FBC Daily Devotional – December 17, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, a good Friday to you. We are coming up to the weekend again, and this coming Lord's Day, the

00:12

Sunday before Christmas, right? Amazing. We're already there.

00:19

Well, I hope you're looking forward to gathering together in God's house on Sunday and worshipping with God's people.

00:26

Hopefully have a good day of rest and refreshment spiritually, and that the

00:32

Lord will give us a good day together. Well, there is a great deal in Acts 15 -16 in our reading today, and I don't want to make this time lengthy, so let me just highlight a few things, all right?

00:48

In the first place, the end of chapter 15 points out the fact that not every disagreement and consequent division is between good and evil.

01:00

You know, Paul and Barnabas had this disagreement whether or not they should take John Mark with them when they go on their second missionary journey.

01:09

Barnabas says, yes, we should take him. Paul says, no, we should not. Who's right? Who's wrong?

01:16

Well, both of them were right. Both of them were equally valid opinions. Barnabas wanted to take

01:22

John Mark along because he was convinced that Mark's previous abandonment was a temporary setback and that he was ready to take up the mantle and move on.

01:32

Paul was not so sure. Paul was concerned that, you know, we're going to invest in this and he's gonna abandon us again, and I don't want to go there, and that's understandable as well.

01:44

So who's right? Who's wrong? It's not a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of two equally valid opinions being held strongly and they're not reconcilable.

01:58

There was no way for them to say, well, let's take half of them along for half of the trip. I mean, this is not, there was no way to deal with that.

02:07

The only good way to deal with it is the way they dealt with it. Paul said, all right, you know what?

02:12

You want to take John Mark? You take John Mark and go this way and I'll go that way.

02:18

So they ended up dividing for the time and they weren't able to work together with that kind of a disagreement, at least for the time.

02:28

They didn't have any anger or animosity toward each other. It's not like Paul from then on out looked at Barnabas as an enemy, nor did

02:37

Barnabas look at Paul as an enemy. In fact, later on in Paul's ministry, he spoke of John Mark as being profitable in the ministry.

02:48

So what's the point of that? What's the point of that division? I think one of the points is,

02:54

I think there are a couple things that come out. One of them is that they, in dividing the labor, they were able to accomplish more.

03:03

You know, Barnabas went one way and he covered a great deal of territory. Paul went another way and he covered a great deal of territory.

03:09

More, covered more territory separately than they could have covered if they went together.

03:15

That's the thing. So the Lord uses that kind of division sometimes when good people have legitimate disagreements over legitimately valid opinions that prevent them from being able to work together.

03:33

So they, okay, well we'll work separately and we'll go our separate ways and accomplish more. The other thing that came out of it is seen in chapter 16 verses 1 & 2.

03:44

What if Barnabas had been with Paul? What if Barnabas was the co -worker that Paul took along with him?

03:52

When he came to, in Acts chapter 16, when he came to Lystra and Derbe and saw this disciple

04:00

Timothy, well, if Barnabas was with Paul and Barnabas had been successful in talking

04:06

Paul into bringing John Mark along, would Paul have thought, would

04:12

Paul have thought it a good idea to add another, another person to join the party?

04:19

Another young guy for whom he should mentor? Not very likely. So I think one of the benefits of them splitting up is that Paul lacked that younger man to pour his life into that he could, he had confidence in.

04:37

So he comes to Lystra, Derbe, he finds Timothy, he sees this young man as a very promising young man for the work of the ministry and takes him along and it's a good thing he did.

04:47

He ended up being pastor, Timothy did, in Ephesus. We have two letters in the New Testament that Paul wrote to this, to this young pastor that are very helpful and valuable to pastors and have been for centuries.

05:02

And so there was another benefit that came out of it. Another thing I wanted to point out here in Acts chapter 16 is that the

05:10

Lord directs from away from places just as he does to places of ministry.

05:17

Now, we don't know how the Holy Spirit did this, but we do read in verses 6 and 7 that when they had gone through Phrygia in the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the

05:30

Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. They were planning to go into Asia, but the

05:38

Holy Spirit prevented them from doing that. Verse 7 says essentially the same thing. It says after they had come to Mycenae, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the

05:48

Spirit did not permit them. Now, we don't know how the Spirit prevented them from going into those areas.

05:56

But he did. But he did. And he works the same way today, you know, you can make your plans, you can devise your plans, you think they're good, you think they're godly, your motives are good, you have good intentions, you have a good objective, but that's not what the

06:14

Lord would have you to do. So in some way or another he shuts the door, he closes it down, and that forces you to turn your attention in another direction.

06:24

And so that's what Paul did. And that other direction came in the

06:30

Macedonian call. The Macedonian call as it's often called. But this

06:36

Macedonian call seems to have been simply a dream that Paul had that led him to the conclusion that this was from the

06:46

Lord providing some direction to him. Now, I don't suggest that we put a great deal of stock in dreams or anything like that, but what

06:56

I am what I'm just trying to say is that the Lord used that dream to direct

07:02

Paul in to go across the across the sea to Macedonia and not to Asia.

07:12

So can the Lord do that today? Well, sure, you know, you can you can have some kind of a dream.

07:19

I'm not saying it's a spirit -inspired dream or anything like that, but it gets you thinking in another direction.

07:26

I've had that happen to me before. I have a dream of something and it gets me I wake up from it, and I'm thinking, oh,

07:33

I should do this. I need to do this. Now, you know, was that a spirit -inspired dream or did the

07:40

Lord use that dream to to give me a sense of direction? I wouldn't be so bold as to claim spirit inspiration because I don't think the

07:48

Holy Spirit does that. But I do think that the Lord uses these things to direct us to and from work that he would have us to do.

07:59

Fascinating, fascinating thing to ponder and to think through. That whole section of how the

08:07

Spirit prevented Paul from going in one direction and another direction, but then used a dream to direct him where he ultimately would have him to go.

08:17

A lot in these couple of chapters and pretty fascinating stuff and good good meat to chew on and I hope you can chew well and digest it today.

08:27

All right, so Heavenly Father, we we do thank you for the way you direct your people, using sometimes even differences of opinion, strong differences of opinion, that are both equally valid.

08:43

Sometimes you prevent us from doing good noble things because you want us to do something different in a different place.

08:50

Lord, help us just to be pliable in your hands, ready to do what you'd have us to do, ready to go where you would have us to go.

08:58

Help us Lord to faithfully listen, faithfully follow, and we ask this in Jesus name.

09:04

Amen. All right, have a good rest of your Friday, a wonderful weekend, and I trust you'll gather with God's people on the

09:12

Lord's Day. Preparation this Sunday before Christmas for our Christmas celebrations next week.