From Dispute to Division: Understanding Church Conflicts

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

So we're in Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

Where we left off was there was a dispute.

There was a conflict at the beginning of Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

And really, when we look at Acts 15, we see conflict resolution,

Conflict.

I like to call it the conflict sandwich, right?

We see a conflict at the beginning, and then we see a resolution

at the Jerusalem Council, and we think, hey, everything's going

to be okay.

They're not going to have another conflict.

They're not going to have another dispute.

And all of a sudden we see two of the leaders, well renowned leaders,

have a dispute here at the end of the chapter.

And we're going to talk about that here this evening.

So what happened at the beginning of this chapter?

Well, there were a group of people coming from Jerusalem to a

place called Antioch.

And it was a church that was made up of Jews and Gentiles.

Two different cultures merged into one.

And we know that the Jewish people had their Jewish traditions

that they followed, which in and of themselves are not wrong,

as long as they don't believe that that's what saves them.

The problem was that there was these Jewish people that were going

to the Gentiles and saying, you must be this way.

You must follow the ways of Judaism.

You must follow the traditions and the law to, number one, be saved

and number two, to keep your salvation.

And that was.

That was a conflict.

That was a stumbling block because the Gentiles didn't understand

this.

They said, well, wait, I thought that Paul preached that it

was salvation by faith.

They said, well, it's faith plus these things.

And so what happened was, is that they had to have a council back

in Jerusalem to figure this out.

And there was this great discussion.

We had guys like Paul and Peter and James.

And essentially what happens is that they basically say, no, it's

not an extra burden that we need to put on the Gentiles.

This is not something that they have to follow.

It's salvation by faith alone.

And so they were excited to go back and tell the church at Antioch

that you're not saved by works, you're not saved, you're not

added to in your works.

All it is is faith.

But they did give them a List of rules to keep unity.

Remember the idea of love and unity, right?

We have liberty, but because of our love, we take boundaries.

We put boundaries up in our life to be cautious.

And so what happened was, is there.

There was these rules, essentially, be cautious of these

things so that there's unity in your church.

And those rules were obviously, stay away from idolatry.

Stay away from any meat that was sacrificed to idols and all of

that.

And the reason they gave them those rules was so there could be

unity in the church, Unity in the church at Antioch.

And so we see that when they bring that letter to the church in

Antioch, they were excited.

They were like, yes, we're not bound by the law.

And we're willing to do these things because we love our fellow

brothers and sisters in Christ.

And there was this great moment where we see the end of all

of this.

And we see verse 31 of Acts 15, which when they read, they rejoice

for the consolation or the comfort.

They were comforted by this truth.

They were excited.

There was unity.

There was fellowship.

And we see that in verse 32.

And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves exhorted

the brethren with many words and confirmed them.

And after they had tarried their space, they were let go in

peace from the brethren unto the apostles notwithstanding, to

please Silas to abide there still.

So Silas stayed, and he wanted to disciple these folks.

And then we see in verse 35, Paul also and Barnabas continued

in Antioch teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with

many others also.

So we left off with everything going well.

Paul, Silas, Barnabas, they're preaching, they're teaching.

We see discipleship happening.

We see growth happening.

And then we see verse 36.

Now, we don't know how much time exactly took place between verse

35 and verse 36.

It just says, and some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, let

us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have

preached the word of the Lord and see how they do.

And so Paul had this spirit of evangelism, but Paul had a spirit

of discipleship.

Well, what Paul wanted to do, obviously, was to go to new places

and preach the gospel to new people.

But he also had a heart for going back and checking in with the

people that have already received the Word.

And so Paul's heart at this point was, hey, we need to go speak

to other people that have already trusted in Jesus Christ,

but we need to see how they're doing.

And so he understood the importance of strengthening and encouraging

those people who were already Christians.

And so as a church, we also have to have that same desire.

We need to have an evangelistic heart.

One of the pillars of our church should be evangelism, meaning

preaching the gospel to the lost.

But another pillar of our church, another deciding factor of

our church, should be that we must be discipleship oriented, meaning

we need to preach the gospel to folks.

We need to see them come to Christ, but we also need to come

alongside of them after they've trusted in Jesus Christ.

And we need to teach them.

That's part of the Great Commission.

Because go to the Great Commission, one of the words that

you see is teaching them.

Teach, teach.

And so teaching means what we say.

It means what we demonstrate.

It means how we live.

And so Paul said, you know what?

Let's go and let's talk to these people.

And so Paul had a heart for the lost, and he had a heart for

those who were believers that needed shepherding, that needed guidance,

that needed maturity.

And that's how we should be in our church.

We can't overemphasize one or the other.

If we overemphasized evangelism, what would happen is

we would be full of a bunch of spiritual babies.

And we see that throughout the New Testament.

Paul, he doesn't like that.

He says, hey, if you guys all stay as spiritual babes, you can't

take the next step of leading other people to Christ.

You should be on the meat, but you're still on the milk.

And so if we only emphasize evangelism and that alone, we're

missing out on that next step.

But if we only emphasize discipleship, what will we be doing?

We would be keeping a focus on our own people, and that's it.

And so what we have to do is have a healthy mix of both evangelism,

discipleship, evangelism, discipleship.

And that's what we see Paul doing here.

So everything's good.

He wanted to see how they're doing.

This shows Paul's his shepherding heart.

He was not content with just planting churches.

He wanted to see them nurtured and matured and growing.

And that's how we should be within our own church.

So he has this heart, and I think this is a good place to be.

I think this is how we should be.

And what we're going to see here in this passage is that people

with good intentions can make mistakes.

Paul and Barnabas, I think, by all accounts here are good men.

They're men that love the Lord.

They're men that love the ministry.

But we're Going to see them have a disagreement and we're going

to see them have a struggle here.

And so what we need to see is that conflict and disagreements are

inevitable.

I wish that we could all walk in the same mind all the time.

And the truth is that we can walk with the same goals but sometimes

we're going to have a different opinion on how we should

get there.

Now how do we deal with that?

Well, a lot of times what happens within bodies of believers

is that we have a disagreement.

Well, either becomes a fight or it becomes a way to flee.

Right?

You've ever heard of fight or flight?

Fight or flight is we either respond with fighting a person or

we respond with running away.

And that's how we react in many cases within conflict within

the church.

I have been guilty of both.

I have been guilty on the side of lashing out in anger because of

a disagreement and I've also been guilty of, hey, you know what,

I'm just going to back off, I'm going to run away, I'm not going

to deal with this issue.

And neither one of those are really what we should be doing within

a conflict.

Both of those really have a self focus.

How can I get out of this?

How can I win?

We're going to see here this evening that that's not the right

route to go when we have a disagreement, when we have a dispute.

And so let's look what happens in verse 37.

This is where the root of it actually begins.

Well I wouldn't say the root, the root is actually started before

this, but this is what causes it to explode.

And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname

was Mark.

So Barnabas goes to Paul and says, hey, we need to take John Mark,

he's going to be a good help to us.

And that was Barnabas opinion.

Now the Bible here in this passage, this is interesting, at

least the way that I read this.

We really don't see who's right or wrong.

I think that there's actually people on both sides that have good

opinions.

But I think that people on the both sides were not willing to compromise

and come together.

So I think there's right on both sides and I think there's wrong

on both sides.

But what we see here is that Barnabas says let's take John Mark,

he's a good guy, but let's see what Paul has to think about John

Mark.

But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed

from them from Pamphylia and went not with them to the work.

Now if you remember back a little while ago when we were in

this study, we saw in Acts, chapter 13, verse 13, it says now,

Acts 13:13

when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to

Perga and Pamphylia.

And John, that's the same John, Mark and John departed from

them and returned to Jerusalem.

Now, we can understand through context that it was basically John,

Mark fled.

He said, I'm going back.

I can't handle this.

This is too difficult.

And basically he left Paul and Barnabas, you know, up the creek

without the paddle.

He said, I'm going to bail on you guys.

I can't do this.

And so Paul's response is, no, we don't want a guy like that around.

Now, we could understand Paul's sentiment here, right?

We don't want to take a guy with us that we can't trust.

Now, Paul is a guy who is strong in his faith, but Paul is

strong in his opinion.

And we see Barnabas.

Now, what is Barnabas most characterized by?

Does anyone remember what's his name even mean?

He's an encourager, like the son of consolation, the son of encouragement.

So Barnabas is going to always err on the side of, I'm going to

be an encourager.

I'm going to pour out grace and mercy upon people.

Paul, though he had mercy and grace, was the guy out front.

He was a prophet.

He was the one who was going to be leading.

And so Paul's seeing it from a very administrative standpoint, right?

And I can understand this.

I can understand Paul's sentiment here.

Paul's like, I don't want a guy coming with me that bailed on

me.

That's not going to work on the mission field.

Well, he's coming from that administrative mindset that, that,

that business mindset, if you will.

Now, I'm not going to say that Paul is thinking business here, but

what I am saying is that there is a spiritual gift of administration

that Paul is seeing here, and we're seeing it acted out right here.

And then we see what happens with Barnabas is Barnabas is one

with mercy.

He's the one that's like, hey, well, you know what?

Let's give him a second chance.

Let's take him with us.

Now we're gonna see that Barnabas has a reason for this.

Barnabas is related to John, Mark.

And so there's a familial connection as well.

But both of them naturally, in and of themselves, have their opinion.

Now, I wanna stop here.

Tonight's gonna sound more like a Lecture than preaching.

There will be some elements of preaching.

They're kind of merged together here.

But what I will say is that sometimes within a conflict within

the church, there are good opinions on both sides.

You can see points on both sides.

And actually what happens is that sometimes people are seeing

it from this perspective and another person seeing it from this

perspective.

And what could have happened is they could have come together

and talked this out and maybe come up with a compromise in the

sake of unity.

But we're going to see that they don't do that.

We're going to see that they don't want to talk this out, or at

least in this case they don't talk it out and they go their separate

ways.

Now some people preach this passage and say, well, this is what

you're supposed to do in all sense of conflict.

If you can't figure it out, just turn your back and go, well,

I don't think Paul or Barnabas are sinless.

And so I think there are some elements of their flesh being played

out in this passage.

And we see that through verse 39.

And the contention was so sharp between them.

Now that is not how you would describe two individuals following

in the Spirit.

Right?

If they were both following the Spirit and trying to fix this,

it wouldn't be described as having sharp contention between them.

And so for me, that's a clue to show us that neither one of them

are completely walking in the Spirit in this.

There is a way that we can have a conflict in the Spirit and

there's a way that we can have a conflict in the flesh.

How do we know that Jesus had conflict with people?

Right?

Well, we know that there were people that opposed Jesus's teaching

and Jesus handled it in a perfect way every single time.

Did that mean that Jesus backed down to every single opposition?

No, Jesus was firm.

Jesus was strong with the Pharisees.

But there was a way that Jesus handled conflict in a Spirit filled

way.

And that's our description of how we should follow everything in

Christ like ways.

And so there's also fleshly ways that we can respond to conflict.

And when we respond to conflict in a fleshly way, it always

goes back to ourselves.

It always goes back to us winning.

Right?

There's no winning in that.

There's no winning in a conflict within the church.

Because what happens is that both sides hurt and ultimately the

body of believers hurt.

You remember back in that passage in first Corinthians that

talks about the church being the body and there's different parts

of the body, right?

When one part of the body's hurting, whether we know it or not,

the whole body hurts.

And so what we see in this passage of Scripture is that Paul

and Barnabas are having a conflict.

And they're sharp contention.

Barnabas was determined.

But we see here that Paul insisted.

Paul insisted that John Mark couldn't come.

What Barnabas said was, well, I'm determined.

So we have a guy who's determined and we have a guy who's

insisting.

And so Paul thought it wasn't good to go.

Barnabas was determined.

And so Luke, the writer of Acts, didn't give us a clue as to

who was right or wrong in this dispute.

But it's never good when personal disputes flare up amongst

the ministry.

The conflict that happened at the beginning of Acts, chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

What?

Okay, this is where you guys can speak back to me.

And I know this is what everyone gets nervous, even the person

asking the question, because you might not understand where I'm

going with this.

But where was the conflict at the beginning of Chapter 15?

There at the church in Antioch.

What was it over?

What was that conflict over?

And they brought to Jerusalem Council.

What was that over?

Grace and law.

So, so we would say.

We would say scriptural things, right?

It was about belief.

It was about the essentials.

Okay?

It's okay within the Church to have conflict and disputes amongst

the essentials.

And we need to figure that out.

Those are things that we should be dealing with.

The essentials, the doctrines, the teachings.

Is this about grace or is it about the law?

What does the word of God have to say?

How do people get saved?

We should wrestle with these things within the Church in a good

way, right?

It's okay to talk about these things, but what really here, what

are Paul and Barnabas fighting over?

Personal disputes.

A slight against Paul.

He was forgotten about by John, Mark.

And this is where we really see a lot of the conflicts happening

within the Church.

Personal slights, personal disputes, not about theology or doctrine.

Now, we shouldn't fight about theology or doctrine to a place where

we're separated.

But what we do need to understand that in many cases, I

would say that most cases within the Church, usually the conflicts

come when it's personal slights or personal disputes.

And that's what we see here as a personal dispute.

And so we see that the contention is sharp.

Wherever there is sharp contention, somebody is.

Somebody is acting in the flesh, somebody is wrong.

And usually there is elements of the flesh on both sides.

And so there was no way that both Paul and Barnabas would be walking

in the spirit with this contention, so it says.

And the contention was so sharp between them that they departed

asunder one from the other.

Now, this is Paul and Barnabas.

These guys were partners in the ministry.

And something over this, something over bringing another guy

onto the ministry staff caused them to separate themselves, turn

their backs on each other, essentially.

And so what happens here is that there is this dissension.

One goes one way, we see that happening.

Barnabas took Mark, Barnabas takes John Mark, and he sailed onto

Cyprus.

Paul chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren

unto the grace of God.

And so earlier in this chapter, we saw that there was a

dispute over a doctrinal matter.

Here we see contention in what I would consider a less important,

more personal issue.

And so the relationship between Paul and Barnabas was probably

strained for many different reasons.

One, maybe Paul was thinking, well, of course Barnabas wants John

Mark to come.

That's his family.

We know that.

Other passages of Scripture tell us that that was his nephew.

We also do know that In Galatians, chapter 2, verse 13, if

Galatians 2:13

you remember, back in the story of the church at Galatia, there

was this issue of the Judaizers that were appealing back

to the flesh, appealing back to man tradition.

Well, we see that In Galatians, chapter 2, verse 13, it

Galatians 2:13

say this, and other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch

that Barnabas was also carried away with their dissimulation.

So we actually even see a situation where Barnabas had fallen

over to the side of the Judaizers at one point.

And so the relationship between Paul and Barnabas was strained

where Barnabas even later on sided with the Judaizers in Antioch

when Peter came to visit in Galatians, chapter two.

And so since Barnabas was John Mark's cousin, and if you want to

check me on that, the passage of Scripture is Colossians, chapter

Colossians 4:10

4, verse 10.

We can see that John Mark is Barnabas cousin, actually not nephew

cousin.

And because Barnabas had such an encouraging spirit, he.

And he had that accepting character.

It was easy to see why he would want John Mark to go.

And so they parted.

So Paul is accompanied by Silas, Barnabas is accompanied by

John Mark.

They split.

They go their different ways.

And so it's hard to know if their personal relationship was strained

for forever.

We know that ultimately it gets fixed.

But we know that there is scripture to deal with personal conflict.

One scripture I'd like to take you to is Matthew, chapter five.

Matthew, chapter five.

This is what Jesus taught on personal conflict.

Now we're going to come back here in a few minutes and we're going

to talk about Paul and Silas, and we're going to talk about John,

Mark and Barnabas.

And we're going to see ultimately that I do believe that

there is resolution to this later on down in the story, down

throughout the history of the early church.

But I want us to see what Scripture has to say about conflict

resolution, and we'll see what Scripture has to say about conflict

resolution, and then we'll see if we think that Paul and Barnabas

followed that.

I think that most of us will agree that they don't essentially

follow all the things that Scripture says to follow at this

point.

Now, this isn't to beat Paul up.

This isn't to be Barnabas up.

I have been Paul in this, okay?

Just to be honest, there's been times in my life where I knew,

you know what?

I just don't want to deal with this.

It's better that we just split up.

It's better that we turn a separate way because that's the easier

route.

But what we can see here in this case is that Jesus doesn't teach

that in Matthew, chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

If you go to verse 23, this is a very convicting passage of Scripture

and actually leads up to this idea of being angry with a brother

and saying all these things.

But he says, therefore, verse 23, therefore, if thou bring thy

gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath

ought against thee.

So basically, if you remember that your brother has something against

you, what do you do?

Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way and first

be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift.

Meaning this.

God isn't interested with any of your ministry, any of your gifts,

any of your worship, unless you're right with all those that

are around you with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

You know, sometimes we think that we can offset our anger against

our brother by just loving God more.

But what we can see in that passage is, hey, leave your gift,

go get it right with your brother, then come back and give

that gift.

And that's one of the things that I'm really convicted by.

Especially when we inspect our lives in a communion service or something

like that, we need to really think like, am I is the best of my

ability living in harmony with those around me.

Now, if I go to try to make it right with my brother, and my brother

doesn't want to make it right with me, hey, I've done my part right?

And Matthew chapter 18 tells us what we are to do next.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

If I go to my brother and try to make it right, and he doesn't

want to make it right, well, it depends on who's been the one

who sinned against each other, right?

If I've sinned against you and I've tried to come to you and try

to make that right, and they don't care, then, hey, it's over.

I've done everything that I can do.

But if that person has sinned against me and I go to them to try

to have that restoration and they reject that, well, we have to

bring two or three, as the Scriptures say in Matthew chapter

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

18.

And then ultimately we have to take the next step.

If they reject that, we have to take the next step of bringing

it for the whole church family.

This isn't my teaching.

This is Jesus teaching in Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

And so there is Jesus always has a path for us when it comes to

conflict resolution.

So we see in that passage that God is more concerned with our heart

than our actions, and our heart must be to be restored back

to a brother.

Another passage of scripture that I think we could go to when

it comes to conflict resolution is Galatians chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

Galatians chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

This shows us the spirit of the conflict resolution, the spirit

of when someone wrongs us, the spirit of when we have a disagreement.

Now, first of all, I will say this.

The Bible says live peaceably with all men if possible.

So it's obviously in many cases an impossibility to be at peace

with everybody at all times.

Right?

There are going to be people that are just upset with us because

we're Christians.

There's going to be people that are upset with us because we

looked a certain way, or there's going to be people that are

upset all the time.

We have to do everything that we can to live peaceably with them.

And but the problem is, is that in most cases in a dispute,

or in most cases when there's a disagreement, what happens is,

is that we are focused on, like I said before, winning or pulling

that person down or making that person look bad.

Well, Galatians chapter six tells us the Spirit that we should

have.

When we're dealing with an individual that has this.

Has a dispute with us, it says brethren.

And this is specifically dealing with sin.

Right, says brethren.

If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual.

So this is assuming that you are the one that's walking to the

best of your ability with Christ.

Ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in Spirit of meekness.

So the Bible tells us, in the midst of a conflict, in the midst

of a dispute, in the midst of someone sinning against us, we need

to be the better person, the more spiritual person, we need to

be, the more Christ like person and say, I'm going to treat

them with meekness.

Now what happens usually when someone wrongs us, we don't respond

in meekness.

We respond in.

Here's the big long list of things opposite of meekness.

We get angry, we get divisive, we start calling them names, we start

trying to tear them down.

The Bible says that's the opposite of meekness.

We are to have a spirit of meekness for those that have fallen.

He says, why considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted?

What happens here is that if a person has wronged us in sin and

we don't meet them with meekness, what does it say here?

That we would be tempted to follow suit.

We would be tempted to join in.

In that bitterness.

We would be tempted to join in.

And when that root of bitterness starts, I want you to

see another passage of scripture.

Keep your finger there.

In Galatians chapter six, we're going to go back, but I want

you to see the danger of that root of bitterness starting in our

hearts.

Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 12 talks about that root of bitterness starting.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Because usually what happens is this.

When someone wrongs us or maybe someone just is against us,

we then begin to have that root of bitterness against them.

Now what happens when that root of bitterness takes place?

Well, it's like a seed being planted.

And at first it doesn't look like a big deal, but ultimately that

bitterness can totally, totally engulf our lives.

Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15.

Hebrews 12:15

It says looking diligently, basically keeping your eyes open.

In Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15, looking diligently lest any man

Hebrews 12:15

fall, or, excuse me, fail of the grace of God, lest any root of

bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be

defiled.

Meaning this, when a root of bitterness starts in our heart, we

begin to leave the grace of God and we begin to live a life that

is defiled because of that bitterness.

Defiled means poisoned, messed up, corrupted.

And so what ultimately can happen is when that root of bitterness

starts in our hearts, it can start as a root, as it says there,

but ultimately it can grow and defile us.

Now, that doesn't mean that we lose our salvation, but what that

means is that we're characterized by that bitterness

in our heart.

And so if we Go back to what Galatians chapter 6 says.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

Think about that root of bitterness.

Now we'll go back to what Galatians chapter six says.

It says, do it with meekness.

Now, we talked this morning in our Sunday school class about what

meekness is.

But meekness is strength under control.

Meekness is that understanding of knowing something, but yet having

the ability to say, I don't need to exercise this, like someone

has wronged me.

I could chew them out, I could yell at them.

I have every right to, within our human nature to do that.

But I'm not gonna do that.

That's what Jesus did.

Don't you know that Jesus could have just basically gotten

onto everyone that he walked by every single day, every single

hour, like he could be walking down the street.

Remember, Jesus knew everyone's mind.

He could look at that person and go, that person's a hypocrite.

I'm just gonna chew them out right now.

That person over here is doing this.

Jesus did have times where he spoke the truth in love.

But there were times where Jesus held his mouth right.

Jesus didn't address every single person that he came across.

There were times that he picked, and there was times that

were appropriate that he was able to exercise his strength.

And it was strength under control.

So that's how we deal with people that have wronged us.

That's how we deal with people that have a disagreement with us.

We do it with meekness.

Why?

We watch ourselves, lest we be tempted, lest we have that root of

bitterness.

Because let's say that person is angry with me and I don't respond

with meekness.

Guess what's going to happen?

I'm going to be angry with them.

And that cycle is going to just continue to grow, and that separation

is going to continue to be there.

And then it says, really?

Verse 2, bear ye one another's burden.

So it's done in meekness and it's done with selflessness.

Not selfishness, but selflessness, meaning I'm putting

the other person before myself.

Can I bear your burden?

It's seeing somebody that's fallen or struggling and saying,

how can I help you?

Now that's counter.

Counterintuitive, right?

If you're against me, then I'm done with you.

You're cut off.

But what does he say here?

Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

For if any man think himself to be something when he is nothing,

he deceiveth himself.

So a lot of times, in the midst of a conflict we go back to

that self focus.

And what does he say there in verse three?

For if any man think himself to be something when he is nothing,

he deceiveth himself.

So we can deceive ourselves by saying that we are the focus in all

of this.

I take it personally, right?

What the Lord is telling us here is don't take it personally.

Use it as an opportunity for ministry.

Use it for an opportunity to help them.

But let every man prove his own work or test his own work, and

then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not another.

For every man shall bear his own burden.

And we could go on in that passage, but we won't.

But he goes down to say, I will go down to verse number 10.

It says, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto

all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Meaning we should look to do good to others, even if others are

difficult to deal with.

And so what I would tell you is, is this Paul, I think personally

Paul and Barnabas could have sat down and said, hey, look, let's

talk about John Mark.

And maybe Paul could have explained to Barnabas, hey, here

are my concerns.

And John Mark could have been there.

And maybe there could have been this opportunity for repentance

right then and there.

But we don't see that happening.

Now I will go forward and say this.

If you, if you go to, um, back.

Let's go back to Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

Let's go back to Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

We're going to kind of jump ahead in our timeline here.

If we jump ahead in our timeline, we're actually going to

see that Paul does have some good things to say about John Mark

when that happened.

We're not entirely sure when his mind changed, I should say.

But we do know when he says it.

And we can actually find that passage of scripture in a couple

of different places.

And I know I got you turned in a lot of different places, but we

could look at.

Well, we could look at Colossians, chapter 4, verse 10.

Colossians 4:10

He mentions John Mark there and he talks about receiving him.

But then really the main one that I would have you look at is

2 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 11.

2 Timothy 4:11

Obviously, you know, Paul wrote 2nd Timothy and he's writing

it to Timothy, the young pastor.

And in verse number 11, he says, only Luke is with me.

And then he says, take Mark, this is the same John Mark, and bring

him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

So the beginning of the story was Paul says, I can't Use John Mark.

He's a burden to me.

He's going to destroy our ministry.

And whatever happened between that time and second Timothy, chapter

four.

What does Paul say?

He says, take John Mark with you.

He is profitable to me for ministry.

He's beneficial for me for ministry.

So in my opinion, I think that there was probably at some point

in time Paul came to this understanding that there were valuable

contributions to the work of God through the life of John Mark.

We don't know if it was Mark who changed or Paul who changed his

perspective.

Probably God had to do a work in all of their life, let's say it

that way.

Paul probably had to work in the life of Paul Barnabas and John

Mark.

And through their maturity and through their time of understanding

the word of God, Paul comes back and says, john Mark's a good

guy.

He's profitable for the ministry.

You know, maybe I was a little bit harsh with him at the beginning.

And that's.

That's spiritual maturity.

It's understanding to exercise meekness.

There we see the meekness of God played out in the life of Paul.

So Paul and Silas leave, though that's the end of the chapter.

They leave and they depart.

And Paul and Silas go and serve.

And we know that God uses Paul and Silas for great things.

We know that God uses Barnabas and John Mark.

So this is.

This is a lesson for us to know that even in the midst of our

failures, God can still use us.

It's not like you've ruined it.

If you've had a conflict with somebody and you've messed up in

that conflict, well, now God can't use you.

No, God uses us in spite of our failures.

And one of the things that I struggle with in my own life, I can

be really honest with you tonight.

I will always be honest with you.

And I hope you understand that this sometimes takes a lot of risk

for me.

But let me tell you, there are times in my life where I struggle

with my own failures.

I sit there and I say, you know what?

I can't believe I said that at that point.

I can't believe I dealt with this person at this point.

And it almost gets to the point where I'm like, can God even

use me because of all these problems that I've had?

But then you gotta go back and say, you know what?

God is using me in spite of my failures.

If God was selecting perfect people, he would not select any of

us, right?

Because the truth is that all of us have issues.

All of us have problems.

And so it's what it is, it's this.

We don't wallow in our mistakes.

You know what I mean by wallow?

We don't just stay in there and woe is me.

What do we do?

We learn from our mistakes, right?

We learn from our sin and we learn how we can grow and change

from that and allow God to work on our lives.

So it's like, you know, the classic story of, you know, when

a little kid, you know, we try to tell our, you know, nowadays they

have the little stops there for the electrical plugs.

Like kids are not supposed to put their fingers in there, right?

It only takes a child hopefully one time, if they ever

did that, to know, hey, you know what I need to learn from that.

I don't need to go back and say, you know what?

I kind of, maybe it won't hurt me this time, maybe I'll do it again,

right?

It's kind of like touching the hot pan.

How many of you at restaurants when they say, this is confession

time?

When they say, hey, this is a really hot plate?

You know what I do every single time I go, I wonder how hot

it really is.

And I touch.

And every time I'm like, woo, wow, that's hot.

Every time I'm like, I don't learn my lesson.

And the truth is that sometimes that's how we are as Christians,

right?

God gives us discipline in the midst of our mistake.

And instead of growing from that and learning from that, we go

right back to that well, and thinking that it's a better, it's

going to be better this time.

My fleshly decision is going to be better.

Well, what we can see is that when we make mistakes, we have to

learn from them spiritually, learn from them and grow.

That's wisdom.

Wisdom is applying the knowledge, right?

We can have knowledge of God, we can have knowledge of his Word,

but knowledge is not wisdom.

Wisdom is the application of knowledge.

I've always used this as an analogy for you.

You guys will understand this.

I grew up in Florida.

We have a lot of like crazy wild animals there.

How many of you have been to Florida and you saw a sign that,

oh, I know some of you have been there, but let me finish.

How many of you have been to Florida and then you saw a body of

water and on the side of the body of water had like alligators,

be careful, don't feed the alligators.

Don't get, you know, don't go into the right.

If you haven't seen that, they're all over.

Okay, now Knowledge is okay.

I know that there's alligators in this water.

I know I shouldn't go into the water.

I know I shouldn't at least have, like, food in my pocket and

go into the water.

That would be knowledge, knowing.

You shouldn't do that.

Wisdom would be staying out of the water, not doing it right.

So there's some people that live in Florida that know that there

are alligators in the water.

They know that they could attack them, but yet they go, yeah,

you know what?

I'm still gonna go in.

Okay?

And that's why you see a lot of people that are attacked.

Alligators aren't usually gonna jump out of the water, come

into your front porch, and attack you.

Okay?

That's not how it goes.

It's when you put yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, they're freak accidents.

We know that.

And there are people that don't know, you know, that you shouldn't

walk a little dog right next to the water in the middle of the

night.

That's a red flag.

Don't do that.

Right?

And so I say all that to say that there are some Christians who

know intellectually that this is wrong.

I know that conflict is wrong.

I know that acting out of my flesh is wrong.

I know that fighting these people, and I know that standing

on my point is wrong.

But.

And then there's all these justifications that come with it.

But you don't know what happened to me.

You don't know how that person wronged me.

And the truth is that I don't know.

But what I can say is that the application of that knowledge is

the wisdom.

And God wants us to exercise our wisdom in our life.

And, you know, and I think that that's one of the challenges

as a Christian is to live in God's wisdom and not our own wisdom.

And so we see at the end of Acts 15 that they went through Syria

and Cilicia, confirming the churches.

And so Paul continues on with the work.

And so Paul is not a failure because that there was this division.

Silas is not a failure.

Barnabas is not a failure.

John, Mark is not a failure.

Silas was actually recognized as one of the leading men among the

brethren in Acts 15.

He was a prophet.

He was someone who was used by the Lord in many ways in the ministry

of Paul.

And so this was Paul's work to go on.

And he added to evangelism the strengthening of churches.

New Christians need strong churches to grow in and mature in.

And so what I would say is this what can we learn from this

passage of scripture?

Well, we can learn how to deal with biblical conflict, and we can

also learn how not to deal with biblical conflict.

We can also learn that the burden of the church should not just

be evangelism, but also strengthening the folks that we've

preached the gospel to before.

One of my heartbeats is like, we need to preach the gospel to people,

but we need to help them grow.

I grew up in a situation in the way that my church was, that

they were very, very strong in the gospel preaching message.

They were very, very strong in that there wasn't a service where

the gospel wasn't preached and there wasn't a comfort invitation.

There wasn't a Saturday that we didn't go out.

Passing flyers out and going door to door and knocking.

And that was a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'm not saying those are bad things, but what I am saying is that

there can be a.

I need to caution us to say that, hey, yes, we should preach

the gospel, but we can't forget those people in the pew.

Let me say it this way.

There are people that are within churches in America.

I'm not going to say this one, but I am going to say there are people

in churches in America that have been in churches for decades

and they still have not understood certain things of scripture

because it hasn't been explained to them.

And maybe they've even been misled because of certain things

within the church.

I would say as a church, we need to be open, be a berean.

Right.

I always encourage people to say, let's study this together.

Let's look into this together.

If you have a question, hey, look into the Word and see what the

Word has to say.

The moment that we start saying, don't look at that, you know

what?

Just let's move on.

That's.

That's not the way that we should be preaching the message.

And so I would say that there is that understanding of grace and

humility and meekness in our lives in conflict, but also in the

church with spiritual growth.

And so are you going to disagree with people?

Sure.

Is there going to be a time where you might need to separate

from someone?

Sure.

But what I would say is that's not the first step.

It's not the first step.

Go back to that.

Fight or flight.

That's what we see within churches today.

And I'm not here to say that every single person that has left

the church is wrong.

Not saying that.

I actually think that there are biblical times for people to

leave churches and go to other churches.

That's going to happen.

But what I am saying is that there is a biblical way to do those

things, and there is an unbiblical way to do that.

And the unbiblical way is the fight or flight mechanism.

I'm either going to fight with the people in the church when they

go against me, or I'm going to just leave.

What I would encourage you to do is think about that understanding

of Galatians, Chapter six.

I would think about another passage of Scripture in Romans, chapter

Romans 12 · chapter mention

12.

Let your love be without hypocrisy, the simulation.

I would think of another passage of Scripture in First Corinthians,

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13.

One of the things that we should do is love other people within

the church.

I know that's like, what we say all the time, but that's biblically.

Biblically, it's the agape.

It's the love of sacrifice that should be seen in the church.

Now, what does that look like?

Some of us have heard First Corinthians 13 read at weddings,

and certainly it applies to weddings, but it's more than just

that.

First Corinthians 13 is about how we should love other Christians.

And one of the elements of love that's described in First Corinthians,

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13 is not to assume evil in other people.

Okay, here's where we get into trouble the most.

Let me just be honest with you.

It's when we come into a situation assuming the worst in a

person.

Now, I've said this before.

Could that person be doing terrible things to you?

Possibly.

Possibly.

But when we think about that as our default mechanism because

of what's happened to us before, what happens is that we then

assume the worst in someone.

And even if they haven't done that, or even if they don't think

that we assume the worst and we get to a place where we're not

loving them.

Like, what if.

What if I go.

I always go back to my relationship with Alicia, and I know

that some of you go, well, why you always talk about Alicia?

She's the only wife I've got, so I gotta talk about her.

Okay.

If every single situation in our marriage, I just said, oh, she

hates me, she didn't cook what I wanted her to cook for me tonight.

How could we have a healthy relationship if I assume the worst

in her every situation?

If I love her, I must assume the best.

She had a tough day.

Kids were loud.

The kids were yelling.

You know, maybe she didn't have time to make my meal that I

wanted to make or maybe, maybe, you know what?

I didn't, you know, she came home and she wanted to talk to me.

And I said, I talk for a living.

I used to, when I used to teach school, I used to teach all

day.

So from like 8am to 3pm and then I coached from 3pm to 6pm I

talked all day.

And I like to talk.

But there was a point in my day that I was just done talking.

I was done talking.

I didn't want to talk at all.

I wanted to go home.

I wanted to get my bag of chips after dinner.

I wanted to turn my show on.

And I just want to sit and just say, I just want to veg out.

The truth is that she was home alone all day with a baby, home alone

with kids, and she wanted to talk.

She wanted to have a human conversation, an adult human conversation.

And I'm going, well, she wants to bug me now.

You know what that is?

That's, that's, that's selfishness, right?

And sometimes as Christians, we assume the worst than somebody

else because they're coming to us with, with genuine concerns.

I've done that as a pastor.

Someone's come up to me with a genuine concern about the church

and I've been like, oh, God, I can't believe they're questioning

my, my leadership.

And the truth is, is that they're not doing that.

They're coming up with legitimate question, or maybe they

are questioning my leadership, but I shouldn't assume that in the

first step.

And so that's how it goes when it comes to these conflicts.

Now, whether or not Paul assumed that, we don't know.

But we do know that there was that sharp contention that happened

and that didn't need to be there.

And so I would encourage you to think about that.

Within the church, you're going to have conflicts.

You're not going to agree with everybody, but what do you do?

You deal with it with meekness, you deal with it with love.

You deal with that with patience.

You deal with that with bearing other people's burdens.

You know, it would be so much different in our churches today if

we just said, you know what, that person's having a bad day.

I'm just going to overlook that.

You know, we can overlook things.

You don't.

Every, every single slight in the church does not have to end in

church discipline.

Okay?

It's kind of the same thing.

Again with the marriage, right?

If you have, there's sometimes in marriage you just overlook it.

You don't have to have a sit down, come to Jesus moment.

Every single time you have a disagreement on something, right?

The same thing within the church.

There are gonna be times within the church that we say, hey,

you know what?

I'm not even gonna let that bother me.

But there's gonna be times where you can't do that and there's

times that you can't just let it go.

That's when we need to have this biblical confrontation, but

a biblical loving confrontation.

And so that's the story of the dispute between Paul and Barnabas.

John Mark was at the core of it, but really it wasn't John Mark's

fault.

We just know that he had left.

Now, again, there are going to be people that turn their back on

you.

There's going to be people that leave.

There's going to be people that bail out in your ministry.

There's going to be people that don't show up to a Bible study.

There's going to be.

I remember there were times we were running a ministry in Florida

and there would be times where Alicia and I would show up and no

one would be there.

Do you know what we did?

We had a date and we had a Bible study together, right?

Because that was what it was.

And you know what?

We could have been mad.

Next time I came back, I could have said all you people told me

you were going to be there and you didn't come.

And you know, but it was like, you know what it is what it is.

We're going to keep doing this.

We're going to keep doing this.

And Micah asked me a really interesting question.

Tonight we were coming here, it was like, it was like 5:30 and

no one had showed up here yet.

And it was dark.

So in his mind he's like, church should have already started.

He's like, dad, what if nobody comes tonight?

Are we going to still have church?

I said, son, people are going to show up.

But even if they didn't, we would still have church.

He's like, how would we do it?

I said, well, I'd get up and I'd lead the music and you'd sing

and then we'd have testimonies and I would preach you a message.

And he was like, we would really do that?

I said, we would really do that, right?

Because this is what we're doing.

We don't do it for people, we do it for the Lord.

It's a lot better when there are people here.

Like, I enjoy that you're here.

I remember back in Covid, I had to preach to this little camera

right here.

And I'm trying to think, like, am I saying the right stuff?

Because it's a lot easier to talk with people in front of you

because you can play off.

You can talk to people.

You can play off the energy when there's just a camera there.

It's like, man, I just don't know.

I don't know if this is going well.

And the truth is that there are times where we are tempted to

quit because we don't see the result, right?

We don't see it coming to fruition.

But what I would say is just stay faithful.

Stay faithful in what God has for you.

And there's going to be people that say things against you.

There's going to be people that dispute against you.

But, you know, nonetheless, we have the opportunity to minister

for the Lord, and so that's exciting.

So we're going to come back next week, Lord willing, and we're

going to start Acts chapter 16, and we're going to have this

Acts 16 · chapter mention

guy come in and join Paul and Silas named Timothy.

We're gonna learn about this new guy named Timothy.

And Timothy's an awesome character.

Love Timothy.

Young man, got a really interesting background, and I hope

that it will be a blessing for you as we come along here.

So, all right, let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer, and

then after that, I'll have a few announcements and you'll be dismissed.

Lord, we thank you for this time.

We thank you for this opportunity to come here this evening

to study your word.

Lord, we're thankful for the reminders of what it means to be

meek and gentle and loving and forgiving and patient in the midst

of disputes.

Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to know that you do give

us hope.

Lord, help us in the midst of silly disputes, Lord.

Silly division.

Lord, help us to get over our personal issues and help us to see

the importance of the doctrines, the truths, the essentials.

So, Lord, I pray that you keep us safe as we go our separate ways

this evening.

We thank you for this wonderful church that you've given

us.

We thank you for the opportunity to love you and to serve

you here this week.

We thank you and we give it all to you.

We give all the glory to you.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at joshmissaroiddletownbaptistchurch

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.