If you have your bibles, turn to mark 938.
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You know, it's really great I get to see my little cousin up here singing. I didn't even know she could sing until today.
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Please stand for the reading of the gospel. Mark 938. John said to Jesus, teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us. But Jesus said, do not stop him, for no one who does the deed of power in my name will soon be able to do evil afterward. Whoever is not against us is for us.
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For truly, I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose the reward. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me. It would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.
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And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have 2ft and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than have two eyes and to be thrown into hell where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire.
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Salt is good. But if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus, thank you for your word.
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We pray today that your holy spirit would come among us and fill our hearts. Give us understanding, Lord, in your name I pray. Amen. You may be seated.
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If you were here last week, then you may remember that my father preached about the disciples and their selfishness. They were arguing about who was the greatest. In today's text, we see the same thing. The disciples tell Jesus that someone was casting out demons in his name. He started to think, man, you know, that's great.
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Jesus ministry is spreading and it's growing, and people are using his name to heal people. But they told him to stop. And they told this man that he needed to stop casting out demons in Jesus name. Why? The disciples say it was because he was not following them.
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Notice they said, the man was not following us. The disciples thought that they were also ones to follow, that they were in some secret club. That nobody could be a part of except through them. They obviously thought pretty highly of themselves because they had just finished arguing about who was the greatest, but they were wrong. Ultimately, Jesus is the one we followed.
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We must trust in and follow Jesus himself. It is in his name that there is power. It was his name that the unidentified disciple invoked, but because he didn't go through the disciples, because they didn't know about him, because it wasn't the formal structure that they thought was set up, he was not apart as far as they were concerned. If we go back to earlier in the chapter, we can find another reason that they told him to stop. The disciples themselves had just failed to cast out a demon in the same chapter.
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Imagine you're trying to do something at your job and you just try and you try and you try and you just cannot get it. And then somebody comes up and they just do it immediately without training. I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't think that that would make me like them very much. The disciples, they felt the same way in their minds. This random guy had just shown up and showed them up.
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Their ego was hurt be