Inevitable Conflict in Ministry 1

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I want to invite you to have a seat, and you may open your Bibles to the 15th chapter of the book of Acts, and I want to begin this morning with a bit of a confession.
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I confess that upon reviewing my notes this morning, I think I have too much information for one message.
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And I have learned recently, it really has become weighty on my heart, that I don't have to rush, I don't have to put so much content into one thing, because we need to really have the opportunity to chew on and think about what we're learning, rather than be forced to sort of try to hold in all this information, much of which just goes right back out.
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So I'm going to see how it goes.
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And we're going to go through the message this morning, and we'll see if the Lord pushes me to continue, or if there's a time at which I think we can stop, we will, and we'll pick up right back where we are next week.
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And if we don't get to the notes in the bulletin, I apologize.
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Because that's the application, and the way that I preach, if you're not aware yet, if you haven't been here long enough, or maybe you just haven't picked up on the way, I believe that expositional preaching can be broken down into three parts.
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You read the text, you explain the text, and you apply the text.
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That's expositional preaching.
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It's very simple.
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There's no magic formula.
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That's it.
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It's just simple.
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We read it, we explain it, and we apply it.
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And so the application is normally what you have in your bulletin, and so that's the last part.
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And since today is going to seem like it's going to become a two-parter, then the application will be next week.
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And so if you don't get the blanks filled in, don't worry about it.
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It's okay.
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And if you want to take a guess, take a guess, but we'll actually give you that if we don't make it today.
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We'll make it next week.
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Because I really do believe that today has a serious matter which we need to discuss, and which I need to proclaim from God's Word, and that is the subject of conflict.
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Conflict in ministry, conflict in life, conflict between believers.
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I know you all know me, and have known me for years, and I'm grateful again.
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I want to thank you all.
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My wife and I were very humbled by the show of love and gratitude that came to us last week, and we appreciate that.
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But you all know that we have been no stranger to conflict here.
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In ten years of ministry, there have been times where difficulties have reared their heads in quite ugly ways, sometimes to the point of great heartache and even division.
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And so when I come to a subject as heavy as conflict in ministry, it's just not something I want to blow past as if it's just a small thing.
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This is a huge thing.
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I have seen friends of decades divided asunder, never to be joined back again because of division that went too far, and it's just something that we need to consider, it's something we need to think about, and it's something that we need to prepare ourselves for because as the title of the message says, it's the inevitable conflict in ministry.
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It's going to come.
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It's not an if, it's simply a matter of when, and I don't say that to be a negative person, it just is the truth.
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Recently I had a young man come to my office, he wasn't a member of this church, he was a friend of mine, and he came into my office and he sat down at my desk and we were talking and he says, Keith I want to tell you something, I'm seriously considering entering the gospel ministry, and I know this young man well, he is a believer, I believe he desires to follow Christ, and I believe his desire is a sincere one, so I have no issue with that, but I told him, and challenge me, chastise me later if you will, but I want to tell you what I told him, I told him that if this is what God has called you to do, then you're not going to be satisfied doing anything else, however, I also told him that if you can be satisfied in doing anything else, do that instead, that was what I said.
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I said if this is what God has called you to do, then you won't be satisfied doing anything else, I said but if you can be satisfied in doing anything else, do that, and then I quoted Charles Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon said do not enter the ministry if you can help it, he said don't enter the ministry if you can help it, I mean, think about what he is saying, if God will let you get away with anything else, do that, Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 20 verse 9, he said if I say I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot, see that was Jeremiah saying, God has put his word in me to preach, I can't not do that, if I don't do that, it will burn me up from the inside, it will consume me like a fire, if I don't preach his word, so I told the young man if God's word is in you as a fire, that you must share, then go and prepare for ministry, but if there is no fire, if there is no desire, but rather looking for a career path like a plumber, or an electrician, or a pastor, just looking at which one is going to give you the best career advancement, then you are looking the wrong way, this is no career, this is a calling of God.
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Now some might think that I was being intentionally negative with that young man, some might even think that I was throwing cold water on a potential flame, but the reality is that I was trying to be honest with the young man because I do care for him deeply, and I wanted him to realize that if he were motivated toward ministry, for any other reason than a passion for the proclamation of God's word and the seeing of souls saved and people come to know Christ and being discipled, then he is looking in the wrong direction.
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A man who enters the ministry must be able to focus on God's word and His mission through a barrage of conflicts.
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I have never met a minister who had been in the ministry any length of time who was not well acquainted with conflict.
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In fact, I have yet to meet a minister who has said at times that he didn't think about quitting.
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Yet those who persevere do so because they are able to keep the focus on the proclamation of God's word even through the conflict.
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That they understand that there is something more important than the conflict and that is the gospel.
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People often joke, they say ministers work one day a week, but the reality is most of ministry is done in the unseen times.
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It is often in a series of dealing with conflicts.
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The church is made up of people and as such the church is built with conflict at its core and a man unprepared for that is a man unprepared for ministry.
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So I begin with all this simply as a precursor to today's lesson because it revolves around a conflict between two men of God.
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And that is the thing that we have to consider as we go through this lesson.
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The two men that we are going to study today, Paul and Barnabas, enter into a conflict and both of these men are men of God.
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There is no doubt that both of these men are filled with the same Holy Spirit of God.
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They have been used by God to see many souls saved.
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These are godly men and yet they enter into a conflict, but that conflict does not stop the ministry.
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It does stop them from being able to continue together, but it does not stop them from being able to continue.
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See that is the beauty of what we see.
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God has just, as we come to this text, God has just brought a miracle of peace to the church.
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That is another thing that is interesting about this text that we are about to read.
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God has just brought a miracle of peace because you remember the church was divided.
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The Judaizers were saying you have to be circumcised to be saved.
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Paul and Barnabas on the same team came against them and said no, we are going to take this issue to Jerusalem.
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We are going to get with James and with Peter and the other elders and we are going to show you from Scripture and from reason that this is not true.
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And they conflicted and they debated and at the end the false teachers were told that is wrong and the gospel of salvation by grace through faith is right.
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And God brought a great peace within the church because at that point now the Gentiles were fully accepted along with the Jews who had come to Christ as all one.
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Whether they are circumcised or not, they are all one in Jesus Christ.
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So much so that later the Apostle Paul would say, for in Christ there is neither slave nor free, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither male nor female, we are all one in Christ Jesus.
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So there is a great unity and peace which God has brought in the church through this council.
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And on the heels of the council is this great expression of love and we see in the text that the church is moving along and good things are happening.
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And Paul says, hey we need to go check on all these churches.
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We need to go check and see what is going on because we have already had our first missionary journey and we have seen souls saved, we have seen churches established, we have risen up elders or God rather has risen up elders, we have laid hands on men and they have been called elders in churches.
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We need to go check on them.
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And that is the context of where we are.
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Let's stand and read.
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Beginning at verse 36 and we will read to the end of the chapter.
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And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are.
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Now Barnabas wanted to take with him John called Mark.
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But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
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And there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other.
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Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.
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But Paul chose Silas and departed having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
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And he went through Syria and Cilicia strengthening the churches.
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Father in heaven I thank you for your word.
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Lord I know that I am not worthy in and of myself to be anything in your kingdom.
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And I pray Lord that you would take this unworthy servant and use me to preach the truth thereby your people might be edified.
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Keep me from error oh God for their sake and for the sake of my own conscience.
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For I am certainly fallible and capable of preaching error.
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Father as we consider the subject of the conflict which is inevitable in ministry I pray that you would help us to stay focused on the truth of the text and be able to make proper application thereof.
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Father use this to guide your people to challenge us all to understand the primacy of the gospel in all things and how the gospel should never be put aside especially for personal conflicts.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.
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The Jerusalem council brought peace where there was conflict.
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But that peace was not to last forever.
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As one conflict is put away another conflict often arises in its place.
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And while it's certainly not as weighty as the conflict of the Jerusalem council it does have the power to divide friends.
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And it stands to us as a reminder that ministry is filled with conflict.
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I want us to think about this message by first considering the two men that are involved.
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We've learned a lot about them as we've done this survey of Acts.
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We've seen Barnabas.
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We've seen Paul who was called Saul.
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We've seen how God has raised both of these men up.
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Barnabas, his word, the name that is his nickname.
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Barnabas is not his real name.
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It is his nickname.
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It means son of encouragement.
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He is an encouraging man and so he's called that.
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Saul was a Hebrew name.
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Paul his Roman name.
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He had a dual citizenship so there he has two names.
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And so we see both of these men and their history is that God has risen them up in the church.
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And they have a friendship and a ministry relationship that really is amazing.
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God put them together on the front lines of gospel ministry together.
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Barnabas had sought out Paul to help him minister at the church of Antioch.
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I don't know if you remember this, but when Barnabas went to Antioch he finds this church that is in need of a pastor.
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And of course being a biblical church he knew that they needed a plurality of leadership, a plurality of elders.
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So he goes and gets the apostle Paul.
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The apostle Paul comes back to him and they both end up ministering with some other men there in Antioch as the elders of the church and they pastor the church together.
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And as a result of that ministry there in Antioch we see God raises up out of that group of elders two of the men to be missionaries.
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We saw this in Acts 13.
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They were praying together and fasting and the Holy Spirit said set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work that I have appointed them.
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So God by the Holy Spirit sets apart two men who had been in ministry together now for a long time and they're together ministering as elders and He says now we're going to send you out into the mission field.
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And they went together into the mission field, did the first missionary journey together.
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They were treated poorly together.
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They were beaten together.
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They were mocked together.
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They had a friendship forged in the fires of missionary evangelism.
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Then the Judaizers came to Antioch from Jerusalem and Barnabas and Paul as it were the two bastions of salvation by grace through faith they go together to Jerusalem as friends and as missionary partners and now as representatives and ambassadors of the gospel of grace and they are together.
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They go together and they stand together.
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Their relationship up until this point is exemplary.
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They loved one another.
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They loved Jesus.
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They loved the gospel.
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They loved the church and I reiterate they loved one another.
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Yet even with that powerful history the two men came to a road that they could not cross together.
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And it's amazing that their division did not come from a doctrinal conflict.
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You know the division with the Judaizers there was a point at which if you continue being a Judaizer you are a heretic.
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You are not preaching the gospel anymore.
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Paul says in Galatians 1 if you are preaching a gospel other than the gospel that you received which is the gospel of grace through faith alone, if you are preaching anything other than that let you be a curse, let you be anathema put out.
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That's a serious issue.
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That's a doctrinal issue that can get someone removed.
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This is not a doctrinal issue.
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This is a personal issue.
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This is an issue of conflict between two men.
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It's not an objective issue.
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It's a subjective issue.
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And it all stemmed from an event that happened several years prior to this.
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I want you to turn with me to Acts 13.
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I want you to see where I believe this all started.
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I think the text bears this out because we will see that Paul mentions it later in Acts 15.
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But in Acts 13 verse 13, by the way just to remind you all when Paul and Barnabas set out on their missionary journey they were the missionaries but they were not the only ones on the trip.
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There was another man on the trip with them.
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His name was John Mark and he went as their assistant.
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And way back when I was preaching on that text I mentioned we don't know exactly what he was doing but he was probably taking care of maintenance issues.
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He was probably going along as a servant to them making sure they were fed, making sure they had a place to sleep at night.
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He was probably there to do what would allow, sort of like a deacon would do for the minister allowing them to focus on the preaching of the word of God.
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So here he is.
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He's a servant to them.
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He's essentially a deacon working alongside of them.
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And he's fulfilling a very important role.
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Ministers, we can't do it alone.
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There needs to be people in the church who serve in other capacities.
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And John Mark had a very important role among the men.
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Whatever he was doing it was important and yet in verse 13 what does it say? It says, Now Paul and his companions, that's Barnabas and John Mark, set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia.
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And John, that's John Mark, left them and returned to Jerusalem.
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Now, it doesn't say why.
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It just says why.
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It just says that it happened.
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This is John Mark.
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He is on the trip with them.
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They've sailed to Cyprus.
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They've preached the gospel.
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Now they're going to Pamphylia to preach the gospel and John Mark, for whatever reason, decides to go back home.
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By the way, this is the same John Mark who wrote the gospel of Mark.
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This is Mark, the Mark.
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So just kind of give you a little bit of a history of him.
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I think he has an interesting history because there are people who believe, and I tend to lean this way, that it was actually John Mark's mother who owned the home wherein they had the last supper.
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Because it was later her where they were in her home when Peter was in prison.
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Remember when Peter went to their house? The church gathered at her home.
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And I want you to just think on this.
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Turn in your Bibles.
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I'm doing Bible study today.
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Go with me.
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Go to Mark 14.
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This is a neat little subsection of the story.
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In Mark 14, there's a little verse in verse 51, Mark 14.51, that it doesn't occur in any of the other gospels.
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There's a little side note in Mark 14.51.
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This is Jesus.
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He's arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.
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And Mark's gospel tells us in Mark 14.51, it says, And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body, and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
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Do you remember that? In all the Jesus movies you've ever watched, did that part ever come in? As often as you've ever read the gospel.
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Have you read right past that and didn't even realize that was in there? A lot of times people never even heard of this little account.
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Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and there's a young man in the situation.
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It doesn't tell us who it is.
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So I am providing a little bit of conjecture here.
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There's no way to know for sure, but there are a lot of people, again, I tend to lean this way, that think that this is Mark.
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And why? Well, it's Mark who's writing the gospel, and it could be that this is an autobiographical account, because if Jesus was in the home of his mother, having the Last Supper, it is very, very likely that Mark would have went with them to the Garden of Gethsemane, or at least followed them in silence to see what was happening.
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And here comes the soldiers.
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They grab John Mark, who's just in his cloth that he would have been wearing for the evening, just that outer garment.
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They grab him.
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He bolts, and he bolts naked, because when they grabbed him, they grabbed his clothes, and he's out of there.
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And why am I telling you all this? Well, if this is the fact that this is Mark, it kind of tells us something about him.
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It tells us that he has been involved in this ministry since the time that Jesus was walking the earth, and he saw Jesus, and he had actually participated at least as a hearer and an observer in the ministry of Christ.
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Now, again, there's no way to know for certain if that is John Mark, but what we do know is that his family among the disciples was one of the wealthier families in the early church.
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They had a home with an outer courtyard, capable of hosting many people for services of worship and prayer.
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And knowing that, we know this about Mark.
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He grew up in a relatively comfortable surrounding.
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People who grow up in wealth tend to grow up more comfortably than those who grow up without wealth.
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Would you agree? So, John Mark grew up in a situation where there was more wealth, more comfort, more affluence.
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So now, John Mark is on a missionary journey in Acts 13, and he gets to a situation where he gets to where he's not so comfortable anymore.
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Things aren't going like he might have thought they should have.
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The terrain is getting treacherous.
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The trek is getting long.
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He might not like the fact that his cousin, by the way, Barnabas is Mark's cousin.
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He might not like the fact that Paul is starting to get a little bit more influential than Barnabas, his cousin.
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And he might not like the fact that he's away from home, and home is pretty comfortable.
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You guys remember when Scott Phillips was here, right? What did Scott Phillips say was one of the most difficult parts of his ministry with the Tao people? He said there came a point where people would simply come to his house and laugh at him because of the things that he and his wife did, because of the color of his skin, and because of the way that he just went about his daily life.
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The people came in and just laughed at him.
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And what did Scott say? He said there was a point where he was ready to fold up and go home.
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There was a point where he said, you know what? I don't want to be here anymore.
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Scott is from America.
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Scott grew up in California.
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He was a skateboarder.
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He knew what the concrete jungle looked like, and he probably knew air conditioning and everything else.
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And now he's in the middle of a place with no air conditioning, no electricity.
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Everybody's laughing at him, and he doesn't seem to be making any progress.
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Yes, he wants to go home.
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God kept Scott there, praise the Lord.
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But I can see John Mark in the same situation.
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His mother is affluential.
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She's got money.
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She's got a place that's comfortable.
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And now here he is tagging along with Barnabas and Saul.
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Saul is taking more prominence than his cousin.
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He's not seeing all the things that he wants to see happen.
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He's seeing a treacherous trek ahead of him, going through the mountains to get to Pamphylia.
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And he says, I just want to go home.
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I just want to get out of here.
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I'm not happy.
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I'm not comfortable.
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I'm not doing what I thought we were going to do.
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I'm going home.
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And so he did.
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Mark had seen conflict, hatred, and a changing of the leadership guard, and it's easy to imagine that he just wanted to go home to the comfort and safety of Mama's house.
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Now, at the end of the day, we can at least sympathize with his plight.
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But here's the thing.
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Paul was unimpressed.
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Whatever Mark's reason that he gave them, whatever the reasoning was that he went home, Paul felt like it was not really a good reason.
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Paul said, it's not worth it.
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You're leaving.
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Paul saw as abandonment of the gospel.
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He saw it as a defection from ministry.
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And now he's getting ready to take another journey to the same places.
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Think about what the text says.
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It says they're going to the same places.
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And so it's going to be essentially the same thing.
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And here Barnabas comes up and says, well, we need another deacon.
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We need another guy to come with us.
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We need somebody to help us out in our daily task.
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How about John Mark? What Paul knew.
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In fact, let's look at the text.
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It says in verse 36, back in Acts 15, I know we kind of looked at a few verses.
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Back in Acts 15 verse 36, it says, after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are.
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By the way, just for the sake of mentioning it, I think we should.
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Paul wants to go back where he's already been because Paul is not so concerned with making converts as he is with making disciples.
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He wants to see men grow in the Lord, not just be converted to confessing Jesus Christ.
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Back in the 1800s and going into the 1900s, we saw something really arise.
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It was the traveling evangelist.
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The crusade mentality of evangelism became very popular in the United States.
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And what was the crusade mentality? Well, you come into town with a big pomp and circumstance.
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You have a big week long set of sermons where a guy with notoriety and a little bit of something to say, a good speech, will get up and give four or five good sermons throughout the week.
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Thousands of people will come to know Jesus.
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And what have we seen as a result of those things? 30,000 people come forward, 300 people maybe continue in the faith.
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It's not as if the guys who do that are unaware.
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They have the studies, they have the statistics to show.
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Thousands and thousands come, 0.1% continue.
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Paul is concerned with going back to where he's been to ensure that heresy has not infiltrated, to ensure that the leaders are continuing to grow, to ensure that he's seeing the ministry that he planted continue to flourish.
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He cares about the disciples.
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I think I've told this before, but there's a minister up north who said that his church is not for believers, it's only for unbelievers.
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He says, once you become a believer, this church isn't for you anymore.
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All we're about is getting people saved.
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I mean, it's on recording.
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You can go look it up.
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He said very clearly, he said, his name is Stephen Furtick and he's a false teacher, and if you listen to him, I encourage you not to.
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I don't mind calling his name out because he's a straight up false teacher.
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Stephen Furtick is out of his mind.
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Challenge me, because I promise he is.
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And he said very clearly, he said, this church is for saving people, and once you're saved, it's not for you, we're just going to send you out to get more people saved.
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The Apostle Paul believed in discipleship that didn't end when somebody prayed a sinner's prayer.
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By the way, a sinner's prayer is not biblical either.
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But there's the idea that ministry stops when you get saved is foolishness.
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Anyhow, the Apostle Paul wants to see disciples made.
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So verse 37, now Barnabas wanted to take with him John called Mark.
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That term wanted in the ESV and in most English translations really doesn't do justice to the underlying Greek.
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The underlying Greek here is in the imperfect tense.
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The imperfect tense indicates an ongoing action in the past, and essentially what it means in an essence is either he's wanted this for a while or it is something that he has made known on several occasions.
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It's essentially this is a continual want, not a, not just, he didn't just come up and say, hey, let's take John Mark.
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No, the idea here is I want to take Mark.
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I want to take Mark.
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I want to take Mark.
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It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a perpetual ongoing action that is in the past.
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And this is a serious desire.
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And the reason why I point this out is because this is Barnabas's heart, y'all.
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Barnabas is the son of encouragement.
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Barnabas sees a man who failed on the mission field.
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Barnabas sees a guy who, who, who did not continue when he was supposed to.
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And what does Barnabas want to do? He wants to lift this guy back up and give him another try.
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He wants to pick this guy back up and put him right back out in the front.
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He wants to see this guy succeed.
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And it's a perpetual desire of his heart to see this guy succeed.
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Now, look at verse 38.
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But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
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By the way, this is also in the imperfect tense.
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When it says Paul thought best not to take them, it actually is essentially Paul said, no, no, no.
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Barnabas says, I want to take Mark.
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No.
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I want to take Mark.
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No.
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I want to take Mark.
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No.
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I'm exaggerating a bit, taking a little liberty there, but you understand the idea here.
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One had a desire, not just a fleeting thought, but a desire that was expressed.
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Another one had a desire also and the desires...
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I like what the NAS says right here if you have an NASB.
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It says, but Paul kept insisting that they should not take with them one who had deserted them.
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That's more in line with the Greek.
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He kept insisting that they should not continue or that they should not take this one who did not continue.
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Now, I think this is where I'm going to start to draw my conclusion for today because I've got a lot more to say and we'll do it next week, but this is where I want to really make a point.
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There is a point, or this is a point in the text rather, where there are people, and I bet you're among them, maybe not all of you, but some of you have talked about this, but there is a desire and a point among most people to side with one or the other.
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To either say, Barnabas was right or Paul was right.
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And I like what Brian Boardman said about that.
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Brian Boardman is a pastor that I listen to quite frequently.
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He said this, he said, the person we side with on this issue says more about us than it does about the text.
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The person that we tend to say was right says more about our own heart than it does about their heart.
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Here's the thing, I've listened to several messages and I do this as part of my preparation.
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I try to redeem the time, so I drive from place to place quite a bit whether I'm going to the hospital or I'm going to the school to work or whatever.
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I drive, I'm in my car several hours a week and to redeem that time I don't listen to the radio, normally I listen to sermons.
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So often times I'll pick sermons from guys that I trust and I'll listen to on this particular text.
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You have no idea how many guys have stood in the pulpit and have taken one side or the other, and it's almost always Paul.
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The preachers don't want to disagree with Paul.
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But they make, one of the preachers that I respect very much went, I think, way off with this because he spent so much time arguing that Paul was right.
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To the point that he made the argument from apostolic authority that Paul was the apostle and Barnabas should have submitted to the apostle.
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I mean it was a, it was a, he spent thirty minutes giving point after point why he thought Paul was right.
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Let me tell you what I think about this text and when I say what I think, I don't want you to think I'm just simply giving vain opinion.
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Let me tell you what the text says.
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It doesn't say who was right or wrong.
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The text does not say who was right or wrong.
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Thus, for anyone to say one was right or the other was wrong comes completely from conjecture and you having to decide based on your opinion, not on the text.
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That's an important point because here's the way people see it.
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Some people see Paul as an unforgiving brute and Barnabas as the noble soul lover.
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Other people see Barnabas as the naive, too forgiving, too liberal, bendable person willing to give people chance after chance after chance when they don't deserve it.
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And so how you see these men, you see Paul standing for principle, Barnabas standing for love, how you see these men often tells you more about you than about them because the Holy Spirit has not called you to take sides in this.
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The Holy Spirit has not given you the right to stand as judge over either man.
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The text does not call for that.
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It is not your job to determine who was right and wrong.
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Some people say, well Barnabas isn't mentioned after this, so it's proof that Paul was right.
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No, it's not because Peter isn't mentioned anymore either.
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Does that mean the last thing he did was wrong? No, the last thing he did was stand up for the gospel of grace through faith in the Jerusalem council and we don't hear him again either.
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So that argument holds no water.
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I was going to say it doesn't have wheels, but I got caught in the middle there.
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It doesn't have wheels.
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It's not a good argument.
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From this point on, Paul is the central person who the book of Acts references.
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That does not mean that Barnabas' ministry discontinues.
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In fact, what we do see here is instead of one team of two men, you get two teams of two men.
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The gospel is actually compounded and multiplied because of this conflict.
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You say, does that make the conflict good? No, not necessarily.
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But you see how God is working here.
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Instead of two men going in one direction, you've got four men, two going in either direction.
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Instead of one team, you have two.
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By the way, Barnabas and Mark go to Cyprus.
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Why? Because that's Barnabas' hometown.
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Barnabas was born in Cyprus.
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So he goes to Cyprus.
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He's going back to his hometown to again continue that ministry that they began in Cyprus so many years ago.
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Ultimately, this is the point of the day.
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When we come to this issue of the conflict between Paul and Barnabas and you see one and you say, wow, I think we should address him.
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We should go with Paul because he stands on principle, but we should go with Barnabas because he stands on love.
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Here's the thing, and this is what I'm going to really focus on next week because I'm going to go ahead and draw to a close today.
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I'm going to focus on this next week.
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You have two men who are godly men who remain godly men even in conflict.
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You don't have to side with either to know that two godly men disagreed and they remained godly men even in their conflict.
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Was their disagreement serious? Yes.
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Was it a sharp disagreement? Yes.
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Did they argue? Well, the text doesn't say, but it says it was a sharp disagreement.
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I'm sure they weren't just flower petals and roses.
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But you know what? At the end of the day, I don't think either man would have looked at the other and said, you, sir, are not following Christ.
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Can we have the same level of integrity in our conflicts? Can we pray that God would use us to remain godly even when we conflict with others? That's the call.
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To continue to love even in conflict.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for this opportunity to study.
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I pray that as we close today and look forward to next week continuing on to apply this lesson that you will use it to help us the next time any one of us individually faces a conflict or the next time we as a church face a conflict.
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I pray that we would understand that the gospel is more important than our personal opinions.
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The gospel is more important than our personal disagreements and the gospel is the only thing which we have to divide over that is an ultimate division that cannot be returned back because the gospel cannot be put asunder.
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But Lord God, let us be forever grateful that you have called us to love one another, to encourage one another, and to be unified in the gospel because it is that gospel which holds us together.
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We thank you, we praise you in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen.