Well, good morning, everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter nine,
continue our study, and Lord willing, finish up the chapter,
Mark chapter nine this morning. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent, is your matchless name. Father, we've gathered
here together this morning in your name. We've gathered together
to hear word from you. We've gathered together to worship,
praise, and exalt your name, to exalt the name of your son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray you send your
spirit upon us and enable us to truly worship you from the
heart this morning. It is our constant plea that
you would Deliver us from just going through the motions of
religion. And Father, enable us to truly worship from the
heart. With the eye of faith, see our Lord Jesus Christ, believe
Him, rest in Him, be thrilled at the sound of His gospel. And what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for our children's classes, and Father, we pray for your
people wherever they're meeting together today. Father, show
us your glory in this dark and difficult day. Father, show us
your glory. Reveal your redemptive glory
in the person of your son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we would
pray that you'd send a great revival in the land, that you
would, in a great and miraculous way, call out your people through
the preaching of the gospel. Father, I thank you for this
place. I thank you for this family of believers that you've called
together. Father, I pray that you would increase our love for
thee and one for another. Enable us to be a help and encouragement
to each other. And Father, we dare not forget
to pray for your people that you brought into the time of
trouble and trial. We pray that you would give them
a fulfillment of your promise that your grace is sufficient
and that you would deliver them as soon as it could be thy will.
All these things we ask and we give thanks in that name which
is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Now I titled the lesson this
morning, Have Peace One With Another. And the subject that
the Lord is teaching in the verses we'll look at this morning is
found at the very end of verse 50. when the Savior says, have
salt in yourselves and have peace one with another. That's the
subject, have peace one with another. Now I want us to look
back at verse 38 and see what it is that brought on this conversation,
this teaching from the Lord. In verse 38, and John answered
him saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name,
and he fouleth not us. And we forbade him, we told him
quit it, because he followeth not us. Now here is a man, we
don't know who he is, where he came from, we don't know how
it is that he ever came to know the Lord Jesus, but this man
was casting out devils in the name of Christ and they were
actually being cast out. And he was doing what he was
doing in the name of Christ. He was doing this by the power
of Christ and for the glory of Christ the Savior. but he wasn't
part of John's little clique. He wasn't part of the 12, and
John just did not want this man getting any recognition for doing
what he was doing. I don't know that there's anything
that irritates me more in God's church than cliques. Cliques
are what you find in middle school where you got a bunch of people
who are immature. They should never be found in
God's church. But they are. They are. And we should fight against being
in one of those cliques for all that we're worth. Because what
the Lord's gonna show us here is these cliques keep us from
having peace one with another. They keep us from having peaceful
fellowship with each other. John did not want this man who
was outside of his little clique, outside of the 12, to get recognition
for doing what he was doing. Now you see how deadly that is
to peace and fellowship? It's so wrong, isn't it? This
man, he was not following the disciples. He was not one of
them, but he was following Christ. He was following Christ. He did
believe Christ. He must have, because he was
doing what he was doing in the name of Christ. And because of
John's attitude, John missed out on fellowship with this man.
He missed out on a peaceful relationship with this man. And our Lord forbade
that kind of clique. And he gives us five very good
reasons to avoid these cliques and to have peace one with another.
Number one is this, strive to have peace one with another for
Christ's sake. Look what the Lord says in verse
39. 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. Now this man was casting out
devils in Christ's name. He's not gonna speak evil of
Christ. What this means is doing this in Christ's name means he's
doing it by the power of Christ. It's not his own power. He's
doing it by the power of Christ and he's doing it for the glory
of Christ. This man was not doing this to try to get glory to himself.
It was for Christ's sake. And he actually was casting out
devils. He wasn't using a magician's
sleight of hand to get you thinking he's doing something he's not.
He was really casting these devils out. He really was. You need
to think of the help that that was to people who were possessed
of a devil. I mean, what a help this man
was. And he was doing it in the name of Christ. People had to
ask, tell me about this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ,
tell me about him. Now I ask you, I mean if you
think about this reasonably, why on earth would you want to
stop somebody who's doing something for Christ's glory? Why would
you want to stop somebody? I'll tell you why John wanted
to stop doing it, wanted him to stop. It's pride of flesh. It's pride wanting the glory
for our little clique. Somebody else is getting something
I'm not. Somebody else is getting some
recognition that I'm not. Now this is something we need
to always remember. This life is not our party. It's not our party. This life,
for the believer, what we do here and how we interact with
one another, everything we do here, it's not about us. The issue is always Christ. Everything that we do and everything
that we do, we should always be thinking, how will this bring
glory to Christ and not me? If the motive is to bring glory
and recognition and honor to me, it's wrong. And if the motive
is to bring glory to Christ, it's right. No matter how you
stumble around trying to do it, it's right because Christ is
the issue. I wish we would always remember
that. The issue is what will turn every eye and every heart
to Christ. Not to me, not to follow me,
not to grow our little clique. What will turn every eye to Christ? That's always the issue. Really,
it's the only issue. And if we would remember that
the issue is always Christ, we'll have a real good idea of what
we're supposed to do in every situation we're faced with. We
really will. And here's something else about
promoting peace. Have peace one with another.
Promote peace one with another for Christ's sake, for the sake
of the gospel. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians
7, verse 15, that God hath called us to peace. This is the gospel
of peace. And by his gospel, he has called
us to peace. He's called us to peace with
God through the blood of Christ. And he's called us to peace with
one another because believers are all part of the same family.
We're all part of the same body. The gospel is never about keeping
someone out. I hate that. I see that attitude
sometimes in people that, oh, we're gonna keep these Armenians
out. We're gonna keep these people out. The gospel's never about
keeping someone out. The command of the gospel is
come. In the book of Revelation, the
cry of the bride is come, come to Christ, come with us. Come with us to the throne of
grace. Come with us to believe Christ and rest in him. And especially
where sheep are concerned, sheep are not supposed to be separated.
Sheep flock together and we're to do it peaceably. Look at Ephesians
chapter two. If you're gonna have these cliques
and these, little separations and little groups, you're gonna
have to build some walls, aren't you? You're gonna have to build
some walls to keep people out and keep them separate from us.
And the gospel is never about separating believers. It's never
about building walls between us. Now I know this, the Lord's
gonna separate the goats from the sheep. That's the Lord's
work though, isn't it? He told us, don't you go trying
to separate them, you'll do it wrong. Don't go trying to tear,
pull up the tares among the wheat, you'll do it wrong. This separating
is the Lord's business. We're not to try to separate
believers and build walls. Tell you what that is, it's fleshly.
It's never spiritual. Ephesians 2 verse 11. Wherefore
remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, see
this division is a fleshly thing, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, it's made by hands,
that at that time you are without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world. But now, now, see
now we're gonna be done with this fleshly thing. Now in Christ
Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the
blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who hath made both one. broken down the middle wall of
partition between us. We're not to build walls. There
was a wall there and Christ tore it down. This was a fleshly division
and Christ tore it down. Having abolished in his flesh
the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for making
himself of twain, one new man, so making peace. So making peace. When people start building walls
between believers and start dividing believers, there's something
seriously, seriously wrong. When believers are not at peace,
one with another, it's because of the flesh. That's all it is. They've created these little
cliques and the Lord tells us how wrong that is. Look back
in Mark chapter nine, verse 40. The Lord says, if this man is
doing miracles in my name, he's not gonna speak evil of me. For he that is not against us,
It's on our part. Whoever it is, it's not against
us, it's for us. Whoever is not against the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace. Now, you know there are people
who are against it and we'll have to have separation with
them. But if somebody's not against the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace, they're with us. They're part of us. Now, there's no neutral ground
here. The Lord's not saying, oh, we
just accept everybody. We can never accept false religion. We can never compromise with
false religion because there's no neutral ground. There's one
of two stances. You're either for Christ or against
him. You're either for his gospel or against him. That's the only
two stances that there are. So we can never tolerate false
religion. We can never tolerate that self-righteousness
and compromise with it, never. But this is equally true. We
should never be intolerant and unaccepting of true faith and
true worship of Christ. Just because somebody is not
part of our little clique. When there's somebody that believes
the gospel, they're for the gospel. They're for the gospel of Christ.
They're for his glory. They're striving for his glory.
You and I should bend over backward to have peace with them. because
we're worshiping the same Savior. We believe the same Savior. We
love and believe the same Savior. We should bend over backward
to have peace with them. They're not against us. They're
for us. And if you think about it, going
through this world for a believer, I reckon for anybody, but especially
for a believer, going through this world is hard. I mean, it's
just hard. One day this week, I came out
of the study and everything I tried to do that day, it was a failure. I mean, I didn't get one blessed
thing done that day. I failed in the study, I couldn't
get anything done, I couldn't get a message, I was trying to
do some other things that needed to be done, I failed in that.
I told Janet, why is everything so hard? I mean, this life is
hard. We always, and this is for the
believer, we're always fighting the flesh. Always. I mean, besides
the thorns and thistles that just come up in this world because
of the curse of Adam's sin, we're always fighting the flesh. And
I'm not really talking about other people's, I'm talking about
mine. We're always fighting the flesh. The flesh never quits,
it never gives up, it never surrenders. That's a hard road. Well, let's
not make the way harder by fighting with each other. Let's make the
way easier by having peace with each other. Let's look for ways
to help one another, to make the road easier instead of putting
up stumbling blocks in the road. Look for ways to have peace with
one another for Christ's sake, for the sake of his body, for
the sake of his gospel. I'm just sure of this. that we
will be able to serve Christ and serve his people a whole
lot better if we're not fussing and fighting with each other
and we have peace one with another. I'm sure that's true. Seek it
for Christ's sake. Number two, strive to have peace
one with another, because you know what? It just doesn't take
much to promote peace. Look what the Lord says in verse
41. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in
my name, because you belong to Christ. Verily I say unto you,
he shall not lose his reward. It just doesn't take much to
make peace. It just doesn't take much for somebody to do something
that just refreshes you. Somebody gives you a glass of
cold water on a hot summer day, or gives Sandy a cup of hot water
maybe, when she's so cold, that's so refreshing. It's a little
thing. It sure made a difference. How
can you be mad at somebody when they're trying to refresh you?
They're trying to do something nice for you. And especially
if the motive is this, the Lord says, if you do something for
me because we're both children of God, God, the Savior says,
you're not gonna lose your Lord. Now there's a blessing in that.
If you make an honest effort to help somebody simply because
you know they're a child of God, You will gain every time. You
absolutely will. Now, the Lord here talks about
the reward. And what he's talking about is
the reward of grace. And that's first and foremost.
Anytime you think about a reward for a believer, it's always the
reward of grace. You know, the word rewards, plural,
is never found in scripture relating to the believer, ever. Every time the word rewards,
plural, is used in scripture, It's always referring to the
wicked, to the unbeliever, about rewards. But for the believer,
there's one reward. There's one. It's the reward
of grace. And the believer has this reward
because it's being given to us, being given to us freely by God's
grace, not because of anything we've done to earn it, because
of what the Lord Jesus Christ did, what he earned for his people. That's our reward. The reward
of grace is being given eternal life. righteousness, holiness,
peace with God, all because of what Christ earned for us. Never
because of what we did, always because of what the Savior earned
for us. Our reward of grace is Christ
himself. Just exactly like our brother
Abraham. Abram, I am thy exceeding great
reward. Our reward is Christ himself.
And no believer can ever lose the reward of grace because God's
given it to his children, given it to them freely. It's like
it's an inheritance. It's a reward of grace, not something
we earned. Well, if we didn't earn it by
our works, we can't lose it by our works either. It's given
by grace. But the Lord is teaching something
else here. He's not teaching rewards in heaven or anything
like that based upon our works. There can't be anything more
contrary to salvation by grace than rewards in heaven. It's
a wicked thing. But here's what the Lord's teaching.
You can have a blessing on this earth. And you know how you get
the blessing? It's not by somebody doing for
you. The believer gets the blessing by doing for someone else, by
serving one another for Christ's sake. Now, you know this is true. When you sacrifice and you do
something to help, a brother or sister who receives the greater
blessing. Normally, you'll find it's the
one who did the giving, the one who did the helping. Certainly
the one who does the receiving will say, well, I sure needed
that. Thank you, that was helpful.
But the one who did the giving is gonna be blessed too. You're
not ever going to lose out by doing for someone else. You're
just not gonna do it. And you know why it'll be a blessing
to you? Because God gives his people the nature of a child
of God who loves to give rather than receive. So don't worry
about sacrificing to help someone else. You do what it takes to
promote peace. I promise you, you'll get a blessing
from it. I promise you. All right, number three is this. Strive to have peace with one
another. Because the last thing you want to do is offend another
child of God. Verse 42, and whosoever shall
offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it's better
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he
were cast into the sea. You'd be better off dying than
offending one of God's children. Now the Lord's teaching several
things here. He's talking about the believers
union with Christ. Union is such a vital teaching
of the gospel. You can't understand the gospel.
You can't understand how it is that men were made sinners or
God's people are made righteous without understanding this thing
of union. And the believers union with
Christ. This is not some abstract doctrinal
teaching. This is real. The believer is
what Christ is. We're part of his body. And since
that's true, The Lord says, whatever it is you do to one of his little
ones, you do to me. Whatever it is we do to God's
children, however it is that we treat one another, is how
you're treating Christ himself. Now I would imagine there's nobody
here that would disagree with that statement. I believe I said
this last week, if we really believe that, if we really believed
it, we would be very careful how we treat one another, and
we would promote peace one with another. No child of God wants
to be found opposing our Savior, and we don't want to do that,
and when we oppose his children, we set up these cliques and these
divisions, that's what we're doing, we're opposing his children.
Now, we don't want to be found doing that, and the Lord's not
gonna cast us off, we're not gonna lose our salvation for
doing it because we don't treat one another right. But you know,
just like you get a blessing by helping one of God's children. You'll get a blessing from that,
you really will. The flip side of that's also true. If you're
making God's people miserable, you're gonna be miserable too.
You absolutely will. You just can't enjoy peace with
God when we're doing things to promote strife and envy and divisions
with one another. We'll have, if we have peace
with one another, then we can enjoy peace with God. Every believer
has peace with God, don't we? He made peace by the blood of
his cross. It's done. But we're not gonna
enjoy it when we don't have peace with each other. All right, number
four. Strive to have peace one with
another because it's so important to our Father. Verse 43. He says,
if thy hand offend thee, cut it off, for it's better for thee
to enter into life maimed than having two hands and go to hell
into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend
thee, cut it off, for it is better for thee to enter, halt into
life than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched. where their worm dieth not, and
the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee,
pluck it out, for it's better for thee to enter into the kingdom
of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell
fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For everyone shall be salted
with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Now
the main thing what the Lord's teaching here is the importance
of casting our idols away. No matter how precious they are
to you, no matter how long you've been attached to them, cast those
idols out and trust Christ alone. The Lord is not teaching, I know
nobody here would do this, I hope nobody on this recording would
do this, but listen, the Lord is not teaching us to mutilate
our bodies. Mutilating your body and cutting off some body part
will not make you more spiritual or more holy. That's not what
the Lord's teaching. What he is teaching is this.
We better quit trusting in any idol. I don't care how dear it
is to us. And you know, mostly when, when
somebody uses the word idol, if you're like me, this is what
I think about. I think about a little stone statue or something
like that, you know, that somebody bows down to. And certainly that's
an idol. But I tell you the idol that
we have the most problem with, me. My works, my self-righteousness,
there is nothing more pleasing to this flesh than trusting my
own works, trusting my own morality, trusting my own religious knowledge.
We just love it. I mean, we love that as much
as we love our right arm. Tell you what, we're better off
without those works, without that morality, without all that
knowledge, if it makes us not trust Christ alone. And where
we see it, we better be casting it out. We better be casting
it out. Cut it off. I don't care how
painful it is to you. Cut it off. I love what Brother
Don Fortner said in his commentary on this. He said, we must go
to the cemetery and bury our idols. and the sooner the better. We cannot enjoy peace with God
without denying self, without denying the spiritual pleasures
that this flesh has in trusting our own works. And the reason that this warning
is so important is hell is full of people who would not quit
trusting in their own works. in their own isles. They refuse
to trust Christ and they're suffering eternally for it. You know, nothing
feels better to the flesh than trusting our own works, our own
righteousness, our own morality. And nothing is more damning to
the soul. Nothing brings more pleasure to the flesh and nothing
is more damning to the soul than self-righteousness. And the Lord
tells us some things about hell here. I would just completely skip
it if I could. Because the thought of hell is more than the human mind can
comprehend. But the Lord does tell us about
it. It's a real place. With real people in it. And it's
eternal. The suffering there never ends. When the Lord talks about them
being salted with fire, what he means is Their body is preserved
just like salt is a preservative. Their bodies are preserved so
that they never die. The punishment that would kill
us in this life will not kill somebody there. It never ends.
And the reason for it, the only reason for it, is they refuse
to trust Christ. They just refuse to cast out
the idol of trusting in themselves and hell is full of people just
like that. Now let's promote peace. one
with another. And here's the last thing. Strive
to have peace one with another because of the pleasantness of
peace. In verse 50, the Lord says, salt is good, but if the
salt has lost his saltness, wherewith shall you season it? Have salt
in yourselves and have peace one with another. Now, in the
book of Numbers, I did not know this, I was studying this this
week, the Lord talks about peace with God through the sacrifice
that's part of God's covenant. You know what he calls it? The
covenant of salt. I was reading that and I thought,
well, I thought he'd say that the covenant of grace, but he
said the covenant of salt. And the reason for it is the
same thing, the covenant of salt and the covenant of grace. And
the Lord tells His disciples, now you be sure that you have
this salt in you, this preserving power, this preserving presence
of God the Holy Spirit, this preserving presence of God's
saving grace. You be sure it's in you. Don't
just have a mere profession of faith in Christ. It's an outward
profession of faith in Christ. See that it's in you. See that
it's genuine, that God's put it in you. There's hardly a day goes by
that I'm not in the study, and I just don't stop and pray,
Lord, don't let me be one of those who come to you and said,
but Lord, I preached in your name. You did many wonderful
works in your name. Lord, save me. Lord, forgive
me. Lord, give me life. Lord, bind
me to you. Make sure you don't just have
a mere profession of faith in Christ, but that you believe
Him, that you believe that it's genuine. And just like salt preserves
meat, the salt of God's grace preserves God's people, sanctifies
them, makes them holy. But you know what else salt does?
It just flat makes food taste better. It just always amazes
me when you're baking something sweet, how often you put salt
in it. I mean, it even makes sweet stuff
taste better. When we're talking to one another, let's season
our speech. Season the way we talk to one
another with grace. Be gracious. It's so much easier
to get along with somebody when you're being gracious. Well,
you be gracious first, then hopefully they'll follow your lead, you
know. It just tastes better. Grace tastes better than the
bitterness of this flesh and the bitterness of division. It
tastes better, doesn't it? Kind words just promote peace. Use them, use them. And if we
do that, we'll enjoy the pleasantness of peace. Just like I told you
earlier, Christ has made peace for his people by the blood of
his cross. It's done. But we can enjoy that peace,
the pleasantness of it, a whole lot more when we promote peace
with each other. Isn't it pleasant? It's so pleasant
for me to come in here on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights
and see you all. God's given us peace here. He's
given us a peaceable, pleasant attitude. Let's see that we don't
lose it. It's so pleasant. The only reason
for it is God's grace. We can't take any credit for
it, can we? It's all God's grace. We can't take any credit for
it, but we sure can enjoy it, and we sure can strive for it,
and I hope that's what the Lord will enable us to do. All right,
Lord bless you.