Well, turn with me in your Bibles this morning to Mark chapter 6. We'll only be looking at the first six verses of chapter 6. Let's look to our God in prayer as we begin. Our Father, we thank you that we can come here into your presence and with your word open before us that you can Teach us Yourself by Your Spirit through this Your Word. You can take my poor words and make them rich. You can take Your powerful Word and penetrate every heart. And so help us, we pray, as we study the subject of unbelief this morning and the great hindrance it is to men's salvation and also to our growth in our faith, our growth in our salvation. Help us, we pray, to learn the lessons of unbelief, to see where we need to change, each one of us, and to walk closely and humbly with you. Help us, Lord, not to blame you for any lack on our part, whether it's our own simpleness or whether it's our making progress in righteousness. But help us, Lord, to see our own hearts clearly. And help us to exercise that faith that you build into our lives as the author and perfecter of it. To the glory of your name, for we pray in Jesus' blessed name. Amen. Mark chapter 6, verses 1 to 6, then Jesus went out from there and came to his own country. And his disciples followed him. And when the Sabbath had come, he began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to him, that such mighty works are performed by his hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us, so they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house. Now he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them, and he marveled because of their unbelief. Then he went about the villages in a circuit teaching." Well, coming into chapter 6 of Mark, we find that there is a great contrast between the last chapter and this chapter. In the last chapter, there were many indications of faith at work in the hearts of people who Jesus touched and who touched him. But in this chapter, we find that Jesus is confronted with unbelief at every turn. In chapter 5, Jesus encouraged the newfound faith of the man who had been possessed with a demon, leading him to go back home and speak of the great things that God had done for him. He heard the words of the woman with the issue of blood confessing that if she just thought to herself, if I can just touch his garment, then I shall be healed. And she was. And he heard the words of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, whose little daughter lay dying, say, come and lay your hands on my daughter and she'll be healed and she will live. And not only did Jesus come to his house to heal her, he ended up doing the greater miracle yet. He raised her from the dead. It's when faith is at work in our hearts that great things happen to us and great things can be done. Such mighty workings which the Lord Jesus did with so much power and grace which flowed from him. They drew crowds of people to Him. And they listened also to Him preach. And they came to be healed by Him. And when He talked to Jairus, He just simply preached to Jairus the shortest of sermons. He said, don't be afraid. Only believe. And yet, how much is in these words? Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. With faith, all things are possible with God. But now we find our Lord Jesus in a different city. It says that he came to his own country with his disciples. His own country was Nazareth, the city in which Joseph and Mary settled after Jesus was born. He was born in Bethlehem, according to the prophecy in the book of Micah. He, however, was raised in Nazareth, the city which Nathanael referred to in John chapter 1, verse 45. It says there that Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip said, Come and see. Well, Nazareth was not a spiritual stronghold. It was hard ground, spiritually speaking. If you traveled around and you were able to take the pulse, the spiritual pulse and temperature of various cities in that day, you would find that there were some cities that were more receptive to the Lord Jesus and to spiritual things and others. In some towns and cities, the crowds were almost near to breaking the door down where Jesus would stay in order that they could find help, they could find healing from Him, and listen to His words. But where pride and prejudice ruled in the heart, there Christ found no welcome. And what is most amazing in this passage is the statement in verse 6 where it says, and he marveled because of their unbelief. Now you would think that being the son of God, that because of his deity, he being God made man fast in the flesh, that he would never marvel over anything in man. After all, he knew everything that was in man, he says, in one place. And there's the fullness of wisdom and knowledge found in him. But it is because he was and is a man, and because he did have the feelings and thoughts of human nature in his being, just as you and I do, that he marveled over their unbelief. Jesus is only said to have marveled over men's faith in two places in the Scripture. The one positive instance of his marveling is found in regard to the centurion in Matthew chapter 8 verse 5. The centurion, who was the man who came to Jesus seeking for the healing of his servant, who was dreadfully tormented by paralysis. And Jesus had said that he would come and heal him. But the centurion said, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof, but only speak the word. And he will be healed. And then he goes on to say, For I am a man under authority, having soldiers unto me. And I say to this one, Go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. And it says, Jesus, when he heard that, it says he marveled and said to those who were following him, Assuredly, I say to you that I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. So Jesus marveled at the greatness of this man's faith because he believed that Jesus could heal his servant by his word alone. And Jesus is still doing this today through the preaching of his word and the salvation of people's souls. I wonder if you believe that. We need to marvel over the centurion's faith but we need to think about our own faith and that's what we're going to do. our own faith either or lack of that faith. We must ask ourselves the question, this question, what is it that Jesus was marveling over in regard to the unbelief of these people at Nazareth? What is it that we ourselves should be warned about in regard to the sin of unbelief so that we might not fall into it? I think that Jesus was marveling over three characteristics of unbelief which were manifested in the people at Nazareth. First of all, unbelief is blind to the idea that Christ is the wisdom of God. Unbelief is blind to the idea that Christ is the wisdom of God. And then secondly, Unbelief greatly resists the idea of Christ's lowliness and poverty. Verses 3 and 4. And then thirdly, unbelief seldom understands how it limits Christ's blessings. Verses 5 and 6. So let's think about these characteristics and let's think about whether or not we are believing. or whether we are unbelieving this morning in relation to the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, unbelief is blind to the idea of Christ being the wisdom of God. Why do I say this in relation to the text? It's because of the questions that these people in Jesus' own hometown asked, where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to him that such mighty works are performed by his hands. Now you would think that since they are all Jews there they're at the synagogue and Jesus is teaching them in the synagogue that if they heard him speak and it says they were astonished at his teaching that they would begin to reason with themselves and they would ask themselves some good questions. How could this person be anything less than a prophet sent from God if he speaks in this way? Perhaps, since he speaks so powerfully, with such great wisdom, that there's a good chance that he's the Christ. You see, that's the kind of question and reasoning that they ought to ask themselves. They should say to themselves, could this be the promised Messiah? And instead of connecting the wisdom with which he spoke with to the possibility that he was the Son of God, the questions that were asked were of a very doubting nature. Where did this man get these things? He wasn't educated by any of our rabbis. He didn't go to any of the schools of the Pharisees or the Sadducees. And somehow, he must have gotten this wisdom and his ability from some other source. Perhaps the devil. There were some of the Pharisees who suggested that he cast out demons by the ruler of demons. And Jesus had to rebuke them and warn them against the sin against the Holy Spirit. Perhaps they thought this to themselves. Perhaps they thought that Jesus was in league with the devil. Or perhaps it was something more simple that was going through their minds. Perhaps he's just hold himself up somewhere and he's read all the books. Without having the supervision of the authorities in our synagogue or in Jerusalem, he had to get these things from somewhere. But that somewhere, they think, cannot be God. He has to have gone around the proper way to attain this kind of knowledge and this power. So you see, this is nothing other than raw unbelief on their part. These people didn't believe that God could communicate any gift or any ability to a person apart from human means or earthly education. They didn't believe that God could ever use other methods of raising a man up to greatness and usefulness except the schools of higher learning and particularly the schools of their own denomination or their church. These people simply could not account for the wisdom and the power of Christ. Or maybe the better way to put it is that they really didn't want to account for it in the right and the true way. Jesus really was sent from God. And Jesus was really woven together by the Holy Spirit in his mother Mary's womb. And the divine and the human nature were really placed together in the same person. Jesus really was the personification of wisdom. And that's what they should have been able to see and to conclude when they looked at Him, but they really couldn't. They really didn't. God really had endowed the Lord Jesus Christ, as it says in Isaiah 11-2, with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and of might, of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. That's why we read of such statements in the New Testament as Colossians chapter 2 and verse 3. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And verse 9 of that same chapter says, for in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. So you see the problem with these people was unbelief. The person who is unbelieving doesn't want to admit the possibility that Jesus is the one whom they should believe because he proves himself to be the Christ, the Son of God, by his wisdom and by his wonderful works. They even confessed that he had wisdom. They even confessed that he did mighty and wonderful works, but they did not The person who is unbelieving almost knows intuitively, because of the sinful independence of their nature, that if they even admit the possibility that Jesus Christ is sent from God, that they must listen to Him. They must submit to Him. If they concede for a moment, that he is God made manifest in the flesh, that he is the wisdom and power of God because God granted him these things in fullest measure according to his purpose and his plan to save a people from their sins. These people know, I am saying, that they should not only believe in him, but they should submit to him. But they did not submit to him. They did not believe in him. to be guided in their life by the things that He taught. And further, the unbelieving person knows and understands that if he concedes that there is the fullness of wisdom and power which is found in Christ, and God alone gave him that power, it was not taught to him or given to him by any man that he would also have to concede that there is a way that God saves and equips and teaches men by His Spirit, which raises them up, that is, their teachers, the teachers who teach them the Word of God by the Spirit, that then people are really enabled to become Christians by the new birth. In other words, The reason that they didn't believe these things is because they didn't understand that they must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. They sat as judges on the ministry of the Lord Jesus and they did not believe in Him. They would then have to believe and accept the fact that all men are sinfully lost and blind and must believe in Jesus Christ in order to know God. and have eternal life. And they'd have to confess that no man, apart from God's grace, has the power to bestow that gift either by any sacramental observances, by circumcision, by temple worship or anything like that, by synagogue, going to the synagogue regularly. They would have to admit all of that if they conceded for one moment that Jesus was the Christ. and that all wisdom and power was in him. You see, there's this is the difference between a true Christian, the person who really is a Christian, but who is trying to be a Christian, live the Christian life according to the Bible and according to God's power, and a Christian who is trying to be a Christian and live the Christian life according to their own thoughts. about what it means to be a Christian. Their own wisdom and their own power. Is it not possible that they could see that they are wrong about this? I'm saying that the unbelief will not let them admit that. It is not possible to live the Christian life in accordance with your own thoughts simply being taught by earthly teachers. concerning the things of God. There must be wisdom from above. There must be power coming to the heart and mind to illumine the mind and to change the heart. So we see them here marveling, or rather Jesus marveling over, and we see them here rather asking questions concerning him to other people rather than coming directly to him to ask their questions, and especially the question of questions, what must I do to be saved? Instead, they're saying, where did he get this wisdom? And the question that I have for you this morning is very simply this. Do you ask questions that are rhetorical questions that you think that you know the answers to already concerning Jesus Christ in order to disqualify His wisdom and His mighty works You see, every one of us is a sinner who needs to be saved by Christ. Every one of us has to come to acknowledge that the wisdom and power of God are found personified in Jesus Christ. This is also why there are so many seminaries and churches in our land that are liberal in their theology. In other words, that they do not believe in conversion, to Christ. They do not believe that God must reveal truth to the mind and heart. Instead, they say, where do people who are born again get their wisdom? How are they able to do and live the Christian life? They ask those kind of questions, but they don't ask them believingly. Instead, they try to explain them in a way that will disqualify the new birth and will disqualify the need of conversion and which will ultimately disqualify Jesus Christ himself and their need to be saved from their sins by him. I'm saying here that people want to believe that becoming a minister is attained to by going to an institution of higher learning and getting a degree and having that degree behind your name, having that wisdom and knowledge which comes from the study of many books, having that wisdom and knowledge that comes in association with other religious men, but not coming to Jesus Christ Himself for wisdom, the wisdom that is from above, which is first pure and peaceable, gentle and willing to yield, the grace of God that teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. All of this comes from the wisdom and power of God, which is seen in Jesus Christ. A liberal theological seminary will never be able to explain it rightly. They're trying to find wisdom apart from God's giving it to them. They're trying to teach people how to know God better and how to minister to people in a church setting without the truth of the Bible being their ultimate textbook. and without Christ being seen as the wisdom and the power of God who will reveal himself to the seeking sinner. The instructors and the books in such seminaries may teach a person about many things about people, but it will never convey anything of real spiritual substance to them about God or Christ. They'll never delve deeply into why Jesus Christ had to die. They will never delve deeply into the idea that there is wisdom which will lead to salvation, as the Bible so clearly teaches. And so what we're saying here, and what I have to ask, is if you've learned this precious truth, this all-important truth, there is an earthly wisdom that questions the wisdom and power of Christ. And why does it do that? It does it so that it can remain independent from submission to God and submission to his word. And some people will call that true Christianity. But I assure you that no person shall enter the kingdom of heaven independently of Christ's wisdom and power being believed and received to themselves. Unbelief is blind to the idea that Christ is the wisdom and power of God personified. And secondly, unbelief greatly resists the idea of Christ's lowliness and poverty. Those people that were at the synagogue that day, They said this, is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are these not his sisters here with us? So they were offended at him, it says. Now what were they saying here? It seems as though they're marveling over him themselves, but they don't know what to make of him. But they think to themselves, we know this guy. He grew up here in our midst. I mean, we know his family. He's the son of a carpenter. We've seen all his brothers and sisters. What's so special about him that he should be doing these great things? And they thought to themselves, well, he's not Levitical of a priestly descent. His prophetic calling has not been established by the authorities and the leaders of our religion. Why then should we recognize him in that same way we recognize all of our spiritual leaders if he has this following that's all his own. And besides, they'd think to themselves, they're all of them from such a poor family. They're a lowly family in Israel. And if he is so smart, like some people say today, if he is so smart, then why isn't he rich? So they're prejudiced against Jesus. And the text says that they were offended by him. They thought that his ministry was very presumptuous. And the thing that you and I must remember about an unbelieving heart is that it very often allows itself to be overly impressed with fleshly credentials. In other words, a person, in order to be listened to, in their minds, and heeded as a prophet, must have gone to school to study and obtain a degree. He is expected to be a very gifted man, gifted in the art of persuasion, persuading people to his views, in order to think about, to even think about going into the ministry. He should have those qualifications. And in the minds of some, He has to have the right background, the right lineage, the right occupation if he's going to be someone who speaks for God in their thinking. Now in this case, Jesus was the Son of God and yet he became a man who was born of a carpenter. Do you see how easy it would be to disqualify the Lord Jesus at this point. He worked in this lowly occupation. He became a carpenter during his growing up years. His own hometown people are offended at the idea that such a man with such a background should teach them. This lowly background, this poverty, this lack of formal education. You see, these things in their minds disqualified him as teaching them as a prophet and they're submitting to him. They might even be, as they were it appears, impressed with his gifts, impressed with his wisdom. But they knew in their hearts that they could never choose him to be their Messiah or even a popular prophet. And I would say to you that there are many people like this today in many of the churches of our land. There are many who only have respect to and will listen to an intellectually trained, seminary trained ministry. If a man doesn't have an MDiv or a PhD behind his name, if he does not have great gifts and a good heart, then in their estimation he won't be able to rise in their esteem and to the level of their consideration that they should listen to Him and that they should heed what He's saying in His teaching. But I want you to know this morning that is not the way that the Lord God Almighty looks at things. Our God believed that it was the best possible education and occupation for His only begotten Son to be in before He began His public ministry to be a carpenter. He was 30 years of age when he began his ministry. But all that adult time of his teenage years coming into his adult years is spent learning from his father the lowly trade of the carpenter. That's what this text is saying here. That's why they are offended by him. And I'm saying to you here that God has His ways of raising up men to the ministry. And those ways are often somewhat different than you and I conceive. His ways, it says in Isaiah 55, 8, His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts. It's the object of the Christian life to be more and more conformed to the image of our Savior. Our object is not to impress other people with our worldly wisdom and fleshly abilities. Ours is to become like Him. And God the Father, I'm saying, did not want His Son to go through the Jewish seminaries of that day. He had another kind of school. to attend. I want you to turn over with me to Philippians chapter 2 and verse 5. Philippians chapter 2 and verse 5. These are probably very famous verses to you and perhaps you know them, perhaps you have memorized them. But I want you to think about them anew and afresh here this morning with me. Let this mind be in you. Not just in him, But let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and those under the earth. And every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, lest you are here this morning and you think that you cannot become like Jesus Christ as a Christian, more and more, after you come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, lest you think that you cannot become more and more like Him, you need to remember what it says here and take notice of it, let this mind be in you. In other words, it's something that you're supposed to let yourself have. You're supposed to let yourself have this mindset, this humble mindset, this lowly mindset. And if you're going to have the same mindset, as Jesus Christ did, you have to remember that this is the mindset that He had when He came in His incarnation into this fallen world of sin. He knew and He understood His great and high position as being co-equal with the Father in His deity, and He did not consider it robbery. He didn't consider it robbing, stealing glory away from God, it says here, to be equal with God, as it says in verse 6. He knew that. He knew he had this high position. But look at verse 7. But made himself of no reputation. Made himself of no reputation. that that is that he wasn't concerned to be someone great in the eyes of men. I don't think that he was even concerned that he would be great in his life per se. I mean, I knew I know that he knew that he was great and he shall be great, you know, in the eyes of his God. And he certainly is great in our eyes. But it says here that he made himself of no reputation. There was not somebody to be looked up to as somebody just so educated, so, in the eyes of men, great. But he made himself of no reputation. In other words, he deliberately excluded that from his consideration and instead he humbled himself and became obedient, it says, even to the point of death on the cross. Now you see, that's the mindset that he's calling you and I who believe in him too. And I'm saying that God the Father knew that the best way for him to learn that mindset was for Jesus to be a carpenter in obscurity, in lowliness, in humility, having to work on other people's houses, having to make things out of wood for other people so that he'd be able to please them when the work was done. He made himself of no reputation. He humbled himself and he wasn't concerned to be great. He deliberately chose obscurity in the sight and the eyes of other men. He deliberately chose this. It doesn't mean that he didn't have any friends or companions, but as you know, he chose them carefully so that he might not become of a great reputation in an earthly, worldly sense. He taught them, his disciples, his twelve disciples and his apostles and those who followed him, he taught them this mindset of no reputation. of no pride and of obedience unto death. That's what he taught them by his life and by his death. This mindset, if we follow Christ, I'm saying, is something that you and I need to have. He came to know and understand how fitting it was that the man who was the carpenter of Nazareth, the man who made wood products for the people of that city, should grow up to become obedient to the point of death on a wooden cross. Do you see how appropriate that is? All the pain of being a carpenter was just a preliminary to the pain of the obedience of going to die on the cross. He worked with wood, now he would be worked upon the wood. by the sins of men and by taking upon himself the fatherly displeasure with sin. His working with wood in a humble, obscure way, it paved the way, I'm saying for him. It helped him very much to have the discipline that he needed, to have a growing obedience to the Father. You know, that's something that seminaries can't teach you, by the way. It can't teach you the growing discipline of obedience to the Father. It can fill your head with knowledge, but leave you a disobedient servant in the process. Why? Because your heart's not being dealt with by the discipline of hard physical labor. Only your mind is being disciplined. There is a discipline in that. There's nothing to be despised in that either. the discipline of mental activity and applying yourself to hard study. But I'm saying that what Jesus learned was the discipline of hard work and the pain involved in that on a regular basis. He consciously made himself no reputation. He didn't study to be great in everything he worked upon and built. He chose the obscurity. He consciously chose to seek out the fellowship and approval of his God, of his God in his work in order that he might do what? In order that he might do a good job for other people in a holy way, rather than trying to seek out and find the approval of the men of his community, religious or otherwise, so that he could enhance his reputation. He no doubt learned the value of persevering in this hard work and commending himself to the Father and praying over his work. And he was able to learn patience. He began to see how things fit together in a right way so that things of value and beauty could be made in the workshop or in the home. He learned how to be content in that lowly state, working hard but not trying to push himself forward. He learned carefulness. He learned how to be humble in his work. He didn't have to thrust himself forward saying something like, don't you see my greatness? But he learned how to be careful and thoughtful and he learned to think in the right and holy way about how others could be benefited by doing good work, careful work, thoughtful work for them all to the glory of God rather than just trying to please men. And his goal, after all, ultimately was to do what? It was to please God. So this is what I'm saying. I'm saying this, that this is one of the most important principles of living the Christian life. And I would speak to all of us, but I would especially speak to young people here this morning. It's a very great temptation to think that if you can just win the approval of other men, If you can just drink in everything that they can teach you and then learn to impress them with something that you can do very well, then you're making progress. Well, you may indeed make progress in the world's eyes in this fashion, but you're never going to make progress in God's eyes. in this way, and there's a great difference. Why? Because God is not looking, first of all, for a man pleaser or one who seeks after the world's idea of greatness and glory. God is not looking for that. God would have you to please Him and to seek Him for His glory. His eternal glory, and neither is He looking to use proud, self-confident, or self-made men, or women for that matter. He wants you to agree to let Him make you over into the image of Jesus Christ. He's looking for a humble servant. He's looking for one who will look to Him by faith. One who will look to Him and ask Him to help them with everything in their life. And one who sees his goal as being trying to obtain the A-U-G degree in God's sight. That is the Approved Unto God degree. Study to show yourself approved unto God. Or be diligent to present yourself approved unto God, a workman, a carpenter, who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Now this isn't one of those phony degrees that sometimes are offered online. You get online and they say, well, we're going to give you this degree. And you put in your little application, you study for a few minutes, and then they send you the degree. That's not the kind of degree the AUG is. The AUG is very practical. It is very hands-on. It is much like carpentry work. It is learning in God's workshop. It is practically applying yourself to humble yourself, as it says here in the text, to become obedient to God. And even to the point where obedience brings suffering to the flesh and to your own interests. You say, well, that's kind of radical, isn't it? What you're talking about here this morning, suffering in the sense of your obedience, learning humility and making myself of no reputation. Isn't that kind of radical? I'm not going to get anywhere in the world. Well, it is radical. It is radical. But Jesus's words and his expectation of his disciples is no less radical. He says, unless a man deny himself, pick up his cross daily, And follow me, he cannot be my disciple. Now that's radical, that's very radical. And I'm saying to you that unless a person does this, unless this is what they're shooting for, they can't really be Christ's disciple. We have to ask ourselves the question this. Am I losing my life that I might find it, like Jesus talks about? For if that is the case, then you're going to find out something about people around you. You're not going to be approved by them, but you will be approved by God. Very important that you understand this. They may reject you. They may despise you. They may laugh at you. But if you are wise, you're really not very concerned about this. You know that people did this with Jesus. And he was despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, it says in Isaiah 53. He knew, as he once said to his disciples, no man can serve two masters. That statement is found in Luke 16, 13, and I want you to turn over with me there to Luke 16, 13. I want you to see the context there, and I want you to see what Jesus was trying to accomplish by that statement. No man can serve two masters. Luke 16, 13. He says, No servant can serve two masters, for either he'll hate the one and love the other, or else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon or money. Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money also heard these things and they derided him. And he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves before men. But God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed, watch this now, watch this saying, this is what I'm trying to get at. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination. to God." What a statement. What Jesus was saying here, the Pharisees derided. Do you know what it means to deride something? It means they turned their nose up at it. They thought they knew better than that. They knew that they knew better than that. In their own heart and mind, they knew that they could serve God and money at the same time. They loved to mix their making money with their supposed service to God. But Jesus reproved them at many points and said that much of that was based upon their covetousness and their greed, which is a form of idolatry. And so Jesus enunciates a principle here for us to consider. And it is this, for what is highly esteemed among men, not just money, but it says here, for whatever is highly esteemed among men, What is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God. So this principle I'm saying applies to those who think that they can serve God and money. There's no doubt of that. But it goes much further than that. It goes much further than just money. It applies to what is highly esteemed among men. And what is highly esteemed by men is usually sinful selfishness. And what is esteemed by men is to manifest a skeptical attitude to this life being a preparation for death. That's what people are doing by their lives. They are laughing in the face of adversity if they're an unbeliever. They are told by religious people like ourselves that there is a judgment day coming. like Brian talked about in the scripture reading. There's a day coming and the day is going to reveal their works by fire. All professed believers works are going to be revealed by fire and the works that are not in Christ, the works that are not gold and silver and precious stones. All these things are going to be burned up in the judgment. And we need to consider this. We need to understand this. We need to apply this to our lives. And people don't often consider the judgment and what lies beyond it. They don't often want to consider it. Their thoughts are all wrapped up in what they're going to do if they're a church-going person when they get out of church. What they're going to do to enjoy themselves. What they're going to do to follow their own selfish interests rather than Christ. The Apostle Paul makes a comment on that over in Philippians. I want you to turn over there to chapter two in Philippians and verse 20. This is what he says, he says, but I have no one. He's talking about the faithfulness of Timothy. In his ministry on behalf of himself as an apostle, and he says in chapter two of Philippians, verse 24, I have no one like minded. Now, this is I think this is very interesting stuff. I have no one like-minded who will sincerely care for your state, he says concerning Timothy. And look at this statement. Now he's talking about professed believers in churches, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. For all seek their own and not the things which are of Christ Jesus. But you know His proven character. You know His worth. that as a son with his father, he served me in the gospel. Timothy served Paul as an evangelist. An evangelist in those days is one who served the Apostle, who was a messenger for the Apostle. And you know his proven character. But the thing that we should marvel over is these people, and this is what I'm talking about with the Lord Jesus and the people He was speaking about, that the text is speaking about, all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ. And we need to ask ourselves in closing the sermon here today, am I interested in seeking the things of Christ, not just my own things? Any worldly person can seek their own things. But it takes a faithful servant to seek the things of Christ. And that's that's the kind of thing that we need to think about. That's why Jesus was marveling here. I'm sure that Paul probably marveled over so many who thought their own. And I'm saying here that in March 6, Jesus was marveling at their unbelief because their interests were merely worldly interests. That's all there was to it. They were merely worldly and selfish interests. They weren't concerned to receive His wise and powerful ministry to them. And I'm saying, what about you? Whether you're a Christian or not yet, you need to be warned about the eternal dangers of unbelief. And I'm going to close with this very brief third point. The third characteristic of unbelief is that unbelief seldom understands how it limits Christ's blessings. Unbelief seldom understands how it limits Christ's blessings. Verse 5 says, Now he could do no mighty work there, except he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Now think about that. It says Jesus could do no mighty work there. In Matthew's gospel it says, now he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Now when we think about that statement, you must not believe that Jesus didn't have the power to do these mighty miracles. The miracles that he'd done in Capernaum, he could have done them in Nazareth. It's just that because of the many people who did not believe in him, people who had every reason to believe in him and didn't, that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit together knew that it would not be wise nor right to bestow those blessings of those mighty miracles upon an unbelieving people. Such marvelous and wonderful blessings upon those who showed themselves unworthy of them. That's what it means when it says he could do no mighty work there. These people were unworthy of his doing his mighty works there. It was not that he could not do them. In fact, he laid his hands on a few sick people, it says, and he healed them, as if to show them, well, I could do much more. But your faith limits me. Is there any limit to the Almighty? Of course not. Is there anything too difficult for the Lord? No, not unless it's related to sin. God cannot lie, and neither can he do his mighty works for those who will not believe. And so I want to conclude this sermon by saying this, that if we are privileged to sit under the means of grace in the ministry of the Word, and we do not come to believe and receive the truths that are preached, which are intended to save and build up our souls, then whose fault is it? Well, I would say that it's not God's and it's not Christ's. For if we have faith and we exercise it and we act upon it, God's going to give us many rich blessings of grace and power to do His will and to rejoice in doing it. And we will know more and more of the wonderful fellowship and communion with the Father and Son, and we will not be grieving the Spirit by our unbelief. If great spiritual things are not taking place in your life, the distinct possibility exists that unbelief is the cause of it. And so I want you, as I close this sermon, to do this. Look into your heart. Ask yourself if you are believing in the wisdom and power of Jesus Christ, believingly looking into His Word to lay hold of all the promises of all that He will give to you and all that He will do for you, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not a matter of whether Christ can do these things for you or whether he will do them in you or whether he will do them through you. It is whether you will believe him or not. And that's why it says in the book of Ephesians, not to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly. beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this time around your word. We pray that you will give us faith if we do not have it. And we pray that if we do have it, that we would be given the grace so that we would exercise that faith and trust in you. Lord, we know that we are inexcusable if we do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if we are not saved. Because the reason that people end up in hell is because they have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And they love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds are evil. So help us, dear Father, to trust in you with all of our hearts, to believe the testimony concerning your Son, that he is the wisdom and power of God. And help us, dear Lord, to assume the right attitude and mindset, the mindset of being lowly and humble before you, that you might exalt us in the proper way, in the proper time, that we might be useful servants of our loving compassionate Heavenly Father. We thank you for this time and pray your blessing in our hearts upon it. In Jesus' name, Amen.