FBC Daily Devotional – April 29, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well a good Thursday to you. Let me ask you a question. Who do you think is the greatest preacher alive today?

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Who do you think that would be? Don't think too long on that, okay? Don't think too hard about that one.

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It's pretty easy to criticize the disciples. We've seen earlier in the

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Gospel of Mark where the Lord Jesus told them that he was going to go to Jerusalem, he was going to die, he was going to be crucified, he was going to be buried, but he would rise again.

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And they didn't get it. They didn't get it. And of course later on, when he was crucified, they didn't, it was like they weren't expecting it.

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And when he arose, they weren't expecting it. So we can be pretty critical of them for that.

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We've talked about that before. And in today's reading, it comes up again. So in verses 31 and 32,

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Jesus is telling them, his disciples, that he's going to be betrayed, he's going to be killed, but he will rise the third day.

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But then verse 32 says they didn't understand this saying and they were afraid to ask. And again, we can be pretty hard on them, pretty critical of them.

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And I don't think that's really justified because I wonder how much we don't get.

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I wonder how much the Lord tries to tell us and teach us and we're pretty dense sometimes.

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It just doesn't get in. It just doesn't get through. But what I really wanted to focus on, which was the reason for my question at the beginning, is how right after that, after Jesus tells them that he's going to be betrayed, he's going to be crucified and so forth, and they didn't understand that.

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Right after that, they're arguing about who's the greatest. So Jesus confronts them in verse 33.

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He says, what was it you guys were talking about? What were you arguing about on the way to here to Capernaum?

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And verse 34 says they didn't answer him. They didn't answer him because they were arguing between themselves about who would be the greatest, who would be the greatest.

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Now again, it would be very easy to criticize these disciples for fighting over who's the greatest, arguing about who's the greatest.

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But the reality is, here we are a couple thousand years later and we have the scriptures, we have it all laid out for us here.

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Jesus teaching even later on when he says, if anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

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The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is really the one who doesn't think anything about it, who is the least of all.

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He's the servant of everybody. He's not even concerned about greatness for himself.

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So Jesus teaches that. He gives that instruction and everything. But again, we can be just as dense as the disciples, still arguing about who is the greatest.

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For example, I've sat in on some board meetings in days gone by for associations or whatever and they were planning, thinking about upcoming conference and one of the comments is, well we got to have a name.

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We got to have a name. Otherwise people aren't going to come. We got to have a big name.

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In other words, a celebrity preacher. Somebody that everybody will know so that they'll draw the crowd.

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And so then there's this dickering back and forth about who's the greatest. Who's the greatest guy that we can get?

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And I can remember even in my college training years having a little bit of this mentality.

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And it was almost ingrained in me because anytime we had guest speakers come, and they were frequently, who would come and preach in chapel.

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I was training for the ministry. We had a ministerial class and these different pastors from around the country would come and they'd preach in chapel and then they'd address the ministerial class and tell them about how to do ministry.

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And the thing of it is all of the men that were used for those purposes were big name men.

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They were the greatest. They were the men that everybody knew and they were in the circle and they would be in conferences and so forth.

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People just knew their names. And so even after that, you live in that kind of a mentality and then you get to thinking that, well, if I'm really going to be something, if I'm really going to do something, accomplish something in the ministry for Christ, I've got to be a big name.

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I've got to be a celebrity. I've got to be one that will be invited to speak at conferences and that kind of stuff.

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Well, by the way, interestingly, a surprisingly large number of those great ones, those big named individuals from my college days ended up crashing and burning as their ministries went on.

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Some of them lost, their churches just died and for one reason or another, they caught up in scandals and so forth.

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So yeah, I don't relish in that. I think it's tragic, but I almost wonder if the celebrity mentality didn't feel that.

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Here's the thing. Truly, I understand the mentality of having a conference, people have to know something about the person that's going to speak.

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I get that. I understand that. But it is so easy to generate this celebrity mentality and those speakers that are invited, it's very easy for them to develop a mentality that says, well, you know,

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I'm getting invited all over the place. I must be one of the great ones, you know. But really, honestly, the truly great ones are the ones who are very, very uncomfortable with the esteem, very uncomfortable because they know, they know that even though they're going to be up there speaking to hundreds and maybe thousands of pastors or whatever, that there are a myriad of pastors and preachers and laymen that are greater servants in the kingdom of God than he is, the names of whom we'll never know.

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Truly great ones understand that and they're not so great in their own eyes when all of a sudden done.

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So let's take Christ teaching here and to his disciples, take it to heart and not be looking at celebrities as the great ones, but those who, maybe whose names we'll never know, they'll be the first.

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They'll be truly great in the eyes of the Lord. And may we be those kind of people, not striving to be known by everyone, but just faithfully, day in, day out, graciously, faithfully serving the

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Lord. Father, help us with that mentality. Help us to be faithful in the work you've called us to do, whether or not anybody ever knows our name and ever thinks of us as great.

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This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Have a good rest of your

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Thursday and hope you can join us on Friday and you know, looking forward to the weekend. Have a good day.