Acts 15:36-41
Please turn in your copy of God’s
Word to Acts chapter 15. Acts chapter 15, verses 36 through
41. This passage will be our last
in the Book of Acts, probably until maybe January 8th or so. We’ll look next Sunday at a Thanksgiving
psalm, and then after the 20th, the 27th, I believe, through
Christmas, we’ll be looking at some of the major characters
of Christmas and look for insight from God’s Word on how we can
best anticipate the coming of the Lord Jesus and all that that
means for us as a church and then on into the new year. And
so today our passage is Acts chapter 15 and we’ll begin at
verse 36. But first let’s look to God in
prayer. Lord, we need your help so that
we can see, so that we can hear, so that we can believe and do
what your word teaches us. Lord, we come from a busy week. We come from a noisy world. Our
toes are already tapping for the week ahead. We’re ready to
march on. And so help us for a few moments
to be still and to hear your voice. We ask for your help in
the name of Christ, amen. This is God’s word, Acts chapter
15, beginning at verse 36. After some days, Paul said to
Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where
we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are. Now
Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, 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thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from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. And
there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each
other. Barnabas took Mark with him and
sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed,
having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the
Lord. And he went throughout Syria
and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.” Amen, this is God’s
word. I imagine every one of you knows
about church conflict. You have either been in it, you
have left because of it. It has scarred you. Sometimes
maybe it’s scarred you for life. We’re sinners. We want what we
want. We want what we want now. And
we will fight and bite and devour until we get what we want. And
very often that’s the case in the life of church. It’s a sad
state. It’s not a good witness to the
world. It does not bear witness well to the peace that Christ
accomplished on the cross. This is true, I’m not making
this up. When I was in seminary on the
tail end of my studies getting ready to graduate, there was
a little church outside our town. And they literally were started,
they began after they split off from another church about a mile
away. They split because the deacons couldn’t agree on what
brand of heating and air conditioning unit to buy. That’s silly, you chuckle. But
it was a knock down drag out. And so I would go preach at this
church on Sunday nights and I would hear this story. And then they
said, would you like to be our pastor? I am not that desperate
for a job, I thought. But that’s often the case where
church conflicts arise. A couple weeks ago in our new
members class, we discussed the reasons for which we might separate
from others. And there’s three big reasons
we might separate from others. One would be a creedal separation. We just, well, we didn’t today.
We said something about ordination, but typically we say a God, the
Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit creed. I believe
in God, the Father almighty maker of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ,
his only son. And on and on we go, we say four
or five different creeds through the weeks in our congregation.
And so we would separate from another body who did not believe
in God, the father almighty, right? That’s a deal breaker.
If you don’t believe in the same God, we can’t be in the same
room together worshiping. There’s a, there’s a degree of
separation that logically must take place. So there’s, there’s
creedal divisions. We, we love others who affirm
the Trinitarian God. The second would be in the area
of confession. We hold to the Westminster Confession
of Faith. That means that we believe in
the sovereignty of God. That means we believe in the
covenant. That means that we deal with children and families
in a different way than many other churches do. And so while
we hold to this confession of faith, others may hold to a different
confession. And maybe they only baptize believers
or they have a different view of the family or maybe a different
view of the Lord’s Supper between maybe our Lutheran brothers,
and so on we might go. We would separate from them so
that our practice could be consistent with our belief, but we wouldn’t
get too upset with them because, you know, we believe the Bible
is open to interpretation. There are options. We hold to
ours, they hold to theirs. But then there’s what we might
call a third level. These would be maybe convictional
levels. So creed’s important, confession’s
important, but convictions. You’ve heard the typical Southern
mantra, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and I don’t cuss, and
I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls that do, right? And so in the South, in the South,
sometimes we see people separate. Well, that’s the dancing church,
right? And I don’t mean liturgical dance
and the ribbons and whatnot. I mean, they dance on Friday
night. Or they allow card playing at that church. Or, oh, they’re
a homeschooling church. We get into that a little bit.
Or that’s a Republican church. Or even today, what is it, MAGA,
whatever. You bring in politics. Those
are convictional things. How you spend your money, what
bank you go to, the length of your skirts, the length of your
hair, all that kind of business. Those are convictional things.
We definitely believe creeds are important. You bust up a
creed, you’re in trouble. We certainly believe confessions
are important. We understand others have confessions.
And then convictions are just third level things. Well, this
disagreement here in the life of the early church was probably
something, maybe in my mind, even a little lower level than
the three things I just mentioned. This is a personnel problem.
You begin to understand after reading this passage, John Mark
got the pink slip. He no longer works at the church.
Uh, where are we in the book of Acts? Well, the church at
Antioch, just a little North of Jerusalem was ascending church
for Paul and Barnabas. Remember sometime back, uh, the
Holy spirit made it known to the leaders of the church. We
want, uh, Paul and Barnabas to go off on this missionary journey.
So remember they laid hands on them. They set them apart. They
sent them, they went off to Cyprus. They worked the whole island
of Cyprus. They went on across. And on the mainland of the Roman
Empire, they went to several cities, met with blessing and
with hardship, and then they returned back to the cities,
sailed back to Antioch and gave the report. And then we had the
issue of what do we require of Christians? So last week we looked
at the Jerusalem Council. They’re back at Antioch. Paul
and Barnabas stay there a year. The guess is something like this.
Winter is over. Ships are sailing again. The
sailing lanes are open for travel. The Roman roads are now open
because winter has passed. And Paul, who feels this burden
because Christ gave it to him on the Damascus road to reach
the Gentiles, says, hey, Barnabas, let’s go out evangelizing again. And let’s first go and visit. That word is an interesting word.
Maybe some of your study Bibles have it. Episcopal word is the
overseer word. Very appropriate on a day when
we will ordain an elder, a bishop, an overseer and one who oversees
the spiritual care of the church. Paul longs to go back to the
churches and see how they’re doing, to inquire of their spiritual
health and to strengthen them in the faith and in the Lord.
And so Barnabas says, hey, great idea, but cousin John Mark’s
going to go with us. And they said, oh, we gotta have
a little discussion about this. And you can imagine it got rather
heated. This is a pulpit committee fighting over which candidate
to pick. Now remember, John Mark went
with them on their first journey, but along the way, for some reason,
reasons we don’t know, he went back to Jerusalem. And in Paul’s
mind, he says, this man abandoned the calling. This man gave up
before the task was completed. This man, therefore, is unreliable. And so why should we take him
on this missionary journey? Only for about halfway through,
he’s going to want to go back home. He’s going to want to get
a plane ticket and fly back to Antioch. and live the good life
as it were. Now, let’s pause for a second
and remember, Paul and Barnabas are men on a mission. Their mission
is from God to go to the Gentiles and to proclaim the good news
of the gospel. And so they go from city to city,
they go from synagogue to synagogue, they go from town square to house,
and they proclaim wherever a gathering will hear them the good news
of the grace of God and Jesus Christ. And they’re beaten, they’re
stoned, they’re run out of town, there’s uprisings against them.
It’s very hard work because they are taking back territory that
Satan has stolen from the people of God. They are on the front
edge of a war. And so what general, what captain,
what member of an army would say, yeah, let’s take a weak
link along with us. Let’s take an unreliable person
with us. So when the going gets tough
and we need to count on him, where will he be? He’ll be asleep
or on the train back home. That’s what Paul is arguing against. But Barnabas, also a man on his
mission, wants to live up to his name, the son of encouragement.
Let’s, let’s take John Mark along. Let’s let him learn from his
mistakes. I don’t think Paul is up for on the job training,
but Barnabas, the son of encouragement is. And our passage tells us
these men on a mission got into no small dispute. I don’t know what your life has
been like. Maybe you’re a quiet person, a peaceable person. You
don’t draw too many lines. You don’t issue too many decrees.
You don’t say my way or the highway. But Paul is a pretty strong guy,
strong person. Barnabas the same. They’re gonna
get into it. This is a big deal to each of
them. These are men on a mission. Paul wants someone he can count
on. Barnabas wants somebody that he can train. So these are men
on a mission. These are also men who have been
in a long relationship together. They went together from Antioch
all through Asia Minor on their first missionary journey. They
bunked together. They traveled together. They
had long nights up talking together. They ministered together. And
if you’ve had a comrade in the faith like that, you become inseparable. But here, something comes between
them. No small dispute. There’s a strong
word used in the New Testament, and it’s a word that we would
say they had a blow up, right? They had a splat, a spat, or
I love how we say it in the South, they had a falling out. Isn’t
that how we say it in the South? What did you fall out of? I guess
you fell out of relationship is how that goes. But that’s
what’s going on here. Two good men with a relationship,
two good men with a history, two good men who are on a mission
come to this point in their life and in their ministry together
where there’s conflict. These are men in great conflict.
And we have to stop here for just a moment and think about
this. The church on earth longs for heaven. The church on earth
longs for eternal peace. The church on earth longs for
the glory days ahead. But nevertheless, God has seen
fit. The son of God has seen fit to
rule his church on earth from his throne of glory, where he
ascended after his death and resurrection. He has seen fit
to rule his church through ministers. and through elders and through
deacons. We didn’t ask for it to be this
way. It’s what he’s assigned to us. And you put a group of
men in a room, they’re going to not always agree. You put
a group of sinners in a room together, they’re going to sin
against one another. And so very often we look for
the perfect church. I mean, I’m a preacher, right? We look for jobs from time to
time. I want to work for the perfect church. Well, it’s not
out there. We’re Christians, we church hop, right? That’s
what we do. We church hop, we church shop.
We should come, we should commit, we should settle, we should stay. When there’s an issue, we should
work things out, but that’s just our human nature, isn’t it? But
churches will be in conflict. And what has God in his grace
given us? He’s given us the means, the tools to work through church
conflict. Well, here’s a point where maybe
the differences could not be worked out. And so what did these
two men do? They separate. Paul takes Silas
and Barnabas takes John Mark. Now, Paul and Silas go on what’s
called the second missionary journey. We have it recorded
for us in the book of Acts. We have their ministry recorded
in their letters to the various churches they write to and speak
to that we have in our New Testament copies. And Paul and Silas will
minister with great success. Even it says at the end of verse
15, the elders, the church leaders commended these brothers. to
the grace of the Lord. It’s as if it’s saying we’re
sending out Paul and Silas. Nothing really is said about
Barnabas and John Mark. We never hear about John. Well,
we never hear about Barnabas again. He goes off to Cyprus
and ministers. He takes John Mark with us. But
do we, do we hear of John Mark again? Well, yes, if you flip
back in your Bible, there’s Matthew. And then guess what? There’s
Mark. God, by the Holy Spirit, used
Mark to write a letter to the church, and we have it in our
Bibles today. And so we know much of Mark’s
heart as he writes this letter to us. Barnabas, we never hear
of again. He’s not written of. He’s often
to the history books, never to be heard again. And so these
are men with a history, men on a mission, men in conflict. But
these are also men in relationship. There’s a sweet little addendum. You’ll find it in the end of
Paul’s second letter to Timothy. He speaks warmly. He speaks graciously
of John Mark. Bring him. He is of great use. And so we ought to keep in mind
several truths. If we’re human beings in organization,
whether it’s a marriage, a family, a church, a business, some life
arrangement, it’s going to be fraught with sin. We’re going
to sin against one another. The question is, how do we redeem
it? One of the books I refer to most often on my bookshelf
is one called Redeeming Church Conflicts. And any time we have
to get into it, as it were, with a member of the church who’s
upset about something, I take a couple hours and I read through
that book again, because the goal of conflict is to get through
it and come to the other side. Brothers and sisters, in Jesus
Christ. That’s an important book. Blessed
are the peacemakers. Paul says in Romans, as far as
it is possible, be at peace with all men. How do we make sense
of this passage? I think maybe the way we’ll look
at the end of Genesis in our Wednesday night Bible study,
where the brothers come to Joseph and said, Hey, Joseph, we’re
sorry. We’re sorry that we kidnapped you. We’re sorry that we put
you in a pit. We’re sorry that we sent your bloodstained coat
back to dad and told him you’d been eaten by wolves. And we’re
sorry that we sold you to Midianite traders. Now that you’re the
king of Egypt, be nice to us. That’s a great speech to give,
isn’t it? And what does Joseph say? What you meant for evil,
God meant for good. And in a situation like this,
the parting of brothers, Satan meant it for evil. Maybe the
hard heartedness and the stubbornness of these men, um, Boy, what a
difficulty it was, but God used it to spread the gospel and to
proclaim his word. And I hope this will keep us
in perspective as we live life under the sun. We, we, we rub
against other people. There’s, there’s friction, there’s
hardship, and we ought to work things out as best we can. Some
things may not be redeemed in this life, but thanks be to God,
they will be in the next. We remember that at the cross,
Jesus has achieved peace for his church, and we ought to seek
it as best we can and as far as we can by the grace and goodness
of Almighty God. Let’s look to him now in prayer.
Lord, we thank you that we find in the Bible a host of sinners
whose sins are just like ours, whose failures are like our own,
And we thank you that over all these things, maybe the failure
of brothers to be brotherly, the failure of ministry partners
to be forgiving and forbearing, we see Jesus, we see Christ,
we see the Spirit overworking all these things for His glory
and for our good. So keep us in perspective, keep
us in prayer, hearts knit together in the bonds
of Christ, the bonds of unity. This we ask and pray in the strong
name of Jesus, our great savior. Amen. Let me invite the elders
to come forward. Also, our brother Wayne Deball.