God’s Word-Saturated and Spirit-Inspired Missional Plan with Scott Menez

Let's stand up and lift our voices this morning.

I've asked for rescue at the cross you took my place. With your grace on top of grace. Rescue the cross you raised on top of grace I said it

I wanna welcome you here today. All of you to 12 .5 Church, especially our guests today. We're so happy that you're here. And always, our prayer is that you find a church where you can not only grow in Jesus Christ, but you can find a body, a community that can come alongside you and your family in love as you walk and grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you've been visiting, you're aware that we have been going through Ephesians lately, and especially in the past several weeks, we've been at the last part of chapter five and the first part of chapter six where it's addressing specifically God's design for the family.

This subject has generated a lot of questions, a lot of discussions, and a lot of prayer. And there's a good reason for this. The world knows that God designed the family to help tamp down evil in this world.

And it's gonna do everything that it can to distort what God's design is. And what we're trying to do at 12 .5 Church is we're trying to take back ground that the evil one has stolen away over the years.

Paul goes straight to the point in Ephesians six when he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Make no mistake, this is a spiritual battle that we're in. When we're trying to take back ground, we can expect the evil one to take notice and to attack. This is why we're asking that you pray with us, that you take a stand with us and with our Lord Jesus Christ as he is our strong tower and he will enable us to take this ground back.

Well, today though, we're gonna be taking a break from Ephesians. Because we have a special blessing. We have Scott, pastor, sorry, Scott Menez with us. He was the pastor at River Bend Church in Ormond Beach, Florida.

And he's been called out into the mission field where he will be going west to start up churches. And on his way there, he has graciously stopped by and he's gonna explain to us where the Lord is leading him in this quest.

As you may not be aware, River Bend and Pastor Scott hold a special place in 12 .5's heart. The Lord used them in a powerful way in helping a small group of people start a church in Jonesboro, Arkansas three years ago.

And that church is 12 .5 Church. What a job. The Lord has really blessed us. We was talking about that earlier today. The pastor Scott was not only instrumental in providing guidance with River Bend and oversight in what we were doing, but also financial support.

They provided oversight with Pastor Jeremiah and Pastor Nathan, bringing them along to become pastor elders over 12 .5 Church. They continue to walk beside us as we move forward in accomplishing what the Lord has set before us.

So Pastor Scott, we offer you our utmost gratitude for you allowing the Lord to use you in River Bend as means to help us become the church you see before us. You played a major part in it and we're so thankful.

So if you would, please accept our gratitude and our welcome to you today. Well, now we come to a part in our service where we pray for a local church, which we do every week. And the church that we're gonna be praying for this week, as you can see on the screen, is Nelton Baptist Church over on the other side of town.

So if you would bow your heads with me, please. Father, we just lift Nelton Baptist Church up to you. We lift up their leaders, their pastors, their deacons, Lord, as they seek your will in reaching Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Lord, we know that side of town is really growing. We just pray that you would just enlighten them, Father, that you would speak to them, that you would guide them to further your kingdom in the city of Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Amen.

Well, next we have the call to worship, which is a responsive reading. This is from Psalm 138. And so I will be reading a part of scripture and then you'll be following. We give you thanks, O Lord, with our whole heart.

We bow down towards your holy temple, for you have exalted above all things. On the day we called you, you answered us. All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord, and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord.

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly. Though we walk in the midst of trouble, you stretch out your hand against the wrath of our enemies. The Lord will faithful fulfill his promise for us.

Do not forsake the work of your Lord, the Lord your hands. Amen. So I have a prayer of adoration that I would like to reach out to God with if you'd bow your hands, please. Lord God, heavenly Father, today we come into your presence with unceasing praise.

This is urged by our need, invited by your promises, and called by your spirit. We enter your presence worshiping you with reverence and godly fear, awed by your majesty, your greatness, your glory, and we're encouraged by your love.

We recognize our poverty as well as our guilt, have nothing of our own which to repay you with. But we bring Jesus to you, on the basis of faith, pleading his righteousness to counter our inequities, having a full knowledge that this will satisfy your justice.

Father, you are the author of all existence and the source of all blessings. We adore you for making us capable of knowing and understanding these truths and in leading us in our desire of you. We pray that you make us worthy of your calling, that the name of Jesus will be glorified in us, in us and him.

Love is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now, no love is greater You can stand against us if our God is for us When I stumble, believe it when I turn back Still your love is sure, you will not uphold the same Ever ending with joy, God is for us Neither high nor dead, yet we're separate Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress Raise your voice now, no love is greater You can stand against us if our God is for us

Thank you so much, Father Lord, for this opportunity that you have so blessed us with to come together in your house this morning, Lord, and sing praise and worship to you and lift your name on high. All we have is Christ.

So thankful, Lord, as I was running my hell bound race that you looked down and you saved me. I'm so grateful for my salvation, Lord. I pray this morning, Lord, that you would be with Pastor Scott as he comes before us and shares what you're doing in his life, Lord.

I'm just so thankful that he's done for me and him and with 12 Five and helping us and praying for us. And Lord, just the support, it's just so awesome, Lord. We're so grateful, we're so thankful. Father Lord, I just pray that you would bless our offering this morning.

Take up, Lord, and we love you. We praise you, ask all these things in your son, Jesus, precious and holy name. And all of God's people said.

Good to see you.

The last time I was here, we were over in the metal shed there at Nathan's place. And there was about three of you and maybe four. And man, we were praying hard that God would build his church here in Jonesboro.

And here I come now, a couple of years later, and some of you came out to Riverbend not too long ago. And now you're here and you're growing and God is blessing, the word is being preached. Souls are being changed.

I am totally encouraged. So I am so glad to be with you. I'm so sorry Nathan isn't feeling well. I just love that man. And he's been such an encouragement to me and to watch him grow. And then of course, Jeremiah and Keith, what a blessing to see God add leadership.

This is an amazing thing. This doesn't happen every day. You guys have to understand. I've been doing this for 40 years. You don't see what God's doing here all over the place right now. So this is really special.

So give him glory for it. Don't take any credit. You don't deserve any of that. Give him glory for that and then keep serving him. What a blessing. In a small way, it has put a little burn to my saddle as I've watched this happen.

Gina and I were church planters for a lot of years. We did our first 20 years of ministry with church planting in very, very rural areas. And then by God's providence, we ended up in large churches and seminary plants and all that kind of stuff.

And now God is calling us back to the rural areas. And we're very excited. I've always felt a little bit out of place in some of the larger churches. We raised our boys on a cattle ranch and we love the rural areas for many reasons.

I'm gonna share a little more of that during our sermon discussion. I do wanna show you just a couple of slides. I'm here to preach. That's what preaching is, what God builds a church upon, his word. So that's what I'm here to do.

But I wanna show you just a few slides of where we're going. A lot of people are asking, what's this crazy guy doing? This is the first one. This is our field right there. If you see that line down in the middle of that, that's the Oregon, Idaho border, right in the middle of that circle and see how it kind of T-bones into Nevada down there.

That is our field. There is not one incorporated city on that field, meaning there's no councils or mayors or cities. The cities are maybe 50, if less than that. But there is a whole lot of people out there that don't know the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there are no churches. I drove through your town and coming in across the states and there's churches everywhere. There are no churches here.

Next slide.

This is what's here. There is a thousand cows per person on our field. And, but that guy in that horse is who we're after. We wanna share the gospel with him and reach this, reach these men and women that are out there.

They raise America's food and they're hated by America now because their cows create methane gas or something crazy like that. And they are very private. They're very hardworking, very self-sufficient and they don't need a God a lot of times.

And so our job is to go and take the gospel to them.

Next slide.

This is me on top of a hill. This is a few months ago. This is Jordan Valley. One of our little churches will be there. That kind of gives you an idea of the vastness of where we're going. We go to these places because no one will go.

People graduate from seminary and they don't think, well, let's go out in the middle of nowhere where there's no money, no people and no buildings. So that's where we're going because we do enjoy that areas.

We have a mission's heart. We've always been missionaries from the beginning and Lord is returning us to the field.

Next slide.

This is one of our little churches. These churches were built in the early 1900s. They have had everybody you could imagine through them and every one of them have crashed. This little church has a few people in it.

The people way in the background there are some retired missionaries with American Missionary Fellowship. They have been maintaining this for a little while until we could get there. But this is High Desert Bible Church.

You can pray for that church. It's in Jordan Valley, Oregon. I will be preaching there in the next couple of weeks and starting up that ministry. It's very rural and very few people. The next church, like many days in the old, you circuit pastor in this area.

So I do 930 at High Desert and then I hop on my truck and I drive 45 minutes out to the middle of nowhere to this little building. This is called Arock Bible Chapel. This is another gathering. There's really nothing there.

There is a school to the left of that. This used to be an old school building. They moved it to two-room school building. It has no plumbing in it.

There's an outhouse out back.

And then there's a post office. That's all that's here. But we have about 20 people who come faithfully. They're all ranchers and farmers. And this is Arock Church.

Next slide.

After that, I make another long run, about an hour and 45 minutes to Roswell Baptist Church. They have been without a pastor for three years. I currently working on getting an intern in there for a little bit till I can get there and train some men and try it.

So that's a six o 'clock. So it's a circuit riding ministry. You go from church to church. And then during the week, I will head back and just do discipling and a tremendous amount of work to do in these areas.

Next slide.

This is what they do for play. This is what they do for work. This is what they do for play. I think one of the reasons allows me to get in there is we understand their livelihood. We know who they are.

They will hold their cards very close to themselves. They like to look at your cards, but they will not show you theirs. So you need to know them. I started ministry years ago, planning my first church, really just saddle to saddle to these guys and being there where I could share the gospel when God opened the doors.

Next slide.

This is the school in AROC. Now, three of those kids graduated, went on to high school. This is not the newest picture. There are eight children there. There's two teachers and a principal. It's amazing.

They do school for this. That's what's out. That's every one. Every one of those children come to our church. And my wife is able to teach them the scriptures and teach them Bible stories, Christ-centered stories of the scriptures.

And so when we do something, we get the entire town. So you imagine doing Sunday school or VBS, you got all of Jonesboro to come. We can do that. It may be only eight kids, but we get them all.

Next slide.

You'll get a kick out of this. There's several things here I want to point out. Again, you can ask questions during sermon discussion. You can catch up with this. You'll notice the top, the phrase is something I've said for many, many years.

People who've heard me know this phrase, love Christ, love his word, love his people. That has been the theme of our ministry for almost 40 years now is love Christ. You can think through this. If you love Christ, there's a lot of people who say, oh, I love Jesus.

I love Jesus. But they really don't because they don't love his word. And they say, well, he has to accept me for who I am and love his love and all that nonsense that's going on out there. So they may love Jesus, but they don't love his word.

And then there's people who really love the word, but it's all about their knowledge and so forth. And they don't see Christ as the center of the scriptures. And then probably the hardest one is to love his people.

Do you love one another? We're hard to love, aren't we? In large churches, I would remember standing there and having people on this side who I knew did not like those people. We couldn't get them to reconcile.

See, all three are a lifetime pursuit. Love Christ, love his word, love his people. Now, I know it's driving you crazy, that flat rabbit ministry there. Where did that come from? Now, you folks, I think, are a little more country than a lot of places that I've been teaching at.

Many will pay a couple, come up and they'll say, is that a breed? And I said, no, that's a run over rabbit. For many years, I would always tell them about my ministries and the rule parts of America. And I would say, there's nothing out there but sagebrush and flat rabbits.

And so somebody caught that and said, Scott, you've got to start a blog. So that is actually my blog that goes out on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, I either do a video blog or I write to encourage people. And you can get that by getting on our mailing list.

I think over on that stand, there are prayer cards. That last picture, please. This is my wife and I. And then it's got all our information on the back. And we'd love to get you on our newsletter. I think you'll enjoy that.

It's a four minute, if it's a video or it's a short, just encouragement in the word of God that goes out every Tuesday. So feel free to sign up on that and you will get that. Well, we'll talk more about that ministry during the sermon discussion.

So this morning, I want to preach. I want to get you into God's word because that's what changes your life. Not Scott Munez, not any other pastors. We have no power to save anybody. People said, how many people have you saved?

I said, I've saved none of them. You can nail me on a thousand crosses and nobody would get saved. God saves. And so his word is what we want to turn to. So if you'll do me a favor, would you stand with me and turn to First Thessalonians chapter one.

First Thessalonians chapter one, verses one through 10. We will look at this passage this morning. And I want to reflect from a mission standpoint of view, but I also want to reflect. And I think if you've been around here a while, you will see much of what we're talking about in this text that's happened here.

Because God is perfect in all that he does. So he doesn't have to amend things. He does not have an amendment plan. His word is sufficient. It doesn't need to change. And so when churches are planted right, missions is done right, there's a repetition we see and you're going to see it in a Thessalonica church.

So let's read these first 10 verses together and then we'll pray and we'll get into the text. First Thessalonians one, one through 10, Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians, in God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers. Constantly bearing in mind your work of faith, your labor of love, your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of our God and father.

Knowing brethren, beloved by God, his choice of you. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and the Holy Spirit with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake.

You also became imitators of us and of the Lord. Having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

The word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith towards God has gone forth so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us, what kind of reception we had with you and how to turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.

That is Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come. This is the reading of God's word. You may be seated. Will you pray with me as we ask the Lord to show us his truth. Father, thank you for this time.

My heart feels so full, Lord. It feels like it's gonna burst. As I have watched from a distance, you do a great work in here in Jonesboro. Lord, you have gathered your church. You promised to do that.

You said that the gates of hell would not stop it. And you have proven that yet once again here. You have collected some souls from every walk of life, from all kinds of backgrounds, and you have claimed them as your own and you have put them into one local body called 12 -5 and you have called them your bride.

And here they are, Lord, and I sit in awe of what you've done. And I thank you, Lord. And I know this church, these members here give you praise, Lord. So many have already told me even last night and today that they were so grateful for what you've done, Lord.

And so we give you praise. Lord, we all know this is built upon your truth, your truth sets us free. And so we go to your truth time and time and time again. And this morning, Lord, as we look into the word, we pray that that truth will jump off the page of the scriptures and grab us, Lord.

Please don't let us be the same as we came in. Change us more into the image of your son, Lord. Please do not leave us the same, Lord. We know we need to progress in our likeness of you. It's where our joy comes from, where our strength comes from when we have trials and temptations is when we're being conformed into your image.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would conform me. You would conform these dear brothers and sisters, Lord, as we plow through your word, mining that truth, Lord. Would you enrich our hearts and our minds to be better and deeper worshipers of you?

We pray this all in the Lord Jesus' name, our Savior. Amen. Well, Thessalonica was a very special church. And the reason I picked this is because I thought often of you guys. You've been on my heart many, many times.

I've spent a lot of time on the phone with Nathan and just encouraging him and answering questions. But Thessalonica was a very, very special place. It was very special to Paul. In fact, it's one of the few letters in Philippi, which would be part of his second missionary journey, we'll look at that in a minute, that did not have tons of problems.

It was not like Corinth, even Ephesus. Paul had to send Timothy back there. These churches were somewhat examples of the hard work of Paul and what he wanted to see done. And so when you read Thessalonians, it isn't a book full of rebuke like Corinthians.

It's a remarkable praise of what God has done. And I hope this morning that you will see a little bit of what God's doing in you and you'll give praise to him. Now, Paul had how many missionary journeys?

Does everybody remember?

Three, thank you. I'm glad somebody has studied their early church history. There are three missionary journeys. The first one is amazing. You should read through it. It's mind blowing. You know, he goes and he plants churches and he's preaching the gospel.

He's moving from synagogue and he's getting beat up and stoned and left for dead. And then he gets into the end of the track and he goes, let's go back. And he turns around, goes right back through those places in order to encourage the saints.

But then he reports, if you turn with me to Acts 14, he decides to go back to report to Antioch what had taken place. And this was a very important providential meaning that God wanted Paul and Barnabas to go back to report what was going on.

He has now been through, just recently in chapter 14, he's been stoned and left for dead. And then he turns around and goes back through. He's constantly plagued. The Jews are sending mobs after him, plotting his death, trying to kill him, chasing him from one town to town.

But when he gets back to give his report, I want you to remember this, never in the report does he report what they did to him. He reports what God was doing in those cities. It is amazing. I read this and I go, Lord, I think I would fail already because I would go, Lord, they're so mean to me.

He doesn't look at it that way. And I think this is the heart of a believer who has been captured by the glory of Christ. You get to the point where the hurts and the frustrations are pale in comparison to what God has done.

And then you become a worshiper, not a complainer, not a taker. See, so many Christians right now, and maybe that's a problem, maybe they're not Christians, but I think some were so needy, right? I need, I need, I need, I need more.

I can't come to a church that doesn't have full blown this and that and this and all these things and entertain me and entertain me. That's the American church, isn't it today? See, I think the church that God honors and exalts and uses in his divine plan are churches that are full of worshipers.

And when they come together, even though life is difficult, and we could go around this room, and I'm sure you could tell me, Scott, this is going on in my life, will you pray for me? And I wanna pray for you.

But when you come in here, you go, oh Lord, you are so glorious. And when the word is preached and the songs of truth are sang, you forget those things because God is everything to you in that moment.

And that's what we need to live on. On Monday school, I had old pastor used to tell me, well, that sounds good on Sunday school, but what about Monday school, right? That's when things, when the rubber meets the road and it's hard and trying to pay bills and there's relationship issues and there's children raising and all those things is the worship that's done here today gonna propel you through Monday school.

So that means it's made it down the long highway. The longest highway in the world is from your mind to your heart. And you become worshipers. And that's what Paul was about and that's why he doesn't complain.

You notice in chapter 14, verse 26 of Acts, they sailed to Antioch. They're returning, let's go back, he said. Let's appoint these elders and let's return in verse 23, but we sail back and let us tell them what the grace of God has done, what's been accomplished.

See, this missionary report, I hope I can come back in a couple of years and I'm sure Nathan and Jeremiah and Keith will let me come back and I can't wait to come back and say, can I tell you what God has done?

Yeah, there's been some hard things going on. I know I've been doing this a long time. I have hard things coming at me, but I can't wait to come back and tell you. And so this is the first missionary report ever given in the church.

You notice he comes back in verse 27, they were gathered, they had arrived and gathered the church together because who else would you tell this to? You gather the church together and they began to report all the things that God had done with them and how he'd opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, not a stitch of complaining there.

Nothing about the stoning, nothing about the abuse that happened to them. He was telling them that God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles and they spent a long time with the disciples. I love that.

They spent a long time together. Oh, you know, Scott, come on, I gotta go.

Oh, no, no.

Is the things of God, is the things that God is doing around the world, is it worth you giving time to? Worth you wanting to know, to invest in missions around the world, invest in the church that's going on?

They spent a long time together, but opposition is always there. And the worst opposition, and many of you know this, is not in the world. It's in the church. Look at chapter 15. Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the customs of Moses, you can't.

Now, now there's this Christ plus things, and without going into a ton of detail to hurry along here in this introduction, there's Paul engaged constantly with, well, that's good, you can believe in your Jesus, but you better do this and you better do that.

Your dear Pastor Jeremiah takes this on a lot, doesn't he? In a lot of his defense of the gospel. Always something else. Jesus just isn't good enough. No, they never would say that. There's always something that must be added, and this is nothing new.

What Jeremiah engages with in his apologia ministry is nothing new. This is what happens. It's a constant attack. Jesus isn't enough. His finished work really isn't finished. You must do something, and so this attack comes.

In verse two, when Paul and Barnas had great dissension and debate with them. Man, these men are passionate about Christ-finished work. I hope you are. I hope it bothers you when someone says, well, yeah, that's good, you've been saved, but you better get this and this checked off.

Oh my goodness, it's a robbing of God's glory, as though Christ's work isn't good enough. And there's great dissension that comes. There's great debate, and I thank the Lord for Jeremiah. He's willing to take this on.

Then the brethren's determined that Paul and Barnabas and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem. Let's go right to where the apostles are. And remember, this time, Jerusalem is the headquarters, the apostles are there, Peter, James, others are there.

And so this debate makes itself all the way there. You can see that there was some, verse five, the sect of the Pharisees who had believed. Now, that's interesting, stood up saying, it is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses.

Now, there's a debate over this verse whether they were concerned with Jews. They wanted to reach Jews, and they knew that that could be a stumbling block, but there was no one better of preaching the law and pointing people to Christ than Paul.

So we knew that they were misguided here, and the apostles and the elders, in verse six, came together and took up this matter. And then Peter stood up, and I'll just give you the paraphrase here. I love this.

Now they're in Jerusalem, these brothers that are dissenting to this Christ alone theology. Now Peter stands up, he goes, oh, then let me add a thought here, because I'm very acquainted with this. And he takes them back to Acts 10 when God calls him to go to Cornelius, you remember that?

And remember, he has a dream and a vision and all these unclean animals coming down, and he boasts of his pride and says, my lips have never touched this, you know? And there, God tells him, you eat that.

And he's teaching, there's nothing you can be added to. And so here he stands up and he's teaching. He says, look, I myself, by my mouth, saw the Gentiles hear the gospel and believe, and he's reminding them we cannot add anything to this.

I was overseas in the Philippines not long ago, and I asked my dear friend Nilo, I said, what happened to all those churches when I was raised where I would see pictures of these natives wearing white shirts and ties and all these pictures of hundreds of people?

And they said, all these people were coming to faith, where are those churches and where are all those people? And he said, Scott, they're mostly gone. They taught them white shirts and ties, they taught them American Christianity, and they muffled the gospel.

Many of them have fallen to the false cults, and those churches no longer have preaching Christ, they're just not here. It's so easy to come along and want people to be like us. We have some kind of dress code, some kind of attitude, some kind of something that's not of God that we want people to adjust to, and the apostles were afraid.

They did not want this to happen. They did not want the glory of Christ veiled in some kind of manner that would veil him from his truth. Peter goes into a great defense. Verse 13, James jumps in this thing.

James gets involved in this, and he, these men are part of the inner circle, they knew that this was dangerous. And so the debate raged on, and finally they came down to a few things, abstained from idols, things contaminated by idols and fornication and strangled by the blood, verse 20.

These are the things they land on, and I think they're good, right? Those are very pagan things. Now, listen, brothers and sisters, there are some things when we come to Christ that we probably shouldn't be engaged with.

They would be difficult for people to see your love for Christ. These were pagan rituals, pagan rituals. Even in this day, this first century, they would cut themselves and strangle animals to try to please their gods, and the apostles say, look, if you love Christ, don't veil him by doing things that are contrary to the word of God.

And so all this is done, and lengthy messages are preached in verse 32. The church is gathered together, and they come to this conclusion, and they decide that they need to send out more men, start a second missionary journey.

Verse 36 of 15 says, after some days, Paul and Barnabas said, let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. I wrote in my Bible, what?

They tried to kill us, quote. Maybe that came from Barnabas, I don't know. That's not inspired, that's me. Let's go back, let's go back and see how they're doing. And then a little debate came out, and Barnabas says, well, let's take John Mark.

Ooh, that was a problem. John Mark bailed on them. Now, if you're gonna run with Apostle Paul, it is no fear, we are going right into the fire. That's the kind of guy he was. Now, I think he was kind and loving, but there was no left, there was no right.

We were going straight at this thing. And John Mark bailed on them. Barnabas was a different brother. He's called the son of encouragement, right? Barnabas was a very special man. He goes, well, I'll take him.

I'll take Barnabas. And so after this sharp disagreement in verse 39, the two split. Now, isn't that interesting that God would allow that to happen? You know, we always say unity, unity, but sometimes there must be a division to prove who God's servants are.

And then he also uses division to spread us out sometimes. Now, we should resolve those things and should be find contentment in Christ. But here, now he breaks forces. And to tell you the truth, we have very little ever recorded in extra biblical material what Barnabas and John Mark did.

But here's what we do know. In Paul's last inspired letter, he says, bring John Mark to me. He is useful to the ministry. Reconciliation happened. John became bold. And Paul said, bring him to me, even there towards his last time of life.