Trust the Slow Work of God | Acts 15:36-41| August 23, 2026

Well, we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and today we will do just that.

And if you'd like a paper copy to follow along with, just raise your hand, and one of our cheerful, cheerful saints will deliver it to you.

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And in the last week, we've been joined by people from London in the UK, Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

That might be the first one for me to see that.

Leonardtown, Maryland, and Daytona Beach, Florida.

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We pray that the Lord would bless you in this coming week.

Well, we're going to finish chapter 15 of Acts this morning.

And if last week's passage was all about doctrine and unity, boy, today's passage is purely personal and relational.

And our message today is called Trust, the Slow Work of God.

And I first heard that phrase in a song by the artist Brooke Poindexter, but it actually comes from a written piece by French Jesuit priest Pierre Taylor de Chodin.

And if you remember just one thing, one thing from our message today, I pray it is that.

Trust the slow work of God.

He is good.

He's acting on our behalf.

He has borne the weight of our sins and in exchange given us his righteousness.

Well, so since we're focusing on the partnership of Paul and Barnabas today, I thought we could get warmed up with a little call and response exercise.

You know, get us warmed up for this.

So I'm going to call out the first half of a famous partnership, and you will respond and call out with the second half of the partnership, and we'll see how culturally informed we are.

So let's start with an easy one.

Batman and oh come on.

Music lover Simon N.

Yep.

Disney movie fans, Lelo N.

Ah, yes.

Uh, y'all are good at this.

Let's just do a couple more.

Uh, from the history books, Lewis and yes.

And lastly, that adventurous female dua Thelma and see, you guys are on it.

You've had coffee, you're awake.

Oh, I just love it.

Let me pray for us before we start this passage.

Uh, the Holy Spirit, thank you for being with us and among us.

God, we come in the doors this morning with an awareness of how good you are, with an awareness of how much we need you.

So, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would illuminate your words and meet each of us where we need to be met.

Open our hearts to you, draw us to you, fill us with your presence.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, so to set the context of our passage today, Pastor Jim walked us through the first part of chapter 15 last week.

And if you remember, some believers from Judea had gone down to Antioch, and they were teaching these new converts who were Gentiles, that in order to be a Christian, you had to be circumcised and follow the laws of Moses.

And obviously, there was no little unrest because of that.

And so Paul and Barnabas are sent by the church at Antioch back up to Jerusalem to talk with Peter and the apostles and the whole church about this issue.

Well, so the church heard first from Paul and Barnabas, then Peter, and then James, the half-brother of Jesus, and in a remarkable show of unity and establishing doctrine, they send Paul and Barnabas back down to the church at Antioch with this message that indeed Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to be Christians.

They did not need to be circumcised, they did not need to follow the laws of Moses.

Two other brothers, Judas and Silas, were sent from Jerusalem along with Paul and Barnabas.

They spread the word the message by word of mouth, and then after some time, Judas and Silas go back up to Jerusalem, and then we read that Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord.

Well, so if, where we ended up last week, man, if this was a movie, that's the perfect spot for a Hollywood ending, isn't it?

Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also.

And they all lived happily after fade to black.

But that's not what happened.

That's not the end of the story.

And that, my friends, is where we're going to find ourselves this morning, verse 36 of chapter 15 of the book of Acts.

So let's just start in there.

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.

And I just love this.

We're actually seeing some of that pastoral side of Paul.

They've spent some time in Antioch, but he's starting to get kind of antsy.

You know, he wants to go check in on all of these new believers and all of the churches they planted on their first missionary journey.

Verse 37.

Now Barnabas wanted to take with him John called Mark, who is the cousin of Barnabas, and he wants John Mark to travel with them again.

He was with them on part of the early journey, but awkward silence.

Verse 38, but Paul thought best not to take with him one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.

Basically, Paul is saying, Nope, I am not taking a chance again on that quitter.

We don't know, we'll talk about this a little more.

We don't know why John Mark left the team, but Paul has drawn a hard line there.

He wants no part of John Mark on this missionary journey.

So continuing on here in 38, 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 through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Well, so Barnabas took John Mark, went back to his home, Cyprus, where they had been on their first missionary journey.

And that's the last we hear of Barnabas and John Mark for a while.

Paul chose Silas, they're commended by the church.

And they head out on this missionary journey.

Well, wow.

I mean, if if this, you know, we had our other, could have been a great final ending scene to a movie, but if this right here were the final scene of a movie fade to black, man, we'd all be on the edge of our seats, wouldn't we?

Wanting to know the rest of the story.

What happened next?

I mean, what has just happened?

This is almost unthinkable.

I mean, this is the darling team of the church.

You know, yeah, you have Peter and John and James, but Barnabas and Paul, Paul and Barnabas, we've heard their name together at least a dozen times in Acts.

In the letter that the Jerusalem church, earlier in chapter 15, sent back to the church at Antioch, they called, they called them our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How's this possible?

These men have been in the trenches together, surviving beatings, stonings, seeing people healed, seeing the miracle of the door of the gospel throne open wide to the Gentiles.

How could they split up?

I mean, Paul owes his very ministry to Barnabas.

In chapter 9, after Paul's conversion, he comes up to Jerusalem to visit the church.

The church is deathly afraid of them because they know who Saul was, and they don't think he's telling them the truth.

Barnabas was not afraid of him.

He took Paul, introduced him to the apostles, explained to them about his conversion experience, and convinced them to accept Paul.

Eventually, Paul goes to Tarsus.

He stays there for eight years, and it's Barnabas, eight years later, who goes to Tarsus, retrieves Paul, brings him to Antioch, and they join together in that church.

Barnabas is described as being a good man full of the Holy Spirit and faith.

His name means son of encouragement.

How could these two men who both loved Jesus, had been through so much together, have such a heated argument that they went their separate ways?

Here's what we do know, because the good Dr.

Luke has included it in his narrative.

Young John Mark, as we said, the cousin of Barnabas, he came with Paul and Barnabas from Jerusalem to Antioch.

They took him on their first missionary journey.

We don't know why, but John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem, where his mother lived.

Could have been a hundred reasons why John Mark left.

Perhaps his mother was ill, he was young, he could have been homesick.

Perhaps the hardships of the journey, they were just too much for him.

We just don't know.

But what we do know is that Paul, remember, before becoming a believer, he was a strict member of the Pharisees, fully committed to the word and to the law, and now he's equally fully committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We do know Paul felt like John Mark was not committed to the work, and he refused to take him.

Well, on the other hand, we have Barnabas, who is an encourager, who is full of mercy, who delights in giving people second and third chances, who had done that very thing with Paul.

He wants to give his young cousin a second chance.

He's committed to the spiritual growth of this young man.

And so Barnabas refuses to go anywhere without John Mark at this point.

Paul is all about the mission.

Barnabas is all about the man, and neither would budge an inch.

As the saying goes, irresistible force, meet immovable object.

And this is how church splits happen, and how different denominations start.

This passage leaves us with three hard questions that apply to Paul and Barnabas, but they apply to us too, don't they?

What has happened and how can it be fixed?

What can we do?

And what can only God do?

That first question, what has happened, can be addressed from this takeaway.

Broken shalom ends up broken relationships.

And I love the honesty of Scripture.

Luke could have described this situation in glowing terms.

The missions team of Paul and Barnabas had an in-depth and productive roundtable discussion regarding HMR matters, and they came away from the meeting with the bold plan of multiplying and doubling their mission impact by sending out two teams instead of just one.

Nope.

Luke calls it just like it happened.

Barnabas wanted one thing, Paul wanted another, and they argued so deeply about it that they angrily split up and walked away from each other.

Cornelius Plantinga describes broken shalom in his book, not the way it's supposed to be.

And I know there's a lot of type up here, but let's look at these together.

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom.

Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.

Ultimately, the only human beings we know are people who have been created to please God and to build shalom, but who to a greater or lesser degree mysteriously live against the purpose of their existence.

Because shalom is broken, our relationships are broken.

And that sounds dramatic, I know, doesn't it?

And I don't mean to say that there are no beautiful and loving human relationships.

Because there are, as image bearers, we definitely have the capacity to love God and love our neighbor.

But because creation is compromised by the fall, our relationships are compromised, complex, and complicated.

Our ability to love freely and fully has taken a major blow by the sin that exists in the world.

As Planega says, we mysteriously live against the purpose of our existence.

Our relationships suffer.

We suffer.

We are created for relationship with God, with each other, with creation, with ourselves.

We are literally made for each other.

Our identities are given to us by God.

But a huge part of our identity formation comes from relationships.

It's how we know who we are.

Part of who I am is a husband, a dad, a friend, a pastor, who I am in relation to others.

Kevin Van Hooser says that human beings are the only creatures with self-awareness, the only ones who can say I.

But there's only an I if there's a you.

Right?

French philosopher, I don't know why there's a little French theme today, but there is.

French philosopher Paul Ricourt says the self seeks its identity on the scale of an entire life.

If we're looking for a continuity of self, part of that comes from a continuity of relationships.

Not only do we need each other in part to know who we are now, we also need to continue to know each other.

We need to continue that relationship to continue knowing who we are today, tomorrow, the day after that, the day after that, which is why conflict and breaks in our relationships can be so devastating to us.

Shattered relationships lob grenades at our sense of self.

Broken shalom.

Here's a great example of that.

Somehow, Sunday mornings are just a hotbed of conflict, aren't they?

And I think that's no coincidence, but you know, you know how it goes.

Someone oversleps, the kids are fussing instead of getting dressed.

The dog just threw up.

You just spill coffee on your shirt.

You get in the car, and there's this awkward silence.

It's either heated argument or just this frosty silence on the drive in.

And then there's our beautiful and charming and delightful greeters who smile and say good morning as they hold the door open for you.

And it's all you can do not to scream at that point, right?

Am I right?

If I sound like I know what I'm talking about, you know, experience.

And I could ask for a show of hands this morning of who had conflict on the way into church today, but that would just be cruel.

I don't want to do that.

But I could, I don't necessarily, you don't have to raise your hands, but I could say who here has had conflict on a Sunday morning and on the drive in.

And I think many of us would raise our hands.

And we can plainly see the dilemma that we have here, right?

We're made for relationship, but because of the fall, our relationships suffer and they get broken.

So what is the solution?

What can we do about it?

And our second takeaway point addresses this.

Seek peace.

King David in Psalm 34 says, seek peace and pursue it.

Seek peace and pursue it.

What does seeking peace mean?

How do we pursue?

Because if we are hoping for wholeness in our relationships, there's work to be done on our part.

And I would humbly say that the place we need to start is in the relationships that are closest to us, whether it's immediate family, close friends, coworkers, the people we rub elbows with the most.

That's where we all have relational work to do.

But it's also where God can do his steady, daily work of sanctifying us, making us more like Christ.

Tish Harrison Warren talks about this in her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary.

She says, I am increasingly aware that I cannot seek God's peace and mission in the world without beginning right where I am.

In my home, in my neighborhood, in my church, with the real people right around me.

I mean, it's easy to be like Jesus with someone you rarely see, right?

It is way harder to be like Jesus with someone you see up close and personal day in and day out, with their annoying habits and their broken humanity staring right up close into your face.

And of course, your annoying habits and your broken humanity staring right back at them, the closer we are to each other, the more clearly we see each other for good or for bad.

And what's hard about these Up close in personal relationships is that you can't fake being holy, right?

We can't pretend to be like Jesus with someone who knows our dirt.

We actually have to allow the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ.

And how do we do that?

Well, being the first to drop the sword, metaphorically speaking, in any conflict is hard, isn't it?

We want to hang on to that sword and shield, defensive, offensive.

We want to hang on to our hurt, our righteous anger.

We want to hunker down and smolder in silence and let the other one bear the weight of the conflict.

That's one of our easy choices.

But that is exactly what Jesus chose to do.

He bore the weight of our conflict, our conflict with God, so we wouldn't have to.

God chose to let go of his absolute righteous anger on our behalf.

So here's a little formula for the work that we're called to do, and it echoes what God has chosen to do on a grand scale at his expense for our gain, because his goal is capital R reconciliation.

Repentance plus forgiveness equals reconciliation.

Those first two add up to reconciliation.

As Christians, we aren't really given the option to stoically hold on to a grudge or nurse a wound or pretend like we haven't hurt someone else.

The gospel calls us to action to initiate reconciliation, whether we are the offender or the offendee.

In Matthew 5, Jesus said, if you're offering your gift at the altar and you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift, go and be reconciled to them, and then come back and offer your gift.

In other words, we are called to go and repent, to initiate this when we become aware of the wrong that we've incurred against someone else.

But in Matthew 18, the reverse happens.

When our brother or sister sins implied sins against us, we are to go and quietly point it out to them to give them an opportunity to repent, give us an opportunity to extend forgiveness.

So in other words, whether we need to repent and ask forgiveness, or whether we need to lovingly approach and extend forgiveness, we're called to be the initiator.

And Tim Keller outlines this in his book, Forgive.

He says, only the gospel prepares you for both sides of the Christian reconciliation model.

It humbles you enough to make you able to be a forgiver, and at the same time affirms and fills you with such a sense of wonder and love that it makes you able to be a repenter.

It is only great humility and great joy that will help us as a church, a community, to keep relationships in repair.

And I've neglected to remind myself and you at this point that this important truth is that there is such joy in repentance.

There is such joy in forgiveness.

It releases a weight off our shoulders that we have been carrying.

Well, once we've done what we can do, we need to allow God to do what only he can do.

That is our third point in the title of this message, Trust the Slow Work of God.

Well, what was the rest of the story when it came to Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark?

We know Paul's history thanks to Luke, but Luke didn't travel with Barnabas and John Mark, so we don't hear more of any of them in Acts, but that doesn't mean they just faded away.

God was doing his slow work in all of their lives.

Paul and John Mark were definitely reconciled later on because Paul speaks of Mark and his character and value in Colossians, 1 Timothy, Philemon.

And we know that John Mark became a very close friend of Peter and he wrote the Gospel of Mark.

We don't know what the reconciliation looked like between Paul and John Mark, but it was real.

And perhaps Paul had mellowed a little bit, and he eventually told Barnabas, you were right about John Mark after all.

I was wrong.

Or maybe John Mark came to Paul at some point, having grown in the faith, and maybe he said, Man, I can't believe how immature I was back then leaving you all on that first missionary journey.

I should have stayed with you.

All we know is that God has continued his work in and through them and has brought them to this beautiful place of reconciliation later on.

And look at the work that God was able to do through John Mark.

It's just amazing.

Well, we can trust our faithful God to work in and through our lives in the same way, especially with the relationships that we long to have repaired, but that we just can't imagine how that can happen.

I would venture to guess that almost all of us in the room have some of those relationships.

For family members who've wandered far away, we yearn for them, yet we know there is not a second that they have been outside of the care of our Heavenly Father.

We can trust God as we wait on him.

Spurgeon had this to say about our waiting.

If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts.

For blessed are all they that wait for him.

He is worth waiting for.

The waiting itself is beneficial to us.

It tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes.

He is worth waiting for, friends.

He is worth waiting on.

The very waiting itself is good for our souls.

And while we are waiting, he is working.

So in a moment, we're gonna we're gonna put our last slides, a slide up.

There's three short little verses on there, and I'm gonna read each verse.

Pause for a moment of reflection between each one.

And as I'm doing that, would you reflect on the slow work that God is doing in your life?

Reflect on the relationships that might need healing, other circumstances where you're waiting on the Lord.

Where might God be calling you to repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation?

Where might God be calling you just to continue to trust Him and wait?

So would you bow your heads with me?

For God alone, my soul waits in silence.

Psalm sixty-two, one I waited patiently for the Lord.

He turned to me and heard my cry.

Psalm forty one.

Second Peter three, nine.

God, you are worthy of our trust.

You have not paused for a single moment in pursuing us to offer reconciliation at your expense for our benefit.

Lord, we wait on you, we trust you, even in the hardest places, the most tender spots, the most painful divisions.

You are good and you are faithful, and we do trust you.

And we offer this to you.

Jesus' name.

Amen.