It is always a great joy to be able to express the doxologies of our heart and song and what a blessing it is to have music that God has given us music. And thank you musicians for leading us so well. Will you take your Bibles and turn to Mark three, we will continue our study of the gospel of Mark. But we're taking several Sundays to look specifically at the apostles that Jesus chose. And so this will be kind of a jumping off point to other passages that we will look at. It's been fascinating to get to know those that Jesus appointed to be his closest companions, his emissaries of the kingdom. And in Mark Three, beginning of verse 13, we read this, "And Jesus went up to on the mountain and summoned to those whom He Himself wanted and they came to Him. And He appointed 12, so that they would be with Him, and that He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons." And, of course, we are all beneficiaries of these men that God called and gifted. And they are indeed the foundation of the church. But we've also seen that these are men whose only remarkable qualifications is their lack of remarkable qualifications. And as you've heard me say before, that gives me great hope. Isn't it wonderful to know how God can use us. And remember now, his choice of these ordinary men, was basically a rebuke against the elitist that were in charge of the Jews, the elitist of Judaism, the religious leaders, the scholars, the lawyers, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, scribes, and so forth. These were religious phonies, that wanted to be first in the kingdom, fools who really had no fear of God. And of course, as scripture says, fools, reject instruction, they despise wisdom and instruction. And these were the kind of men that God was using, or that Satan was using to thwart the purposes of God. And so God bypasses them, and he chooses ordinary men. And we see this, in our culture is well, and I know some of you have talked with me about some of the horrors that you have had to endure even this week. And I, I agree with you all of the woke things that are being perpetrated upon you in the workplace and at school. And just want to remind you that what they were dealing with in the first century, even though the issues were different, the dynamics were the same. This was the philosophy of the day in rejection of who God was. And we see this of course in the progressive Neo Marxist politicians and their sycophants in Hollywood and, and in the media. We have our own version of the Pharisees today, the Harvard Ivy League East Coast snobs and the West Coast know it alls and the liberal woke people that are in evangelicalism now, just wreaking havoc in the church. In fact, the level of depravity is so profound right now that even some of the secularists are beginning to throw up their hands and wonder, I was listening to one lady describe it this way. In a video that was sent to me, she said, "I never dreamed that I would have to face the prospect of not living in the United States of America. At least not the one I've known all my life. I've never wished to live anywhere else. This is my home and I was privileged to be born here. But today, I woke up and as I had my morning coffee, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I see something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I've been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I've known all my life, so hate filled that they agree with opinions they would never express on their own. I think I may have well entered the Twilight Zone. We've become a nation that is lost its collective mind. You can't justify this insanity. If a guy pretends to be a woman, you're required to pretend with him. Somehow it's unAmerican for the census to count how many Americans are in America. Russians influencing our elections are bad but illegals voting in our elections are good. People who've never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves. People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees. Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome but you'd better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated. Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the EU, United States must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gangbangers who jumped the southern fence are welcome. $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but 1.5 trillion for free health care is not. If you cheat to get into college, you go to prison. But if you cheat to get into the country, you go to college for free. People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female president. We see other countries going socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan to us. Criminals are caught and released to hurt more people but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of their rights. And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us racist. Nothing makes sense anymore. No values, no morals, no civility. People are dying of a Chinese virus but it's racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China. We're clearly living in an upside down world where right is wrong and rwong is right. Where moral is immoral and immoral is moral. Where good as evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing unborn babies is a okay. Wake up America. The great unsinkable ship. Titanic America has hit an iceberg. It is taking on water and it is sinking fast." Pretty observant. And that's from a secular mindset. Indeed, God has given America over to the consequences of her iniquity. And this ship will sink like all other empires have sunk because of their rebellion against the Most High God. This country has sown the wind it is now reaping the whirlwind. And we've not seen anything yet.

I was reminded of what JC Ryle said, he was a 19th century English clergyman said this quote, "Scripture teaches plainly that God rules everything in this world, that he deals with nations as they deal with him, that national prosperity and national decline are ordered by him, and that without his blessing, no nation can prosper. Whether men like to see it or not, I believe it is the first duty of a state to honor and recognize God. The government which ignores religion, and coolly declares that it does not care whether its subjects are Christians or not, is guilty of an act of suicidal folly. Your religion, even in a temporal point of view is the worst enemy of a nation in what manner God would punish England. If English governments cast off all connection with religion, I cannot tell whether he would punish us by some sudden blows, such as the defeated war and the occupation of our territory by a foreign power, whether he would waste us away gradually and slowly by placing a worm at the roots of our commercial prosperity, or whether he would break us in pieces by letting fools rule over us and allowing Parliament's to obey them, and permitting us like the Midianites to destroy one another. Whether he would ruin us by sending a dearth of wise statesmen in the upper ranks and giving the reins of power to communists, socialists and mob leaders. All these are points which I have no prophetical eye to see. And I do not pretend to determine God's sorest judgments. The ancient said, quote, are like millstones. They grind very slowly, but they grind very fine. The thing that I fear most he said, for my country is gradual and sensible dry rot and decay. But one thing I am very sure, the state that begins by sowing the seed of national neglect of God will sooner or later reap a harvest of national disaster and national ruin." End quote.

Folks, aren't you're thankful we're citizens of another kingdom. We serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and we await his arrival. So to be sure, the elite of the first century share the same kind of foolishness that we see in the elite of our day. As government and academia and so forth. So Jesus bypassed those proud fools of Israel and instead chose 12, just ordinary men, utter foolishness to the world; only 12, not the really religious elite, not the celebrities, not the politicians, just some fishermen, tax collector, a Jewish terrorist that hated Rome, and some other nondescript men. And you have to think, God, what were you thinking? Well, Paul tells us what he was thinking in First Corinthians one. You remember the passage in verse 25, and following, "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that he might nullify the things that are, so that no man should boast before God. But by His doing, you are in Christ Jesus." And as we study the lives of these men, we see that it's a great encouragement, because what God wants is our availability, not our abilities. He will give us all we need to accomplish, all that He wants us to accomplish, for His glory. Through the indwelling Spirit, He empowers us. And we rejoice in that. Beloved, never underestimate your capacity to be used by God. Okay? Never underestimate that. Regardless of your lot in life, regardless of your education, your experience, your gender, your socio economic condition, whatever it is, even your spiritual condition. All of these factors are meaningless because what God looks for is a person that is repentant, that is humble, that is teachable, and that is available. Most Christians fail to live up to their potential. And as a result, they forfeit blessing in their life, and they become ineffective with respect to the kingdom, God's Kingdom purposes. There's really three reasons for this. The first one, real simply and very shortly, I just want to briefly hit this. The first reason why they don't live up to their potential is habitual sinfulness. Life dominating sin. They refuse to examine their life and repentance. So therefore, the Spirit of God is grieved and quenched and they cannot be used. The second reason people don't live up to their potential is habitual laziness. There's just no self discipline, no desire to really understand the word. And as Paul told Timothy, to discipline yourself, for the sake of godliness. Instead, people are ignorant, undiscerning and self absorbed. And the third reason, people don't live up to their potential, his habitual powerlessness. And the reason for that is people refuse to serve Christ as a good soldier. And if you're not in the battle, you're not going to experience the difficulties of the conflict. And therefore, you're not going to cry out for the only help available to you in Christ, the divine provisions that will carry you through. Moreover, you won't have a sense of a divine urgency to be engaged in the battle. Well, not so the 11 out of the 12 apostles. And today, we're going to look at Philip, who is the second leader, I should say, the leader of the second set of four apostles. So let's look at Philip here for a minute.

Scripture doesn't tell us his Jewish name. His Greek name was Philip, which means lover of horses. So I've got something in common with this guy growing up with horses and loving horses. We'll have some great conversation, some day I'm sure. Probably, he was a guy from a Hellenistic family. These were Jews that had adopted the Greek culture and the Greek language. And what's interesting is he's always the fifth man listed on every list of the 12 found in the New Testament. What which indicates that he was the leader of the second group of four apostles. Now, by the way, don't don't confuse him with Philip the deacon, the evangelist out of Acts 6 that met with the Ethiopian and so forth, this is a different guy here. John 1:44 says that Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. So he was also a fisherman, along with two others in his little group. And those other two would be Bartholomew, who was also called Nathaniel, as well as Thomas. And he, of course, he was friends with Peter and Andrew, and James and John, all God fearing Jews who would have attended the same synagogue, they would have been out of the same church. Basically, it's interesting that Jesus chose the team, where over half the men were already close friends, they shared the same cultural values, they were not diverse as people want us all to be today. That is, that is a recipe for disaster. When you get people from all different cultures, and so forth. I've served on a number of boards in the year over the years, and I've consulted with Christian organizations, I've mediated great conflicts in churches and denominations and mission boards. And I can tell you firsthand that when you mix cultures, and you mix socio economic backgrounds, doctrinal perspectives, and you get a wide disparity of opinion on all manner of things, it's going to be a disaster. You take a opossum and a coon, and a dog and you put them in a small cage, there's going to be problems. And sometimes that's what happens with people.

Well also, it's interesting that God chose uneducated men whose minds had not previously been shaped by error. Nor had they convinced themselves of their own omniscience, as many times is the case in academia, especially upper Appa academia. I've been there, I know it firsthand. I know the temptations myself. And it's much easier to train a man that is uneducated and teachable than to try to teach an educated man that is not teachable. And I might hasten to add that not all educated people are unteachable, the apostle Paul was a brilliant scholar, and look what God did with him. Moreover, not all uneducated, people are teachable. Sometimes people are too ignorant to know they're ignorant. And that can be a problem as well with those type of people. Logic and exegesis and even common sense, never come into play. Two plus two is going to be five no matter how you put it. And so even though you have mountains of evidence to the contrary, they're going to believe what they want to believe. So those can be problematic.

So before the foundation of the world, what is interesting, is God chose these men. In fact, John 15:16, we read that Jesus told them, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you." So God, in his infinite wisdom, set his love upon these men who were as common as a fencepost. And sometimes equally as dense. But men, who loved him, all except Judas, they were available, though uneducated, they were teachable. And they shared the same basic values and experiences. Now Phillip is a fascinating character. We don't find a whole lot in Scripture. And we don't want to press this too far. But there is enough that we can begin to get some idea of who he was of his interpersonal style of relating his character. And I've known many men who share his personality. And sometimes they can be difficult to be around. Let me kind of paint a general picture here. To give you a sense of who he was. And again, I don't want to press this too far. But this is kind of the general category. He was what we would call a bean counter. He was a type of guy that would track every penny. He was consumed with process and protocol. Sometimes we call these people the administrative control freaks, all right, they can be difficult to be around. They have, they always have 40 reasons why what you want to do won't work. And that's kind of what we see there. The corporate killjoys, I've seen them in business. We used to call them the deal killers. They're proud to wear the badge cynic. And so this is the chronically pessimistic type of person that's it's very, very analytical and, and terrified of adventure. The word risk is a four letter word to these kinds of people because of weak faith, they tend to be consumed with self protection, they simply can't function without guarantees. They have kind of a spirit of control. And they get nervous when things kind of get outside the boundaries of what is written down and what the operating manual says you're supposed to do everything that needs to be by the book. And all of the policies and procedures need to be in place, you might say they were, or they are, rigid, obsessed with organization, not flexible. And many times they are fastidious and proud of it, excessively particular, can be very critical. And in extreme forms, you can see this take on what we call today, or what the secularists call OCD. And that's basically biblically, it's the idolatry of self obsessive compulsive disorder rather than living a gospel informed life, rather than relaxing in God's sovereignty and his love and trusting him rather than taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and letting his word fill you. Rather than that, everything's got to be perfect. That can't be, the mistakes, I've got to make sure everybody likes me, I don't want to do anything that will cause anybody to dislike me, I can't be seen as incompetent, I can't be seen as deficient in any way. I've worked with them before dear people, and it's great to see them come out of this, as they begin to see how they're functioning. But in these extreme forms, they can be obsessed with germs and bacteria. And, and they live in perpetual fear. I always like to tell them, do you realize there are 700 species of bacteria in your mouth. They estimate there 6 billion bacteria in your mouth. So it's kind of hard to run from all that. But so what happens is people begin to have ungodly introspection, they reevaluate everything, every thought, every action, and then those thoughts become obsessive and reoccurring, and they begin to consume them. And all of that causes stress in the body, it causes anxiety. So in order to find relief, they begin to pursue habitual ritual types of behaviors, all designed to somehow alleviate the stress and, and the fear and the obsessions that the obsessions produce. So they're always organizing or avoiding germs or avoiding other things, et cetera, et cetera. It's a hopeless cycle.

Well, I'm not saying Philip was that way. I'm not saying that. But just to give you an example of this, is this is where these types of sinful thoughts and attitudes can take a person. And it can be devastating. But as we will see, Phillip was the typical kind of by the book, facts and figures, pessimistic process kind of person. So for these kinds of people, words, like "improvise" are just not in their vocabulary. All right, entrepreneur, nah, no, no, no, no, can't do that. And they have a hard time seeing the big picture, and so forth. They are the type of people I might say if you're kind of in this category, they're the type of people that will, the first thing they're going to say is, well, we've never done that before. We're not no, no, we can't do that. Rather than saying, boy, wouldn't that be great? You know, what do we need to make that happen? Wouldn't it be great to see what God can do? I mean, it's a radically different perspective. And I remember, and some of you are here today that were with us when this church started down the street and a little storefront, and we had run out of room. Some of you are smiling. You remember those days, don't you? And we had run out of room. It was just it was awful. And we needed to do something and we decided to purchase some property, this piece of property and, and build a church versus rent. And we had some people say, Oh, no, no, no, no, we can't do that. I mean, we, we don't have the money. There's just no way we can do that. And of course, others were saying, wouldn't it be great to see what God could do? We need to trust him to to see what see what he could do. Oh, no, we can't do that. Because that would mean for example, you have to borrow money. When the Bible says you're not supposed to borrow money. And I had to explain to them that the Bible does not say that and I had to explain to them the passages that they misunderstood and misinterpreted. So seven families signed a note and collateralize their homes. We found a banker that loves us, a man that I had known for many years and they gave us the money, and we trusted God. And here we are today. And we rejoice in that. And so there's always a balance, though, you know, we need those people along with the more visionary type of people that to balance this out, but, but whatever our interpersonal style relating, we have to be careful that we don't let the pendulum go too far in one direction or the other. So Philip struggled with some of these kinds of things. He had his own proclivities as we all do. Proclivity is just a negative tendency in his personality. And we're going to see this as we examine a couple of passages here today.

The first one is in John six. You remember, all the crowd is coming to us to see Jesus. And there, we read in John six and verse 10, that there were 5000 men, if you had the kids and the women , probably 15 to 20,000 people, they're gathering outside of Tiberius, kind of in a remote area to see Jesus. In fact, the context is, we can see a little more about this, forgive me for this. I'm jumping around with different passages. But in Matthew 14, we read how Jesus had compassion on this magnificent multitude that was coming towards him, and he's healing, they're sick and casting out demons. And it's late in the evening, and apostles were getting hungry, it's dinnertime, I understand that. And they know that they can't eat in front of all these people. Like, Hey, folks, hang on a minute, we need to have dinner here, while you guys don't have anything, they can't do that. So in Matthew 14, verse 15, we read in "When it was evening, the disciples came to Him saying, 'The place is desolate, and the time has already passed. so send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.' But Jesus said to them, 'They do not need to go away, you give them something to eat!'" Really interesting, by the way, when these types of things come into your life, and you're kind of overwhelmed, and and you think, Oh, my, now what am I going to do? You need to smile and say, Lord, thank you, you're up to something here in my life. I don't know what it is, but I rejoice in it, and I'm going to trust you. And Father, I'm just going to cry out to you to help me understand how you want me to navigate, this is beyond me, this is your deal. And all I want to do is be available, I want to honor you, help me make the right decisions helped me to understand what the Bible says about this, help me to talk to godly people, I want to honor you, and so I'm going to cry out to you. And I know that you have brought this disaster into my life for a purpose. And that's what was going on here. Now back to John. He had some more insight into this momentous occasion, and John six and verse five, "Jesus, therefore lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to him, said to Philip, 'Where are we to buy bread that these may eat?'" Now, let's stop for a second. Obviously, we're going to need to ask why did he single out Philip? And why did he ask him that? Because Jesus didn't need the information. He was already way ahead of the whole scenario. And so if I can put it this way, this was a loving setup for Phillip. And evidently, Phillip was the chief operating officer of the group. He was kind of the administrator, the logistics specialist that bought and distributed food, he probably was the one that helped secure their lodging, arranged meetings, interviews with Jesus and so forth as we look at the various passages. But it's interesting that Jesus singled out Phillip, well, why did he do that? Well, verse six of John six tells us and this Jesus was saying, "to test him, for he himself knew what he was intending to do."

I have to smile because my has the Lord done this to me more times than I can count. The word test is a neutral term, there's two options, you either pass it or you fail it, right. It's real simple. And when God tests, he's giving us an opportunity to either respond in faith and obedience, or to respond in skepticism and rebellion. And that's what's going on here with Philip, because he knew who Philip was. He knew the holes in his program, and he's gonna love him enough to put him in a situation where Philip has to have faith and depend upon God and not his own resources. This was a teachable moment. But this was Philips worst nightmare, right? He was overwhelmed with the whole thing. It doesn't say this, but I would imagine, Jesus had a bit of a smile on his face and a little glimmer in his eye as he asked Philip, you know, what are you going to do with this? Now, it's interesting what, what Philip's predictable response was in verse seven, "Philip answered him, '200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them for everyone to receive a little.'" I mean, Philip had already done the math in his head, he, he knew that he was the guy that was going to have to do something with all of this. I mean, that, by the way, is eight months wages of a single day laborer, one denarius was one day's wages. And he knew that this would absolutely exhaust all of the resources, if they spent everything they had to get some food when there's no place to even buy it. And then they wouldn't have anything and it still wouldn't feed a fraction of the people. Now, Jesus knew Phillip's, faith is weak. Philip is like many of us who tend to depend upon our own abilities, our own resources to make life work. And I would imagine, when Jesus said to him, "Where are you to buy bread that these may eat?" I would imagine he pulled out the checkbook said, look, here's all we got, insufficient funds. That's kind of what's going on here. And Jesus knew that this, this would frustrate Philip. Because it wasn't part of the protocol. It wasn't part of the organized way that we do things. And to feed 20,000 unexpected guests, guests around the campfire is going to be impossible. But it was the perfect scenario, to put Phillip in a position of panic, so that he might grow in Christ. Again, faith was something that he was uncomfortable with and the idea of improvise, I doubt if that word was in his vocabulary, that must be avoided at all cost. And often, God puts us in those positions where it's like, I don't know what to do, I'm gonna have to trust you. I can't help but remember the first time I went rappelling if you've ever done that before, and I had a couple of friends from church, they was one guy was a Navy SEAL. And I'd never done it before we had about about a 200 foot cliff. And about the first 100 feet, you could go down in the cliff, you were kind of close to the cliff, and then it opened up into the mouth of a cave, and it was just a freefall. And I remember, okay, you know, I'm not afraid of anything, you know, I've done just about everything. And I'll be fine with this. And when they put that rope on me, and I started to back off, I found myself hesitating. And I remember the Navy SEAL guy saying, Dave, you've got to have faith in the rope. If it was gonna break, it would have already broken. And so as I let it back a little bit more, I looked between my legs, and I couldn't see anything but a blur. And so I finally took off. And what was interesting is I went about 100 feet down, and all of a sudden, I realized the rope was hung in some of the brush up in the trees, and now I'm just dangling in midair, we finally got the rope down. But the Lord taught me a lesson about faith. But my faith was much more on him than it was the rope, believe me. But the point is, we all have those situations in life. And Jesus is saying in effect to Philip, "Philip, how are you going to feed all of these people?" And what he wanted Philip to say, and what I'm sure Philip would say later on would be something like this. "Lord Jesus, the answer is real simple. I have no way of feeding feeding them but you do. I'm going to trust you to do what only you can do. And I'm going to ask you to do this because I have seen the glory and the majesty of your power. I've seen you heal the sick, your power over disease over demons. I've seen you make the lame to walk and the blind to see and the deaf to hear, withered limbs made whole. I've seen your power over nature. Dear Jesus, you are my King. You are my God. You have put me in a situation all I know to do is cry out to you to do what only you can do. And I'm going to plead with you to make yourself powerful on my behalf, on behalf of all these people that you might receive all the glory;" that's what he wanted Philip to say. But no Philip was still pretty consumed with his own needs and making his world work on his own. Does that ring a bell to any of you? Thanks, God, but I'll handle this. I'm not sure that your way and your resource sources are enough. So I'm going to depend upon myself in my own resources to make my world work. And God many times says, okay.

So it's evening, it's dusk, the apostles are hungry. I can only imagine that some of the other apostles come up to him. Hey, Philip, what's going on with supper, man? We're, I mean, we're hungry. Dude, we got to eat right? And he's probably saying, Get out of here. I don't know we don't have, we don't have any food. So this is what's happening. Peter is nervous about the whole thing. And then we read this. Going back to John six. Let's look at verse nine. It says, "One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother," remember now Andrew's kind of the quiet, sensitive guy behind the scenes guy. He says to Jesus, "There's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are these people for so many?" So maybe there's a glimmer of hope here for Andrew, maybe there's a little bit of faith, or we got something here. I don't know what you can do with this. But Well, "Jesus said to him," and to all of them. I love this. He says, "Have the people sit down." And think about that, folks, we want all of you to sit down with the idea that we're going to feed you and you're looking around, you've got just a little bit, you know, have all the people sit down, then we read. "Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, giving thanks." And it says, "He distributed to those who were seated, likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted. When they were filled, He said to His disciples, 'Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.' So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. Therefore, when the people saw the sign which he had performed, they said, 'This is truly the prophet who has come into the world.'" My what a great lesson, can you imagine Philip helping to pick up all of the excess looking at all the things and all the other, all of the extra baskets full of food? What a lesson for him. And for all of us, God is saying, I want you to learn to trust me and to not trust in your in yourself. Beloved, it's impossible to prepare for every conceivable contingency in life. And you do the best you can. But at some level, you're going to have to trust the Lord with things that are very difficult. You're going to have to go to his word and go to other people and understand how God would have you function. And then to say, Lord, for Your glory, this is what I'm going to do. All of us have at times been put in those positions. And we need to look forward to them with great anticipation. Because beloved, those are scenarios where God has an opportunity, as I say, to prove himself powerful for you to trust in Him in my we were with some friends last night, just reminiscing on the ways God has done just incredible things in our life. That can't be explained any other way than we just had faith. And we prayed and cried out to God and he answered our prayers. What a joy that is. Beloved, faith is like a muscle. If you don't use it, it will atrophy. And God gives us plenty of opportunities to exercise our faith.

I recall the passage and Mark 9, I remember the father that had the demon possessed son, the disciples lack the necessary faith to deliver him and in utter desperation, the father pleads with Jesus to deliver his son. If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us and Jesus responds that, that, that if you if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes. Verse 24 says, "Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, 'I do believe, help my unbelief.'" Boy I can identify with that, can't you? This man had for so long considered this whole situation helpless. Certainly, he confessed, Lord, I believe. The text tells us that he does this in great earnestness, and with tears yet at the same time, that lingering unbelief is there. Beloved, we all struggle with it. And so we need to pray the same thing. "Lord, help my unbelief." You know, there's a special weakness inherent, especially in newborn faith. The man I just described in Mark nine had that, certainly Philip at some level, perhaps us well, and that always makes us susceptible to those difficulties that God brings into our life, where all of a sudden, we're out of resources. We don't know what to do. So many times, we come up with things that we think will make life work or we escape, to try to somehow run from the problem, rather than saying, Thank you, God. What a wonderful opportunity for me to learn how to trust you in some new and unique way. And I pray that you will give me an understanding of what you want me to do in the midst of this great trial, because I am at a loss.

I was thinking of Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you remember, the Prince of Darkness is enraged. We know whenever a soul is delivered from the dungeon of his dominion and then when that happens, he quickly assaults especially new and immature believers as they they flee from the city of destruction than they run towards the celestial city. And what's interesting, as you will recall, is that Bunyan very appropriately placed the slew of despond at the very outset of the spiritual journey, knowing it is then that Satan seizes upon our vulnerability, our untested faith in the wicked fiend, tries to sink us in the quicksand of discouragement and doubt, and cause us to run to other resources that will never work long term. Well, like the man in Mark nine, Philip believed, yet not completely. His faith would never grow to the degree that God wanted it to grow, unless he began to have his faith tested. And beloved, we must learn to spot those things in our own hearts. The enemy is so cunning and we can fail the test, and never really grow in Christ and enjoy the blessings that are associated with walking in faithful obedience. So Jesus tested Philip to expose his radical commitment to self protection and to demonstrate the foolishness of his obsession. And he knew he needed to strengthen him put him into this impossible situation. And he wanted him to enjoy what I call the euphoric adventure of walking with Christ in faith. My what a blessing that is, so that we could experience the one, "who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us." Ephesians 3:20.

Well, it's hard for Philip to learn as it is for us. So let me give you another example here of what he dealt with. It's, this one's in John 14. Let me give you the context here. It was the eve of Jesus crucifixion. He knew the agony that was going to be his as he faced the cross and ready to walk inexorably towards a time where he had to appease the just wrath of God, bear the sins of those that God had given him and the apostle mentoring was about to end. And yet, they're still confused about what was really going on. I always have to laugh at them, but I know if I was with them, I'd been right there with them. They're still trying to understand what's really happening here. Luke 24:25, Jesus called them foolish and slow of heart to believe. I mean, folks, they are still arguing about who's going to be greatest in the kingdom. So that's what's going on with them. Many rough edges still needed to be honed away, filed off of their sinful hearts. So they're in the upper room. Jesus has washed their feet Judas now has has left to betrayed Jesus and Jesus then comforts them in John 14 Verse one we read, "'Do not let your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places if it were not, so I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself. And where I am there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.' Thomas said to Him, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going, how do we know the way?’ Jesus said to Him, 'I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, but through Me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also, from now on, you know Him and have seen Him.'" So Jesus here, once again, emphatically underscores His deity, that he is their God, that to know him is to know the Father. But notice what Philip says, in verse eight. "Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.'" Say what?. After what I just said, after all that you have seen, you want more guarantees. I mean, that's literally what's going on here. This is just inconceivable ignorance and insensitivity. I mean, how incredibly sad. This is, this is just the heartbreaking response of weak faith. It's as if Philip is saying, Yes, Lord Jesus, I have seen all of your miracles. I've stood in at your teaching. I've been humbled by your love. And yes, I've confessed you as my Lord and Savior. But I'm sorry, I've still got some reservations here. There's still a bit of skepticism, lingering in the secret recesses of my imagination. So will you please, I just want you to jump through one more hoop of mine. I mean, I want to make certain, absolutely certain. I hate risk. I need guarantees. Before I relinquish my well chiseled strategies of self protection, and really turn my life over completely to you, if you would just show us the Father. How sad. So many times we can be the same way, right? We've seen all that Jesus has done all that he said in His Word. And yet we miss the big picture. We never fully trust in Him, oh we say we do. But there's that lingering doubt. Yes, I will believe in you and have faith in you as my Savior, but I'm not sure I can trust you to be my Lord, so that I obey all that you have commanded. I'm not sure I can go that far. I mean, that's okay. I've got this. I mean, I can handle my life on my own. I think of my precious little, seven year old granddaughter. How many times there will be something that needs to be done? I know she can't do it. But she will say no pop, I can do it. I can do it. And I know in my mind, you can't, but okay. And then after a few minutes, sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. Papa, can you help me?

And I think you know, that's exactly what the Lord does; puts us in those situations. Beloved, unless you live consistently with what you believe about Christ, you will never enjoy the fullness of all that is yours in Christ. You will always be weak and deficient and just have minimal usefulness for the sake of the kingdom, and you will never enjoy the riches of his grace that are available to those who trust him completely. You'll never fully enjoy his blessing in your life. Notice what happens back to John 14. Again, verse eight, "Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father and it's enough for us,' and Jesus said to him, 'Have I been so long with you? And yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father, how can you say show us the Father'? 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me the works that I do, he will do also and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.'" And then he says, "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." By the way, praying in Jesus name doesn't mean that at end of your prayer, you say, "and in Jesus name" or whatever, that's not the point. The point is that your prayer is motivated out of a heartfelt desire to advance the Kingdom purposes of Christ and give Him glory. And when we pray in that way, he's going to answer those prayers, and do mighty things in your life. In other words, help me honor you and trust in you, is what he's wanting Peter or Phillip to say.

Well, let me give you some exciting news as we close this morning, the Lord knew what Philip was like, isn't it great? He knew what he was like, chose him anyway. I'm just glad I don't have to preach about my background, right? You know, I don't want to do that. Too many of you already know. But Jesus knew that his strength would be made perfect in weakness. By the way, my personality is like the extreme opposite of Phillip. And I've got to be careful, or I'll ride the horse right off the cliff. How thankful I am, according to Second Thessalonians 2:14, "God has chosen you from the beginning, for salvation, through sanctification, by the Spirit and faith and truth. And it was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." Well, God made Philip into a great preacher of the gospel. We know that Philip is going to rule one day in the millennial kingdom, he was, he's now enjoying the glories of heaven. And I look forward to meeting him some day. Tradition says that he served faithfully in Asia Minor. Many came to Christ because of his availability to Christ. And he was probably one of the first apostles to be martyred. It's estimated that he was martyred about eight years after James. And evidence indicates that he was stoned to death in Heliopolis in Phrygia. Oh child of God. Let's learn to trust in Him in new ways today, all right? Don't allow the fears of the world and the fear of man and your own ridiculous self confidence in all of your resources, to rob you of the need to trust in Christ in ways that you never have before. Either he is who he says he is, or you believe a lie. But he is who he says he is. Don't erect those idols of self protection in your heart. As First John five four says, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that overcomes the world." What is it? Our faith Is God testing you right now? Is he pushing you out of your comfort zone? Oh, Thank you, God. Thank You, God, this is miserable. I hate it. I don't know what to do. But thank you. You're at work in my life. And I'm crying out to you right now, to do what only you can do. And I don't even really know what that is. But I trust you. Whatever the outcome, and I rejoice in your intimate love for me. Thank you, Father, for the power of your word that speaks so directly to our lives, Lord, we can all see ourselves and in these apostles, some of us even in Philip and, Lord, I just pray that by the power of your Spirit, you will bring conviction where appropriate, bring encouragement, bring joy, but Lord through it all. Help us with our unbelief, strengthen our faith, because we long to experience all that is available to us in Christ Jesus. For it's in his name that I pray. Amen.