Mark 1:14-28 Jesus the One with Authority Calls and Teaches

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan.

Thanks, Ben, and welcome to Recast as Ben did just a minute ago, but I appreciate his service in ministry. Recast stands for, it's an acronym, and it stands for replicating community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

And so as we, these values guide our life, as we, you know, worship and seek more worshipers for Christ, and that's our mission. And so we do pray as an elder board and staff and many others, we pray that you will grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service.

And so, what's a recast, right? I mean, that's sort of a name that's unique for sure. And I remember one person saying that to me one time as we were having a conversation with lunch at the pastor. Today's text, I'm going to continue through Mark.

Worldviews and the Biblical Story

I started that a bit ago, but I wanted to talk about worldviews first today and how they're important. Worldviews, it's not a new concept. I'm sure you've heard of it. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but it shapes our understanding, right?

It colors how we see the world. And it is built upon your experiences, upon your knowledge, upon what education. A lot of factors go into your worldview. And so, people can study that aren't believers and they can learn a lot of truth about God through that.

Through the world, they can see that. And this is a lot of the official term, like, you know, maybe general revelation. And we can benefit from that as a human race. Humanity can benefit from that. But we don't have all the information.

In fact, Romans is pretty clear. Romans 1, it says like, hey, you got enough basically to condemn yourself. Like, you were condemned. You know enough for that standing. And so, we need more than that.

We need God's revelation to really solve the problem that plagues humanity and that's sin. And so, Jesus will be coming and we see in the text, and God provides his son to be the word that saves. And so, as you go through and you think about worldviews, this grid helps us to go through that.

And that's why, and you can be objective and say you're objective, but nobody really is objective. And so, that's why the Proverbs, I think, say it so well. In Proverbs 9, 10, it said, So, there's probably as many worldviews in here, in some sense, as people.

But what I would love us all to begin to think about is what's a biblical worldview, right? And that's, and so today, we're going to be mining deep into Mark a little bit, but I want to go over and talk about what every worldview answers.

And we can see this in scripture, this kind of overarching thing, this overarching question that kind of everyone wrestles with and everyone will go into. So, the first question that every worldview will answer, and yours does, whether you realize it or not, is what was there in the beginning?

Like, before anything that we know is there,.

What was there?

What's the ultimate reality? No one was there. No one witnessed it, okay? The second question is, what's the source of the world's problems? Because we all recognize, like, people are good at like, yeah, this world's jacked up.

It's messed up. There are problems in the world. What's the source of that? The third question that I think helps form a worldview is, or every worldview tries to solve it. They fix the problem. What's the solution to the problem?

And then the fourth is, what's the ultimate end? What is the ultimate end? How does it, how does the world end? What is the benefit? What's the goal? What is the future ultimately for humanity, for the world that we know?

So, if you are a person that says, wow, answer the first question. Matter, that's the only thing, that's existed forever. Well, you take that on faith because you weren't there.

You don't know.

The second question is, well, what's the problem? Like, why is there pain? Why is there suffering? Like, they might throw out, if that's your assumption, like matter is it, well, probably ignorance. Probably ignorance is the problem.

Or power over, like someone's wielding power over. There could be a lot of problems that people will put out to there. The third question, what's the solution? Well, education, learning, maybe technological advances that will solve our problem.

And definitely has solved some, many problems that we've faced. And then the fourth question, what's the ultimate end? That's a pretty desperate proposition because it's nothing. Like, you die and then it's over, right?

If you're a materialist, well, you just kind of, you're worm food. Okay, now, look, you read history and you find the philosophers, like they deal with all of these crazy things and these ideas and they come up.

But I think these four questions, that provides the plot of the gospel, or excuse me, of the Bible, of God's word. It applies so that if we were to take that.

In a Christian worldview,.

What is the thing that's always existed? Well, God, God's existed. You know, he says that in his word. He created everything. Genesis 1 and 2, it talks about that. And we are blessed, it was perfect, it was made good or very good.

The second, the problem, Genesis 3, sin. Sin entered into the world and now it's corrupted beyond recognition to some degree, but not completely distorted. To leading to, you know, the third question is, what is the solution?

And so from Genesis 4 through most of Revelation then, much of Revelation, that's the redemptive plan.

And as God's word,.

You know, is revealed, we can see that. We can see God working to save us, to redeem his people, to solve the problem. And then we have this hope of a new heaven and a new earth. A real, physical, perfect new heaven and earth.

And we'll go into that a little bit later today. So I started with this.

I want to remind you of the biblical worldview.

And we're looking at 10 ,000 feet, you fly over it, right, look down on it. So you see the forest through the trees. I think that's helpful. I think it helps you understand what's going on.

And then we're going to mine.

And we're going to look at some trees.

As we go into Mark.

Six months ago or so, I started preaching the gospel of Mark. And Mark, as such, you know, you can get the background, you can get the history there. You can go through that sermon if you're interested or read a commentary, find out some of the history.

He often uses words like and, and immediately, right? So the pace is fast. So remember that. The second thing, or today I should say like,.

Or the second thing I want to talk about,.

Like previously on in Mark, right? So if we were to go back and catch up on the show,.

Real quickly,.

John the Baptist is coming to the scene. Something different is happening. He says, wow, look, the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Then Jesus is baptized by John. He receives the Holy Spirit like a dove.

And then he's ushered into the wilderness. And that's where we were left off. And so in Mark, let's read God's holy word together. Turn to Mark chapter 1, verses 14 through 28. After Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days, he comes.

And this is what he says. This is what Mark records. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel. Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.

And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boats mending the nets. And immediately he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

And they went into Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one with, or who had authority, not as the scribes.

And immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit and he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silent and come out of him. And the unclean convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him. And they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying,.

What is this?

A new kind, a new teaching with authority? He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all of the surrounding region of Galilee. This is God's word.

Let's pray. Lord, you are the one who calls, the one who teaches. You truly are amazing. You think about your creation and how you started it all and you brought life into the world and you made it perfect.

And how you then set into motion the plan after sin entered. Boy, we long for the day when we can come and worship you without sin-tainted lives being perfect and holy. Lord, because of your righteousness.

I pray that as we worship you today that it would be, and as Dave and the band, they bring us to your throne, that it would be music to your ears, that it would be a sweet smell. Thank you for the time that we can come together and worship.

We can sit around your word and we can understand what your Holy Spirit illuminates. Thank you again for this time together. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

It is a privilege to worship with you guys and we sing in unison words of praise to God. That is glorious. That is something that we'll be doing in heaven someday. Those who call on the name of the Lord, that's wonderful.

But okay, so make yourself comfortable. If you need to get more coffee or donuts as supplies last, help yourself. The restrooms are through the doors down the hall to your left and then on your left. So as Don says, I'm not going to be distracted.

You can get up and go or come and whatever. Take care of your needs. That's fine. I do teach at a school locally and I'm kind of used to stuff happening. So don't worry about it. A quick outline for today's text.

Jesus' Ministry Begins: The Kingdom of God Is at Hand

You know, the first is Jesus' ministry begins and that's verses 14 and 15. Jesus, the caller, calling fishermen to become fishers of men, verses 16 through 20. And then Jesus, the teacher, demonstrates his authority, verses 21 through 28.

Jesus' ministry begins here and it's a proclamation. The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is here. In verses 14 and 15, Mark tells us that John the Baptist was arrested. Like, all of a sudden, like, here we go.

He's arrested. So this is the beginning of Jesus' ministry. John leaves. Jesus comes in. Just a few verses earlier, Mark saw that Jesus was baptized. Jesus received the Holy Spirit and John was now arrested.

His ministry is over. Like, his ministry is done. John the Baptist is over. Soon, eventually, in the text, we'll see, to be beheaded. Which is a reminder, nations and empires come and go. But you and I will live forever.

We live forever, okay? I study history. I see that.

You see that.

And God uses nations, as we talked about. But they're not eternal. You and I are. That's pretty amazing. It is amazing. So now let's go back to the broad worldview question I had at the beginning. You know, think about the biblical worldview as seen through the 66 books of the Bible.

Holy Spirit's a great author, right? There's such unity in the diversity there. It is beautiful. I would encourage you to read through the Bible in a year. Try it chronologically. It gets a little tough in some parts, you know, like Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.

But it is really cool if you can see that. The whole counsel of God and how He's moving through. It is encouraging. So we know God created everything and it was either good or very good. We know that we sinned and we wrecked it, okay?

Bummer. I mean, think about Adam and Eve. Like, just, you know, the big picture. Like, they experienced perfection. They experienced literally walking with God. Physically, okay? And then sin entered into the world, you know?

Like, unfortunately. Anyways, but God promises to deliver us, redeem us, to solve the problem by paying for the sin, bringing us back into relationship. You know, in Romans 1, 15 through 17, I think, the just will live by faith.

I mean, that's the gospel in a nutshell. That's good news. That's the gospel. That's encouraging. It's like, ah, sweet. Because if I try to do it, I'll fail. And then we have the hope. So Jesus came, right?

And that's what we're learning about. That's what we're studying in scripture. Jesus came to earth and He starts His ministry. Guys, He's coming again. He's coming again. And that's the ultimate fulfillment, you know, as we go through.

So He says the kingdom of God is here.

This is a big deal, right?

Him being here, that's a big deal in all of history, in all of humanity, okay? So I don't want us to lose sight of that. And that's why I started with worldviews. That's why I started with this idea overarching, like, here's what biblical worldview, kind of like flying over 10 ,000 feet, helps us understand.

It helps ground us. So with that in mind, Jesus said, the time is fulfilled.

It's fulfilled.

It's like someone waiting for the birth of a child. Now, it's been quite a while since my children were born, but I remember the anticipation of that. Or it's like my children, when they were waiting for Christmas, counting down the weeks and the days and the hours and the minutes, or their birthday.

Or like me and I know a couple of fans in here waiting for that Lions Super Bowl. The timing is perfect. The timing is, and Jesus comes, it's fulfilled, okay? So there's that expectation. And they recognize this.

It was just right for the kingdom of God. And listen, God's time, his timing is perfect. I mean, so the kingdom of God is here. The language here is like a herald announcing a regime change, but it's not.

It isn't like, oh, hey, a king passes away, and then, hey, we're announcing the new king, or an empire conquers another, and oh, hey, here's a new empire. And, you know, we see that historically all the time, but this is not like that earthly change in government.

Rather, this is a big event in God's redemptive history, in God's redemptive work. And this is the right time. Finally, the kingdom of God is here. The hope of Abraham, the hope of Moses and David, and you just name all of the people you can remember from the Old Testament, and like, their hope, it's finally here, right?

I think, in one sense, it's really cool that that we're on this side of it, and that's really cool. We can look back historically and see that. So we wait, expecting for the second coming and the final coming, where Jesus will establish a new heaven and a new earth, where sin and the powers of evil no longer will have an impact on us.

And John records this in Revelation, you know, kind of what to expect. In Revelation chapter 21, verses 1 through 4, you could read, you know, more and take in more, but I'm going to stop here. Here, it says, from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I, that's a beautiful picture of what we have to look forward to. Don't miss the connection between the kingdom of God is here. God said there in Revelation, like, hey, you'll be my people and I'll be your God.

We have that now. We have that now. Now, I know sin is still there. Sin, I mean, if anyone tells you they were sinless last week, they just probably sinned. So it's amazing to think about. That's our expectation.

That's going to be cool, right? Just like what Abraham was looking forward to, we look forward to that. But we are blessed to have the benefit of history. So what does Jesus say in the midst of all this?

He says, hey, repent, believe in the gospel, turn to God, repent. When you realize that you're a sinner, you know, that time when you said, wow, I'm jacked up. I need a savior. When you realize the filth that, you know, was in your heart and you came to God when God called you, you were changed, right?

And some of you, you go like, yeah, I had a joy that I had never and a peace that I had never. You have that. The kingdom of God is here. So repent, declare your allegiance to God. Do you believe God?

Do you believe him? Do you trust him? When he says, like, follow me, right? We'll get to that in a minute. But do you trust him? It's easy to say it. It's harder to do, okay? In fact, Joe Newton, I love one of the quotes.

He's a famous cross country coach in Illinois. He's passed away. But he said, one quote from him is like, hey, talk is cheap. Dirt is free. Don't tell me, show me, right? So our faith in God, like, talk is cheap.

But if it comes from your heart, the Holy Spirit's worked in you and you are alive again, repent, put him at the center of your life. Repent, put him on the throne. In contrast, we've seen false repentance, right?

You've seen people repent, like, oh yeah, I'm not doing that anymore. And I love the one commentary, just a really fun example from Huck Finn about his alcoholic pappy. And so, you know, Mark Twain writes this about a type of repentance that's false.

It says, And that night, he got drunker than he had ever been before. If his true repentance is from the heart, it comes from the heart, the Holy Spirit working on you. And that's been my prayer. Like, as the word goes out today, his word, I pray that it will touch fertile soil to reference, you know, a parable that we just learned about.

Declare your allegiance to God. That's what we celebrated with the baptisms a few weeks ago. That's what we have, actually, a celebration coming up. So if, like, you want to make that statement publicly, you know what, I am turning to God.

He, I'm going to die with Jesus, raise again. You know, sign up, you know, be baptized. If God is calling you today to join Him, follow Him, you know, you are on the winning side. It may not look like it here and now as we struggle through the world that we live in that's been tainted by sin.

But you are on the winning side. So turn away from putting anything above God on the throne of your life, whether it's, I mean, we don't, we're good at it, putting other things there. Sin, self, spouse, friends, sports, entertainment, church.

There's so many things you could put on the throne other than God. And he's saying, repent, follow me.

Right?

Believe the gospel. This is an important reason I believe that community groups are critical. You know, and we do promote them. They'll kind of be a big push in the fall. But if you are not known by others here and don't know others, it's going to be real difficult to grow.

It's going to be very difficult to battle sin. One of the things I appreciate with some of the great relationships I have here is that accountability. And just openness. This is part of keeping God's center.

You know, we're here for a reason to help one another grow in Christ. This is the good news of the gospel, right? That we can be saved, that you can have a relationship, you can walk with God, and he will walk with you.

That is beautiful. So the kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is at hand. Even though we wait for another time when it'll be perfect. The second part, you know, so real quick, Jesus inaugurates his ministry.

Jesus Calls Fishermen to Follow Him

Second part, he calls some disciples. And these four disciples, they're your average Joe. Now, so I coach cross country and track at the school. And so I'll go recruit, right? And I'll make a call. It's like, hey, such and such a person, right?

I'll say their name. Hey, follow me. And I'll make you runners of races. And like, let me tell you, it's been less effective than what we see here with Jesus, okay? Especially running. Like, oh, hey, why don't you come and be tortured for a while?

Yeah, sign me up. I'd rather shoot a hoop or whatever. Anyways, okay, so that side, notice side. Jesus moves along the Sea of Galilee and he sees some fishermen and they're fishing, right? Calls a couple of pairs of men, Simon and Andrew, and then James and John.

You know, I'm not going to make a ton of, a big deal about the fact that some were, the first two were fishing in the shallow water. They're just in the, you know, they're fishing. And the others were in their boat.

You're mending the nets and, you know, fixing things. So obviously some maybe were a little more well off than others. But they were essentially all small business owners and they were doing their work.

They were fishing. They were mending the nets. They were making preparations for more fishing. They were casting. They were what I would call, they were embracing the grind, right? I mean, I imagine that at least.

Just doing their thing, daily task. Like maybe you and I, we go to work and we do our thing. And this is nothing spectacular, but yet they're called to something spectacular. And so Simon and Andrew, they hear Jesus say,.

Or call,.

I'm not a fisherman, but I have fished. And from what I can gather, it takes a lot of skill to be good at it. Now, I have a good friend and he's really good at it. He's a good angler. But they're good enough to make a living at it.

And they're working and they're making it happen. Jesus' sovereign call, it's a sovereign call. And I think it's one distinction I want to make between what you would see prophets in the Old Testament.

They would make a call like gathering sheep or gathering in a harvest and they would call people to God. Notice what Jesus is doing. He says, follow me. This call is definitely different. This is not, you know, like my call for runners.

This is definitely a sovereign call here. And so we have the response, which is amazing to think about. The response goes, they don't count the cost. It was immediate. They don't say, hey, I need to pray about it a little bit.

Let me just take a pause. It's immediate. Listen, we live in a world where you always do cost-benefit analysis. I'm going to come into church and I'm going to do this. I'm going to make that decision.

That's the world that we live in. That's really, I think, a result of sin. But it's real and it's not necessarily wrong. They didn't count the cost. They responded to the call. So they didn't understand that necessarily all they were signing up for.

And Mark doesn't record a lot of the details. You could read others. So I want to stay true to what Mark is saying. Like, hey, listen, Jesus called and they answered. I just want to leave it there, right?

So you can look at other gospels and kind of see some different information. But John puts it another way, this calling. As he's, as Jesus is bringing it to, bringing the hammer to Laodicea in Revelation.

And, you know, there's words like spitting out.

And lukewarm and like,.

There's just like, oof, this is not good. But he says this in Revelation 3, verse 20. It says, And he with me. This is the friendship, a relationship. This is a wonderful hospitality type picture.

Hey, let's eat together.

Let's, let's have relationship together. I'm standing and knocking. Come, open the door. Do you want to dine with Jesus? Or do you feel like, do you feel like, you know, before we dine, I need to clean.

I need to sweep. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to, you know, get stuff ready. Listen, that's a natural inclination. I'm the same. I'm like, okay, I'll follow you when this, when I get this done or that done.

Or I would encourage you to listen to the Holy Spirit's call. If he's calling you to whatever, I don't know, I can't imagine. Follow, follow him. If you're going to count the cost, I think Jim Elliot said it best when he said he is no fool to give up what he cannot keep for what he cannot lose.

So if you are being called, whether it's to salvation or, I don't know, respond like Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Respond like that. Discipleship is, by Jesus' own words, not easy. Being a disciple is not a self-improvement program.

It's a self-denial program. It's a call for service. Jesus said in Matthew 8, he goes, hey, if you're a disciple of mine, you're not going to have a life of ease. You're not going to have a life of ease.

And then in John 15, he said, 18 through 20, he said, the world's going to hate you. Are you greater than Jesus? Are you greater than him? No. See, they persecuted me, they will also persecute you, verse 20.

That's the sobering reality, okay, of discipleship. A little bit of a disconnect, I'll be honest. I can follow Jesus and I don't feel like I've suffered. I don't feel like I've been persecuted. Okay, I'll be honest.

We can anticipate times and we can see things and, you know, you can maybe see where it could happen. But I'll confess that here. Well, they left their nets, their wealth, their families. They followed Jesus.

They followed Jesus' authoritative call. Think about that call versus the call of God in Genesis, like end of chapter 3, in verse 9, actually, God's calling out to Adam and Eve after they had eaten the fruit, after they have sinned.

What's their response? They hide, they're in shame. Totally different response, okay? Praise God that the gospel today, we can follow God. We can actually respond to God. In the Holy Spirit, we can actually walk with Him now and Jesus can take our shame.

Jesus can take our sin as He did on the cross. We live in an exciting time, to be honest. We can look back at the cross. We can have shritty, like that happened. He doesn't, He isn't still there, okay?

The tomb is empty. Like we have that. And if you're kind of that doubting, that's why Thomas said, hey, I gotta touch you. Like, listen, I won't, right? I gotta, we have that in scripture to like, for people that like, that's what they need.

God is so gracious. He gives us all that we need. So Jesus calls, I mean, I have prayers that you and that I would be quick to follow. The last segment, Jesus, the teacher, demonstrates His authority in verses 21 through 28.

Jesus Teaches with Authority and Casts Out an Unclean Spirit

The final section here we're going to look at is Jesus goes to the synagogue. Now, interestingly, you might think, and I thought, kind of like, as I was thinking about this, it might make sense to go to the synagogue to call your disciples.

This might be the place that you have the people that know scripture, they're the teachers. He did not. Okay, now what He's going to go there and do is really interesting. But I just, that thought kind of went through my mind.

He called the fishermen. Mark tells us in verses 21 through 22 that He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath and taught. And we don't know what He taught. We don't know the content. But we do know He taught as one with authority.

And I think of, I think I can relate when I think about my experience, I go to a seminar, I go to some training, and you may have done that as well, to learn about, you know, for me, I might go to a coaching seminar and learn some, you know, some training techniques.

Like, and the names like Pavel or Igloy or Bauer or, you know, Lydia, excuse me. Those names rise to the surface and you're probably saying, like, I have no idea who those people are. Listen, okay, so maybe like Wooden in basketball, if he were still alive, or Landry in football.

Like, he's going to talk to you about football. You know, he's an expert. Like, he's forgotten. Like, they have forgotten more about their area of expertise than I know, which isn't much, necessarily, maybe.

But that is, that's the type of expertise I imagine Jesus going into, which makes sense. Who created the world? Sunday school answer? Yeah, Jesus. Yeah, I mean, he created the world. So it makes sense that he would know and that he'd be the expert.

Like, he could actually say all of the Pentateuch. He could probably recite the prophets to them. I mean, like, he wrote it. I would think he would be the expert. So I think that's something that is noted in the synagogue.

He teaches as one with authority. Yeah, it makes sense. So how amazing is that? So he can rightfully teach with authority and at the same time call fishermen. In all humility, these are the people, you humble fishermen, kind of average, I'm going to use you.

He can use me and you. We see Jesus coming back to redeem his people. It's no wonder that he teaches with authority. He is working his redemptive plan, something that angels marvel at, actually, the cross and the redemptive plan.

In verses 23 through 27, it's a little more difficult to handle. If you have a worldview that is a materialist worldview, you're going to, like, dismiss it. And that's why I said, you know, Proverbs, the reverence to Proverbs I made, like, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Your assumptions will do matter. And so this biblical worldview, in our postmodern eyes or in our modern eyes, you know, we could say, yeah, yeah, there's this guy causing a ruckus.

Probably, probably psychological health is an issue.

Probably, you know,.

I mean, that's how we can rationalize it. That's what you would assume. So it can really color. And we can look back in history and say, oh, man, those backward people, like, wow, they just were so much more advanced, you know.

That, as C .S. Lewis puts it, that chronological snobbery is rampant. I could see it regularly. The other side is not good either. Like, you look back and say, they were so much better. No, they were sinners too.

They were, I mean, they were, they're made of dirt also, like you and I. You know, they're not better. So you look back on nostalgia, with nostalgia, the good old days. They really weren't always so good.

Okay, so your perspective, you look at this text because we have a biblical worldview. God created a material world, physical world that we can touch and feel, and we look forward to a new body that's physically real.

But yet, there is an invisible realm. There's a realm that, as Paul will put it in Ephesians 6, 10 through 12. You guys know this passage. That's where the battle is, is fought. In Ephesians 6, 10 through 12, he says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

What is our weapon in battle? Prayer. Prayer. Because we don't, I mean, I can bring, well, I can bring the sword.

I can bring the word, right?

Sword of the Spirit. And I can, I can, you know, and so definitely become skilled at that, right? Know the word. But prayer is that place where we do battle. A non-biblical worldview can't, can't get there like we can.

And it's cohesive and it's consistent. So we need to cultivate that attitude of prayer daily. You need to set aside time. Okay, all that. Like I'm not gonna, you know, you evaluate whether are you walking with the Lord?

Cool.

Prayer is good.

Cool.

If not, pray more.

I don't know.

Pray when you drive. Pray without ceasing, it says. So a demon-possessed man, he comes, he causes a ruckus. And this demon has control of the man and he speaks through him saying, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?