrance and resistance when we try to build a bus ministry, a master club, faith Bible Institute, music ministry, team ministry. It doesn't matter what it is, there's going to be some difficulties and some problems. Let's get past those, let's go forward. And so lastly, we see a unique contribution. These four men, yeah, they face some questions. Yeah, they have had some problems, but wouldn't you have liked to have been one of these four men when they finally got the roof torn open and they lower this man through? When Jesus looked up and saw them, Verse number five, what does it start off by telling us? When Jesus saw their faith. Jesus, he noticed what these four men had done. Everybody else is questioning them. The religious leaders, they're watching all of this with contempt. But Jesus saw their faith. And the Bible indicates that these four men are the reason why their friend ends up healed that day, why this man ends up forgiven of his sins, because of his four friends. When Jesus saw their faith, a great victory happened. So notice first the increase of faith. The apostles, they asked Jesus to increase their faith. In the book of Luke, they said, Lord, increase our faith. That's a good thing to ask the Lord for, an increase of faith. And it was interesting, as I was reading through this, sometimes we think of that, we're reading that as if they were asking the Lord to give them more faith. But I read a very interesting take on this passage, and I think this could be right, that they weren't necessarily asking for more faith, because you remember Peter? He was in the boat. He saw Jesus walking on the water, and what did Peter do? Peter got out of the boat onto the water. Now, I don't know about you, but that takes somebody of a lot of faith to actually get up out of the boat and stand on water, believing that the Lord's gonna hold him up. So I don't think that it was like Peter was lacking faith. He had faith to get out of the boat and believe that he was gonna stand on the water and walk to Jesus. That's more faith than I would have. Peter had a lot of faith. When he began to sink, Jesus said to him, O ye of little faith. Well, how could Jesus tell Peter that he had little faith? He got out of the boat and he stood in the water and began to walk. I don't think that it was... the fact that Jesus was saying his little faith wasn't enough, I think what Jesus might have been saying and what the disciples were asking for when they said, Lord, increase our faith, is the fact that their faith wasn't about the amount they had, it was about the duration of their faith. It was a short-lived faith. Lord, increase our faith, the duration of our faith. They needed an increase not in the endurance of their faith. And if your faith in your life, if it's down to a small sort of little flicker, sometimes we can get there in life. You can begin to fan it with the word of God. with prayer, God can begin to help you to increase that faith. Just like a muscle has to be exercised in order for it to grow, our faith increases as we exercise it in our Christian life. And then notice the influence of faith, not just the increase of it, but the influence of it. The man is healed, not because of his own faith, but because of the faith of these four unnamed men. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, son, thy sins be forgiven thee. And in verse 11, he says, I say unto thee, arise, take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house. The faith of these four men affected the sick man. You remember last week we talked about the little unnamed servant girl? Her faith affected Naaman. Our faith can affect people. Our faith can do things for people. I read the story of a young girl who was very sick. She wasn't expected to recover. There was a revival meeting happening in her town. Because of her love for Jesus, she had been troubled. She knew that she wasn't going to live long and she'd been troubled that she wouldn't get to live a great life for the Lord. And so she began to write down people that she knew that needed to come to Christ for salvation. She wrote their names on a list. She began to pray for them, that they would get saved. This revival continued on and on in the city. And the girl heard that people were coming to Christ. She began to pray even more. She began to see people on her list that she was praying for get saved. She began to check their names off the list. The girl did die. And after she had passed away, her parents found her prayer list there in her bedroom with the names of 56 people written down on it. Every single one of those 56 people had been crossed off the list, with the last one receiving Christ as Savior the night before she passed away. Now you talk about somebody who had faith. She prayed 56 people. Did she have some faith? 56 people come to know Christ because one little girl began to pray for them. That's the power of having specific, fervent prayer. And I would ask you, do you have a prayer list? Do you have a specific prayer list where you're praying for God to do specific things in your life? There's power in prayer. And in our lives, somebody has influenced our faith. I've on the back of your paper this morning, I've got a spot there and I've asked you to write down. Think of somebody in your life that has influenced you. That has influenced your faith. As we didn't get here on our own, somebody did something for us. And then there's a second blank. I want you to pray. I want you to think of somebody's name that you can influence. With your life. and write that down. And think to the people that influenced you in your faith. What were some of the things that those people did that have encouraged you, that has got you to where you are today? Maybe some of the same things that those people did that encouraged you, you can do the same thing to encourage that person that you write down. Who can you influence through your faith? How will they see faith enacted in your life? People ought to be able to look at our lives and see that there's faith in our lives. Matthew 17, verse 20, for verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall move, and nothing shall be impossible to you. President Ronald Reagan, he had a sign on his desk in the Oval Office that said, there's no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit. These four men, I don't think they cared about who got the credit for getting their friend to Jesus. I don't think that they care that their names aren't recorded in Scripture. What they did is recorded in Scripture and it's never been forgotten. Sometimes we neglect to serve God because we want to get something for ourselves. We want some sort of glory, we want some sort of title, we want some sort of recognition rather than dying to self. that a greater work can be accomplished, we put ourselves ahead of service. And sometimes we give up when things get complicated, when there's resistance, when there's a restraint, when there's hindrances, when there's problems and difficulties, we give up. But if God's put you in the ministry to do something, don't give up this morning. I liked something that I saw one of my preacher friends share on Facebook this week. He's a great encourager to other preachers. And he reminded preachers, if you're going through problems right now, pray and preach the word. And then I liked his third point. He said, stay through the storm. Don't just give up because of problems. Continue on past the problem. Go over and open the door handle. See if the door handle's open and maybe the lion will move out of the streets. We have to resist growing weary. in well-doing. That's what Paul says in Galatians 6, 9. Don't become weary in well-doing. Yeah, the work of God can get tiring and it can get burdensome at times, but that's why God calls us to strive together so others can help bear the burdens of ministry. God hasn't called you to do this alone. Don't try to do it alone. If you find yourself trying to do it alone and you're weary and you're burdened down, that's when it's time to see if somebody else wants to get in the harness. Somebody else wants to help row the boat. That's what we do here at church. We help one another. Don't give up. These four friends, they did together what none of them could have done on their own. They got this man to Jesus. They give us a picture. It should be a great motivation to us that we work together with others in our church so that not that we get some sort of credit or recognition, but so that other people grow in the Lord. Other people come to Jesus and so that he's glorified and he gets the honor. So that way people look, they say, there ain't no way that Zach or Jonathan or Mary, they couldn't have accomplished that on their own. No, we couldn't have. Without the help of God, we wouldn't have done this. And it gives us an opportunity to point back to him. Let's pray this morning. God, thank you for this opportunity to study the life of these four men. I pray that we would cooperate together here at Liberty Baptist Church, that we would seek unity, togetherness, that we would have this cause that we are rallied behind. Lord, that when there's opposition to our ministries, Lord, that we would find creative ways to get around and over and through the roadblocks that come into our way so that we can get more people to Jesus. Lord, we pray that everything that we accomplish here at Liberty Baptist Church is done for your honor and glory, that we wouldn't care about who's getting credit for anything that happens, just that the work of God is done. Lord, we pray that you would work in our hearts this morning. In this morning's services, we sing songs of praise and love to you. Lord, we pray that you would have your will and way in the preaching, that our hearts are prepared and our ears are open and our minds are off the things of the world, and that we could focus on what you have for us today. We love you. We thank you for all that you've done in Jesus name. Amen.