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Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to Mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, friends. Welcome to Unpacking the Mass. Today we're looking at the readings for the fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, and we're talking about very practical things today. I think we do that a lot here on Unpacking the Mass. You know, we don't. We don't forget to do that, which is an important thing, because what we want more than anything is for the readings to connect to our everyday lives, to connect to our hearts so that we can live out the faith. Because what we don't want is to go to Mass and hear some, you know, ethereal stuff and just go, wow, that was great, and then leave and have nothing that we can do with it. And today I think we're going to get to some really practical things that every single one of us can do. Sometimes you hear practical things. You're like, I can't do that. Maybe the talk's about marriage or family and you're single, or maybe it's about something that you should do on the mission field, but you're, like, homebound. I don't know. Whatever it is today, I think there's going to be something here for you. So let's jump in with the word of prayer, and then we'll look at the readings. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, help us to let our light shine, to bring enhancement to this world, to give you glory. May our thoughts and actions bring you glory, Lord, not ourselves. Help us to see how we can help others, Lord, through what you're going to speak to us today. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our first reading comes to us from the book of Isaiah 58, and it reads this. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked, to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry, and he will say, here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness. If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. Our second reading comes to us from the book of First Corinthians, chapter two. St. Paul writes these words, When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God and our gospel from Matthew 5, 13, 16. These are the words of Jesus. Here you are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. All right, this is going to get deep and real to our faith because this is going to ultimately lead to what I believe is a breakthrough in many of our faith experiences, because it's easy to get into those places in our lives and in our faith where we. We have it all happening up here, but we struggle to bring it out here. And we often go back and forth between trying to figure out what matters more, the stuff that we know or the stuff that we do. And what Jesus is showing us here in the gospel and St. Paul and in the book of Isaiah, is that it's all roped together. However, the rocket fuel to a breakthrough in your faith is getting off your butt and doing stuff that's just the bottom line. And I understand that we, as Catholics especially, we want to sit in our churches, we want to pray a million rosaries and chaplets and novenas and all of that stuff is great. But that really is what is going to illuminate us for the work of the kingdom of heaven. That relationship that we have with God isn't just to be in a vacuum. It's something that we were created to do have this relationship with God, but what else are we created to do? To do good works? And if you want to have a deeper relationship with Jesus, it can't just be this individualistic thing where you never actually get out in the world and do his will. And I know probably a lot of us know that. Now. Here's the other thing. Some of us, though, go, oh, this is my kind of talk, Keith. I love to do stuff. And I love doing stuff so much that I don't even really spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, theology or doctrine or teaching. I just. All that stuff is just for the academics. I want to just get out and do stuff. So now you're speaking my language. Well, here's what I'll tell you. You can't have one without the other. Just going out and doing good things in and of themselves doesn't get it done either. Friends, we have to have both. We have to have. I almost smacked my fingers. We have to have both. We have to have this relationship with God, but yet we also have to step out and be that light to this world. I mean, did you see what it says here in that first reading? To have a breakthrough, we need to serve those in need. We have to get out of our heads and into the world in practical ways. And we're going to get into some of those practical ways in a minute. And I want to just share this with you because so many of you struggle with that, and you have a lot of internal struggles, and you're constantly in your own head trying to figure things out with your faith, and you wonder, why can't I ever just, like, get out of my head? That's exactly the problem. Your internal struggles can be overcome when you help someone else with their external struggles. Think about that. Your internal struggles can be overcome when you help someone with their external struggles. Like, look at that again from Isaiah. Look what he's saying that we need to do. Look, you got to share bread with the hungry. Bring the homeless poor into your house. When you see the naked, cover him. And to not hide yourself from your own flesh. That means don't hide away from everybody else when they have needs. Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Friends, this is a picture of what can happen inside of each of us when we get this. When we say, okay, God, use me for your plan. And God's plan is to meet needs with Love. That's what ministry is. That's what discipleship is. That's helping people think about what Jesus talked about. If you read that, you're probably being reminded of what Jesus talked about in Matthew 25. I was sick and, and you visited me. I was in prison and you visited me. I was sick and you comforted me. I was naked and you clothed me. All these things. This is a callback to this. What Jesus is saying is if you want that spiritual breakthrough, understand this. You've got to get out of your head and you've got to get into the world and you've got to help people with their real issues. That's so important. And yet how many of us actually do it? How many of us, when we think about I need to grow my faith, we think about reading a book or saying some prayers or, you know, going to adoration. Now, all those things are obviously mandatory, right? We need to do those things. Somebody will say, that's not mandatory. Do them. Yes, but that isn't the end. That isn't the end. Okay, if that's all you do, if you never help anybody else in your faith, you're missing out on what God wants to do. And let your light shine forth. And as you step out into the world that to meet those external needs, God's got your back. See, so many of us are afraid to do it because we're like, what if I do it wrong? Or what if I sacrifice too much? God's got you. You can never be afraid. If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. To those of you who are depressed and gloomy and full of anxiety and fear, this is your wake up call. Get out of your house and go and serve someone. Find a way to do it. We're going to go through some practical reasons or ways to do that here in a moment, but just prepare yourself because that's what's coming. All right. When you think about our second reading, of course, this is interesting too, because St. Paul is talking about another way that we sometimes can internalize things even when we're sharing our faith with people. And he talks about his experience now when he goes to preach to these people. And what does he say? He says, I didn't come to you with eloquent words and all this, you know, beautiful speech. I didn't come to you with lofty words or wisdom. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus. Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling. My speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom. But get this, in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith might not rest in wisdom of men, but on the power of God. All right, I know, I just read the whole thing again. I just couldn't stop. Here's the deal. St. Paul is a brilliant guy. He knew everything, right? He was a trained Pharisee under the, he was a student of Gamaliel, was a, a leading rabbi tribe of Benjamin. I mean, he was the cream of the crop. And yet when he comes into his wheelhouse preaching and teaching, what does he do? Does he come up with the craftiest arguments and the wisdom that has been formulated in a way that no one can deny? No. He comes with simple words and simple truth. My friends. St. Paul didn't rely on his intellect and his ability to be a captivated speaker. He kept the message simple. He didn't make it about himself, he made it about the message. Now this is really, this hits me hard because as a guy who essentially talks a lot, you know, for a living in ministry, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make my message hard hitting, how to make my message impactful, how to come across. And I'd be lying to you if I said that none of that stuff mattered to me because I try to do the best I can to come across in a way that's going to be compelling. I know I don't always do that. But what can happen when you live in that world is your pride can creep in and you can begin to think that the message that you have to give really isn't that important as much as it is how you say it, because you can say to yourself things like, well, people already know the truth. They already heard, they know about Jesus, but I have to come across in a way that's going to make them want to listen. I think we can fall into that. And what can happen sometimes is we can make our message more about us and our abilities. And that's the thing that we think more about than on what it actually is. So we have to be careful because there's a danger there for us and for the people we're talking to. The danger for us is that we can become so self focused, we can think that it's all about us and we can take pride when things go well and when our message is received, we can be like, yeah, I did a Great job. Yay me. But when our message isn't received, then we can feel like a failure. We can feel shame or we can feel discouragement. But when we realize that it's not us as a message giver that really has the power to impact people, it's God in that, then that'll do two things that will eliminate our pride, hopefully, and it will also eliminate our discouragement if it doesn't go well. What we have to always remember is that it's not about us, it's about him. Now, I've had so many experiences with this where I have. Well, before I get to there, I want to say the danger for the other people. I said there's danger for us. Danger for others. The danger for others is that their faith is contingent on someone who has the ability to captivate them with words. And they can be like, oh, wow, that was an amazing message. I'm going to become Catholic. Well, then when they run into somebody who's a Protestant, who has a way with words, who can talk them out of it, that's what they'll do. If you can be talked into your faith, you can also be talked out of it. So it's dangerous if you make the faith just a reduction of an argument or to an argument, because then if someone else makes a better argument, I know you might say you can't make a better argument. Two plus two equals four, no matter what. You'd be surprised. Some of the arguments that you can hear against the faith that, let's be honest, can sound compelling, they can sound convincing. And if you're not strong in your faith, in what it is, there's a danger that you could be swayed away. This was happening. People were coming in with. That's why the Church was warning about this. Don't be caught up in these myths and genealogies and endless things. That's what they were talking about in the New Testament because people were coming in with. With arguments and different. And they were carrying people away. I mean, throughout the history of the Church, as you study it, you see one heresy after another that began with people who were like, in the Church, bishops who got a weird idea and then turned it into this incredible argument. I mean, read about the Nestorian heresy or even the Arian heresy. It took over a lot of the Church because these guys had some good arguments. So those are the dangers. It's bad for you and it's bad for them. Now, let me just tell you a little bit about some of the experiences I've had where you know, I have given messages where I have thought, wow, that was awesome. I felt like I nailed what I wanted to nail. And, you know, it seemed to feel good to me. And then, you know, you get people who are just like, well, that was nice. You know, it used to happen to me at church all the time. I give a message, you know, in the pulpit or whatever. I get down. I'm greeting people after the service. And, you know, there'd be some, you know, person that would come up to me and they would just kind of shake my hand and go, that was a nice sermon. And that used to make me so mad because I'm thinking, what if what you got from what I just did was just a nice sermon? You clearly weren't paying attention, or I'm a horrible failure. So it was oftentimes people who had, like, visceral reactions to it, maybe in a good and sometimes in a bad way that would make me feel like, okay, maybe I was over the target there. But that was very independent of how I felt about it oftentimes. Because there would be other times when I would preach a message. And this happens to me now, too, sometimes. Well, I'll go to a parish mission or to a conference or something, and I'll deliver a talk, and I'll just feel like, man, that was a dud. You know, I had no energy. I was distracted or preoccupied. And I just don't feel like I gave my best. And I've had people that have said, wow, that changed my life. So when you feel like you did great, the reaction can be the opposite when you feel like you did terrible. So what's the point? The point is this. We have to not make it about us. Almost to the point where. And this is what I try to do now. I don't even evaluate. I don't like to do that. I don't like to self evaluate. Well, how did it go? How did I do? I just leave that to the Lord. Because I've learned that I'm the last person that can really give an accurate representation of whether God did something through that. What I want to do is present the truth, present the message of the gospel and my experience with it in a way that is easy to understand. And oftentimes that means make it simple. I've heard so many talks, though, where I go and I listen to these guys talk, because I get to do a lot of that, too. And I have heard people take the simplest concept and make it the most complicated gobbledygook of things that at the end of it, I'm like, what in the world were they talking about? And oftentimes people do that because they're afraid to just do what St. Paul did and deliver a simple message of the Gospel, a simple message of Christ and him crucified. They want to try to make it sound so eloquent and so learned. Why? So that you'll look at them and go, wow, what a smart person. What a compelling person. I've seen people who get up and they get ready to give a talk, and they turn into, like, a different person. Their mannerisms change. I mean, you've seen this. If you watch television preachers, they go into their preacher voice or they go into their. I could spot it a million miles away when someone's doing that, because it's not genuine. They're following an example. They saw someone else. It's learned behavior. So they'll enunciate their words in a certain way, or they will make certain gestures or whatever, or there'll be certain phrases that they'll use. One of the preachers, I used to listen to a guy named Matt Chandler down in. He's in this church down in Texas, and he used to say this. He had this little catchphrase that he would say all the time, and I'd never heard anybody else say it until after he started saying it. He would preach, then he would just go. And this may be like, after once every couple minutes, he would just go, are you tracking with that? Are you tracking with that? He would say it, he would talk, and then it was sort of like his filler phrase. Are you tracking with that? And. And then I, you know, I would go to a conference or something, and I would see these young guys that would. That would be dressed like these guys, and they would try to look like them, and they would take on their mannerisms. And I heard a guy once, he was talking, and then he was just, are you tracking with that? Are you tracking? And I'm just like, oh, man, dude, you don't need to be someone else. Just be you. And as a matter of fact, don't try to make it more complicated than it needs to. Just present your message, his message, in a clear, simple way. We don't need to overcomplicate things. And I've heard this in Catholic circles, too. People who think that if they pronounce words a certain way or they talk about the Latin or the Greek, somehow they're more holy than other people. This. You know, what, Whatever. I'm just saying that St. Paul wasn't going to rely on his ability to be a compelling intellectual. He was going to let the message be what it needed to be. And that's part of what we need to do. So you see, in Isaiah, we have this call to go out and tangibly meet needs. And then in St. Paul, we have this call to simply proclaim a simple message of the gospel. Keep that in mind, my friends. Keep that in mind. When we share the gospel with people, we need to make it more about Jesus than about us. And we have to always remember that. Now let's talk about the gospel. Okay? Jesus nailing us with these texts. You know, you are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it be restored? How shall saltiness be restored? I mean, what does salt do? Right? It's a flavor enhancer. It doesn't really create a new flavor when you just eat salt by itself. Like, most normal people don't want to do that. But whatever you put salt on typically makes however it tastes better. It's an enhancer. So that's important. Jesus is using that illustration to talk about us in terms of the world. You are the salt of the world. We're to make the world better. We're to enhance the good that is already there. We don't create something new. We take the message of the gospel, and that message is going to make things, things better. But if we don't do that, then what good are we? Is what he's ultimately saying, it's no longer good for anything, right? I mean, have you ever had salt that you could, like, reinvigorate with saltiness? You can't do it. And yet sometimes we fall into that trap of just going through the world and existing in a way and not asking ourselves, am I showing up to this, making it better, or am I either making it worse or having no effect? You should always want to have a positive effect wherever you go on whatever group of people that you encounter. You want to leave a group of people better than when you walked into it. Do you do that? When you show up, are people going, oh, man, sweet, this person's here? Or when you show up, are they going, oh, boy, here we go? Now, I know you might not always be able to know, but what you can know is this. What am I doing? Do I bring positivity to a group, or am I complaining and negative? When I show up to a group, does everything all of a sudden turn negative and dark? Or do I lift people up? Do I glorify God in what I say, am I here to be a helpful person, or am I someone that makes more problems? And this can be played out in a lot of ways from the standpoint of just caring about other people and. And showing interest in their lives to, you know, physical things. When you show up into a place, do you take up a lot of space and make a mess and just sort of expect other people to deal with it? Or when you show up, are you bringing something to the table? It's really not that complicated. I have a friend who. Completely unnecessary, but they always do this. And it's interesting, but even if it's just completely random, you say, hey, come over. I got something for you. Whenever they. If you know, hey, come over. I want to. I want to talk to you about something. They always bring something. You don't need to do that. But last time this guy came over to my house, he's like, oh, hey, Keith, I found this really cool coffee. I know you guys like to drink coffee. And I'm like, dude, you didn't need to do that. He's like, oh, no, man. I saw this, I thought of you, and I started thinking about this brother. I'm like, you know what? This is a dude that every time we get together, he's always, like, bringing something. Not just his own positive attitude, but he's always, like, bringing a tangible thing to share. And I'm not saying you have to do that, but I'm just saying, like, when you are, you showing up as a blessing, because that's what we're for, right? You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid, right? He's talking about this light that we have in our faith. Needs to be something that is visible to other people, needs to be something that isn't hidden. It isn't just about itself. The light doesn't exist for its own sake. It goes into the world. And what we're going to talk about now are some practical ways that you can. That you can do that. Because again, if you want to jumpstart your faith, if you want to break through in your faith, the answer is not just some new thought. The answer is to get out of your head and get out there and meet some needs and share some truth. All right, so number one, here's what I want you to think about when it comes to a practical way to bring your light into the world, Serve in a way that makes a tangible difference. This is like, what I'm talking about. Find something tangible you can do. Find A need that someone has and go meet that need. Just like the book of James says, if you say to someone who is, who is homeless and without clothing, oh, you know, be warm and well fed, but as you go on your way, what good is that to them? Rather, do something tangible, do something material to meet the needs of someone. Figure out a way to do that. I can't tell you what that looks like for you, but go find a way to make a tangible difference in someone's life. Find a need and meet that need in love. That's important. So again, you figure out what that looks like. But you have to get out of your house and you have to go do something to, to make a tangible difference in someone's life. Number two, don't be ashamed of your faith. Meet the needs that you're going to meet in the name of Jesus. So that doesn't mean you put strings on things. It doesn't mean you say, hey, I will. You know, you go up to the homeless guy and you say, hey, I'll buy you lunch, but you got to come to church with me first. Now that might sound kind of cool, but you don't want to meet someone's needs with like a manipulative way or something like that. But at the same time, you also don't want to like be this anonymous Christian either and just like meet the needs, but never attach a message of faith to it. Don't be ashamed of your faith. Meet those needs in the name of Jesus. Find a way to incorporate that somehow into whatever you're going to do in this tangible way back. That's not always easy to do and it doesn't always have to happen in the exact same moment. That's the thing I think people get hung up on. They go, okay, I'm going to go shovel my next door neighbor's driveway when the big snowstorm hits. So what am I supposed to do, right? Like go out and shovel the driveway and then write like Jesus loves you in the snow or something like that? Okay, it might not be at that exact moment, but it might be this. A cumulative effect of you serving that person in these tangible ways, which almost always is going to open the door to conversation. It's almost always going to give you some sort of ability to have a conversation with that person to which then you can talk about your faith and then they're going to understand why you do what you do. So for example, let's say you go and shovel your neighbor's driveway and they come out, oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. You know, you can say to them, you know, I just want to help you. I was reading in the Gospel the other day about the need to humble yourself and serve someone. And I just, the Lord just put you on my heart to do this. Now that's not like you're not asking them for anything. You're not manipulating them, but you're just explaining to them the context of why you're doing it. Now you got to make sure that you're not doing well. I didn't want to do this, but God told me to. You have to figure that out for yourself. But just don't be ashamed of it. Because sometimes people are willing to go do the tangible things, but they're not willing to have the heart to heart conversation. You got to be willing to do both. Don't be ashamed of your faith. Number three, let your good deeds show what your words sometimes can't. This is important. Sometimes we're not given the ability to speak those words. Sometimes there might be someone in your life who you've had that conversation with and they're just like, get away from me with that Jesus stuff. Get away from me with that Christianity. I don't want to hear about it. And you're not given that opportunity because you've tried it before. Or you might feel like you don't have the right words in the moment, you don't know what to say. You don't let your words do the talking. Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't preach the gospel, use words if necessary. That's garbage. Okay? What I'm talking about is when you struggle with what to say and you don't know, do something. Get in there and do something and then the words will come to you. So if your words can't express what you're trying to say, maybe there's someone who just went through a horrible loss, a tragic loss, and you want to bring comfort to them, but you don't know what to say. You ever have that moment, you're just like, I don't know what to say to you. Maybe you can't in that moment say something, but you can do something. You can show up for that person or you can meet some need that they have that they are unable to deal with at that moment because of what they're going through. Let your deeds do what your words sometimes can't and you'll know when you're there. Number four, don't stop trying to do good, even when it's frustrating. Have you ever heard the phrase, no good deed goes unpunished? Yeah, I say that a lot. You know, it's interesting. I just went through something recently where I kind of went out of my way to do something for someone, and it completely backfired on me to the point where I don't want to say it cost me a friendship, but it certainly has diminished the friendship. All because I tried to do something to help this person. And the bottom line is they didn't like the way I did it. They didn't like the way I handled that situation. I was only trying to do good. Have you ever been there before? Have you ever tried to help somebody and yet they just somehow turned it against you, or they didn't appreciate it, or they. I don't know. I mean, you can fill in the blank here. We've probably all been there. And the tendency or the temptation is to say, I'm never doing that again. I don't want to fall into that again. I was just saying that this morning to my wife, as a matter of fact. Not to her, not about her. But we were having this conversation about the situation, and I was like, dude, you know, they're mad at me because I did this. And you know what? Forget it. I'm not doing that for anybody. But that's not right. We shouldn't allow the frustration that we have with people's response to our good deeds prevent us from doing more good deeds. Because it's not about their response. It's about, did we do what we were supposed to do? Were we that vessel that God could use? It's kind of like the preaching thing. When you give the message that you're done now, it's on them to receive it or to accept it. And whichever one they choose isn't because of you. So you can't take the credit. And you also can't take the heat. You just do what you're supposed to do and let God and them sort it out. The same is true when it comes to good deeds. Sometimes you might do a good deed for someone and they might not ever understand that it was you. Hey, that's okay. But sometimes they might get mad at you for that. They might misinterpret the situation, and you might be like, forget this. If that happens to you, then what? You've just revealed that your service to them was still more about you, or at least partly about you, rather than about Jesus. Because where we want to get to in this place is to say, whatever happens as a result, out of my Hands. So don't stop trying to do good deeds, even when it's frustrating, because it's gonna be. It's gonna be. People make it frustrating to serve. And you just have to understand that's how it's going to be, and you have to serve anyway. Okay, number five, last one. Glorify God in what you do, not yourself. The light of the world isn't your light. Right? It's not, hey, look at me. I'm so ready. It's God's light shining through you. Any ability that we have to do good to other people should never be for our own glory. And it's to glorify God. And when we get that under control, then we'll be able to do all these other things. But so oftentimes we fall into this trap of doing these good deeds and what we do to get glory for ourselves. I've told this story plenty of times, but I'll tell it again. Maybe for those of you who haven't heard it yet or whatever, but back when I was a pastor, we were doing a fundraising campaign to build a new church. And it was expensive. I mean, it was ultimately like a $10 million project. And we would hire these consultants to come in to raise the money. And they had this protocol that they would follow. And part of that protocol was coming up with incentives for people to give that had to do with, hey, if you give X, your name is going to be on a plaque somewhere, or we're going to name a wing of a building or a chair or a hallway or whatever after you. So if you give X, you get this. If you get Y, you get this bigger thing. And I remember just fussing about that. And I even said to the committee that was. That was working with this, I said, this is. This is wrong. I don't want anything to do with this. And the fundraising guy was like, well, I'm just telling you what. We just run the boilerplated system everywhere we go. And the reason why we do it this way is because that's what works. Because people are motivated by glory. They're motivated to give because of the glory that will come to them sadly. And I remember just thinking, this is a problem. This is a problem. But yet I've found in myself that problem at times, too, where you've wanted to be noticed for what you give. You've wanted other people to take notice and say, oh, wow, isn't that person so generous? Or isn't that person so wealthy? Or what? Wow, look what they could do. It's amazing. So we have to be careful about that, my friends. We have to make sure that the things that we're doing aren't about other people seeing us and giving glory to us than they are about God. And I'll leave you to figure out what that looks like for you. But for me, what it looks like is this. Oftentimes I want to do things for people in anonymous ways, you know, to give without anybody else knowing about it. And honestly, it's in a weird, ironic way, it's kind of selfish, because in that way, I feel like I am not falling into this trap, which, is that a selfish thing or is that a wise thing? I don't know. Somebody can figure that out for me. But sometimes I feel like, no, I need to do that so that I can know that I'm not falling into that trap, because I've also fallen into that trap. So whatever we do right, glorify God in it, not yourself. And I want to ask you a question to help you understand, if you're there, how do you feel when you do something and you don't get credit for it? How do you feel if you're part of a group that does something for a bunch of people and that person says thank you to other people and they don't thank you? It's tough, isn't it? It's tough. That's hard. I've had a lot of lessons with that. I remember when I was a kid, I was part of. You know, I was in. I was in bands growing up and stuff, and there was a. There was a band in our. In our city that. That we did a lot of stuff together with, you know, and they were getting ready to go record a record. They were. They were awesome. And I remember their drummer needed to borrow some of my equipment, and I was like, you know, the new kid in town. I wasn't, like, a popular person in this scene. I was in one of these bands, but I was still very much like. I felt like a kind of a. An outsider a little bit. And this guy came to me and he was like, hey, man, can I borrow your cymbals for the record? And I was like, yeah. And I was honestly honored that he was using my gear for his stuff. And I remember when the record came out and I looked through the notes and, you know, he thanked all these people. They thanked all these people for all their help. And he didn't say, and thanks to Keith for letting me borrow his stuff. You know, And I remember, like, at that I was 15. That stung me. I was like, what? You know, whatever. Why didn't he thank me for that? Now I'm much older than that now. And honestly, I will tell you, sometimes if I do something for somebody and, you know, they don't thank me, but they thank other people or whatever, sometimes I'll be. It could still be like, well, okay, what about me? But may that be rebuked in my heart. May that be something that never happens. And I think I'm trying to grow in that area. Well, how are you doing in that? How. How do you feel when you don't get credit for what you do? See how this is difficult? This is practical, but we gotta get down into the dirt of this if we're going to be really able to be used by God. Because here's the bottom line, and then I'll be done. God will only use you as far as he can until you get in the way. Boom. That's your breakthrough. Your breakthrough isn't this lack of knowledge. It isn't the movement of God. It's whatever you've put in your way to stop you from moving through. And sometimes it's our lack of willingness to get out there and meet tangible needs. And sometimes it's our refusal to give glory to God, but rather glory to ourselves. We got to break through that. We got to stop that. We got to rebuke that. And the best way is just to get out there and do stuff. Don't attach any strings to it. Tell people about your faith in a way that isn't glorifying yourself and let the results fall where they may and give glory to God. Boom. That's Unpacking the Mask for this week. Friends, thank you so much for being here. Having said that, this is super ironic, but I want to thank you for all of your encouraging comments that you leave for Unpack the Mask. I read every single one of them and I tell you guys, it blesses my heart every single week. It encourages me and helps me, and it blows me away. Because just like when I give talks and feel sometimes like that was a dud, sometimes I record these episodes and I feel like that was a dud. And then there's somebody in the comments that says, no, that changed my life. And I'm here to tell you, glory to God for that. It ain't Keith, that's for sure. Glory to God for that. And thank you for being a part of my friends. I truly appreciate it. And together, as we continue to unpack the mass, may God's glory be revealed in our lives, in and through us. Thank you so much for being here, my friends. I look forward to seeing you next week here on Unpacking the Mass. Take care and God bless you.