00:00: Please pray with me.
00:06: Father, we have nothing to give you except what you have first given to us.
00:14: And we recognize that the things you have given to us, we are stewards of, we are to be caretakers of as we live for you.
00:25: And so right now, we offer to you ourselves our attention, our hearts, our minds, and ask that you would, through the preaching of your word, shape us, change us, improve us in our thinking about you and your ways, grow our faith and reliance on you, reorient us from self and sin and toward the Savior.
00:56: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
01:01: Amen.
01:04: I'm a minister of the gospel.
01:07: That means that God's plan for my life is that I do ministry.
01:12: I do service.
01:13: I do things that are blessings to others, that help others, that serve others, very often in the relation of equipping, but not always equipping.
01:27: Others, and it always comes back to Jesus.
01:32: I am a minister, not just generically, but a minister of the gospel.
01:35: Gospel means good news.
01:36: It's a Bible word that means good news, very straightforward.
01:39: And it's the good news about who Jesus is and what he has done.
01:42: Jesus is the eternal, uncreated God become a human being, writing himself into creation, writing himself into the world in which we live so that he could experience as one of us what we go through, but get it right.
02:02: Every one of us screws up.
02:03: Every one of us messes up.
02:04: Every one of us fails to live the perfect life.
02:07: And Jesus came and got it right, perfectly, faultlessly, and then said to God, I want them to have credit for my perfect life.
02:18: And God, I want you to give me, Jesus, credit for their failures.
02:22: That's what the cross is all about.
02:24: This morning we heard Katie talk about somebody, Eva, who didn't understand what it meant that Jesus died for our sins.
02:33: It means that Jesus at the cross took credit for our sins, our failures, our guilt, our shortcomings, and said, God, punish me on the cross instead of them so that they can be forgiven.
02:47: And then at the same time, Jesus gave us credit for his perfectness.
02:53: I am a minister of the gospel.
02:55: Now I want to point out for a moment here, everything I've said to this point in the sermon has nothing to do with me being a pastor.
03:05: It is equally true of you as a Christian.
03:09: Male, female, older, younger, doesn't matter.
03:12: If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a minister of the gospel.
03:18: Every single believer in Jesus is called to represent Jesus, is called to live their lives in light of Jesus and who he is and what he's done, is called to change, to turn from their old life and begin living day in, day out for God.
03:35: Now there may be some things that don't need much change and there may be some other things in your life that need all kinds of change.
03:42: That's what it is to be a minister of the gospel.
03:45: And as you live that out, as you live a life of ministry, in whatever your context, you're going to find, I think, in short order, that ministry is messy.
03:55: How many people here who've been involved in ministry at least five years would say, I've experienced that ministry can be messy at times?
04:04: All right, a lot of shy hands.
04:06: You almost don't want to admit it.
04:08: But it's true.
04:09: Ministry can be very messy.
04:11: And as I look at our passage this morning in Acts, I see all kinds of messiness.
04:17: Messiness that I identify with, that I've witnessed time and again.
04:22: Now we've been working through the book of Acts, which is this recounting of the earliest days of the church.
04:30: In chapters 13 and 14, we saw the apostle Paul and Barnabas travel on a missionary journey.
04:37: They traveled from Antioch, kind of northwest of the land of Israel.
04:42: And they went on this tour through the Mediterranean to the island of Cyprus, then up into Asia Minor, which we would call Turkey today.
04:52: When you read Asia in here, don't think China, don't think Japan, not that Asia.
04:57: We're talking Turkey, modern, this chunk that sticks out, Asia Minor.
05:04: And today, as we move into chapter 16, we see the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey.
05:10: There's actually three of them in the book of Acts.
05:13: Three different outings where we see Paul and company traveling and bringing the gospel to these different areas.
05:18: And so we're looking at the beginning of the second missionary journey.
05:21: And we see messiness.
05:24: We see things that are not smooth sailing, easy going.
05:28: The first portion of it is Acts 15, verses 36 to 41.
05:33: In my Bible, the header is Paul and Barnabas separate.
05:38: It's kind of this little summary thing that printers have put in there.
05:42: I don't like that.
05:43: I find that disheartening.
05:45: Paul and Barnabas were teammates.
05:47: They were colleagues.
05:48: They were the ones that went out on this first missionary journey together.
05:51: Back when Paul first became a Christian, nobody wanted anything to do with him because he had been so nasty to the church up to that point.
05:58: And Barnabas was the one with the guts to reach out to him and connect with him and risk himself to engage with him.
06:05: And they got involved in ministry together and so on.
06:07: And now at the beginning of this second missionary journey, we see verse 36.
06:13: 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.
06:21: They're like, let's go back.
06:22: Let's repeat our journey.
06:23: Visit all the places where we planted churches and check in on these Christians.
06:27: See how they're doing.
06:28: Encourage them.
06:29: Bless them.
06:29: Let's do ministry follow-up.
06:33: This is a good idea.
06:35: Barnabas likes the idea.
06:38: But, 37, 38.
06:40: Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.
06:44: 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.
06:54: Now, you might be saying, what?
06:57: Where is this coming from?
06:58: Now this John called Mark guy, we often refer to him as John Mark just because it's easier to differentiate him from some of the different Johns and from some different guys named Mark.
07:09: So we call him John Mark often.
07:10: John Mark, he's just this kind of subtle figure.
07:14: Back in Acts 12, verse 25, there's this little footnote that introduces us to John.
07:19: John Mark as somebody brought by Barnabas and Paul from Jerusalem to Antioch.
07:26: So he was down in the Jerusalem area.
07:28: Paul and Barnabas were there and say, hey, come with us.
07:30: And they travel about 400 miles up to the area of Antioch.
07:33: Then in Acts 13, 5, we find that John Mark not only had gone with them to Antioch, but he then goes with them on their first missionary journey, right?
07:40: He's part of their first trip.
07:42: And in chapter 13, verse 13, there's this little note and I intentionally ignored it when I preached on that portion of Acts because I knew I'd be coming back to it.
07:52: Now Paul and his companion set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia and John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
08:01: So he starts off on the journey.
08:04: He goes with them part of the way and then he leaves and heads home to Jerusalem.
08:08: Jerusalem's his home area, okay?
08:11: He doesn't see the trip through.
08:13: He bails.
08:14: We don't know why.
08:15: We're never told why.
08:18: And from the fact that Scripture doesn't tell us why, I infer from that that God says we don't need to know the specific details about why.
08:27: But whatever it was, it does not sit well with Paul.
08:32: And so when it comes time for the second trip, they're going to retrace their first journey.
08:37: Paul's like, oh no, we're not bringing John Mark with us.
08:39: He bailed last time.
08:40: But Barnabas wants to bring him along.
08:43: Now there's three things you need to know about Barnabas here.
08:46: Two of them are found in Acts chapter 4, verse 36, which says Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, was a Levite, a native of Cyprus.
08:59: So two things there.
09:00: Barnabas is actually not his real name.
09:03: It's his nickname.
09:04: The apostles call him Barnabas because he was such an encourager.
09:07: They're like, we got to, that's like who you are.
09:10: You are such an encouraging guy.
09:12: We're going to call you son of encouragement.
09:14: Like that's, that's huge to who he is.
09:17: Secondly, Barnabas is from Cyprus.
09:20: That's an island in the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
09:22: It's part of where Paul and Barnabas and John Mark had gone on the beginning of their first missionary journey.
09:28: So, encourager from Cyprus.
09:31: And the third thing, you got to go over to Colossians chapter 4 to pick this up.
09:36: Barnabas and John Mark are cousins.
09:41: Family.
09:43: So, on the first trip, Barnabas took his cousin.
09:47: Cousin bailed on the trip.
09:48: Second trip, Barnabas was like, let's give him another chance.
09:52: I was like, no, we're not taking him on this trip.
09:56: Barnabas wanted to give John Mark a second chance and Paul wanted somebody more reliable than John Mark had proved to be to this point.
10:04: It's messy, right?
10:07: Christians having different ideas of how things should go, how to, how to do certain things.
10:11: They both think the ministry trip is a good idea.
10:14: They both want to do that.
10:15: Like, well, who do we send on this trip?
10:17: Who do we take?
10:18: And they can't agree.
10:20: And so, we end up with the result being that there are two separate trips that happen.
10:25: Verses 39 to 41.
10:26: There arose a sharp disagreement.
10:29: So, they separated from each other.
10:31: Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed the way to Cyprus.
10:34: But Paul chose Silas and departed, having then, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
10:40: And he went through Syria and Sicilia strengthening the churches.
10:44: Barnabas and Paul, who had been close, had been ministry companions, say, I am not going on that trip with you.
10:52: If you don't let me take John Mark 2.
10:55: And he's saying, well, I'm not going with you if you do take John Mark.
10:58: And so, they ended up taking separate missions trips.
11:02: Ministry can be messy.
11:04: And yet, God is at work in this.
11:06: God is at work in this in at least a couple of ways.
11:09: Number one, the rest of the story in the next couple of chapters, we get to see how that ministry trip plays out with Paul and Silas.
11:16: And it's good.
11:16: And God's doing good work.
11:17: And there's transformation and kingdom stuff happening.
11:20: So, that's good.
11:22: What about Barnabas and John Mark's trip?
11:26: We don't get the details on that.
11:29: But we're going to see some fruitfulness in Mark's life that comes later on.
11:33: I'll come back to that.
11:35: It seems to be that this unfortunate split, this disagreement, God uses it despite the disagreement and multiplies the impact.
11:45: This isn't the first time we've seen this in the book of Acts.
11:48: Previously, we saw that after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, persecution breaks out.
11:54: And it's so severe and so nasty that the Christians in Jerusalem are scattered far and wide.
11:59: And they bring the gospel with them to the different places they go.
12:01: And so God just kind of explodes the influence of Christianity throughout the region by using this horrible persecution that takes place.
12:09: And then, God changes things, ends the persecution, as an extreme thing at least, for a time, and says, okay, I've got you where I want you and now I'm going to do it this way.
12:18: God uses hardship.
12:19: God uses the messiness to accomplish good purposes.
12:24: I need that truth in my life to be involved in ministry on an ongoing basis.
12:29: And I think you do too.
12:30: If we interpret messiness in ministry to be God's displeasure with us or to indicate that God can't be at work or won't be at work, we're not going to do anything.
12:41: Because as soon as you let people be involved with something, it's messed up.
12:46: I was talking to somebody just yesterday and he wanted to know some different thoughts on marriage and courtship and all these kinds of things.
12:55: And I told him, I said, marriage is two broken people coming together and doing life together.
13:02: You're going to have problems.
13:05: And every married man and every married woman in this room is like, yep, my spouse is broken.
13:10: Right?
13:10: Right?
13:11: You can only marry broken people.
13:13: There's not a perfect person in the room.
13:16: And so, partnerships involving, marriage or otherwise, it doesn't matter what kind of partnership, partnerships involving people are hard.
13:24: They're messy.
13:24: We all bring our own baggage into play.
13:31: God uses this multiplication effect to influence multiple areas.
13:37: I want to know who was right.
13:39: Was Barnabas right or was Paul right?
13:41: What do you think?
13:42: My firm answer is, I don't know.
13:47: I'm not totally sure.
13:49: Here's what I think.
13:52: On the one hand, Barnabas' patient mentorship paid off with John Mark.
13:59: John Mark matured into a dependable gospel minister.
14:03: Now, where am I pulling that from?
14:05: Two things.
14:05: Number one, gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
14:09: Guess who wrote Mark?
14:11: John Mark.
14:11: He ends up later writing one of the four gospels that God includes in the Bible.
14:17: I'd say you can't write off somebody who ends up writing scripture.
14:19: That's one piece of it.
14:22: Also, later on in Paul's letters, Colossians and 2 Timothy, for example, he references John Mark in very positive ways and says he is a fellow worker in the gospel and he's useful for ministry.
14:39: So, there must have been a maturing of John Mark.
14:41: And a reconciling between him and Paul and then they teamed up later on.
14:46: So, I have to look at it and say, I think Barnabas was surely right to say we're not throwing John Mark out.
14:52: We're not done with him.
14:53: And there was value in mentoring him, persevering with him.
14:58: On the other hand, that doesn't necessarily mean that Paul was wrong about excluding him from this one trip.
15:04: Maybe he wasn't ready for that level of commitment at this stage in his journey.
15:09: Now, Paul is going to go on the second trip and he's going to visit all these different places where there was all kinds of persecution and hardship.
15:16: And we're going to see that in the next couple chapters.
15:18: Whereas Barnabas just takes him to Cyprus.
15:21: Cyprus, as you may recall, is Barnabas' home.
15:24: That's where he comes from.
15:25: Barnabas takes him to his home stomping grounds where John Mark had already been once and it seems like, almost like an easing back into ministry.
15:35: Maybe John Mark was thrown in the deep end too early on the first trip and needed to be mentored into a readiness for those harder level things.
15:46: That's my guess.
15:48: But whatever the case, long term, God brought good things out of it and God was not done with John Mark.
15:58: Ministry can be so messy, can't it?
16:01: Oh, I can't work with that person.
16:02: I'm not going to do stuff with them and so on.
16:06: The second section in our passage this morning is chapter 16 verses 1 through 5.
16:12: All kinds of messiness.
16:14: Now let's put this in context.
16:15: If you didn't catch last week, last week in Acts 15 we have this mess where people are saying to the church in Antioch, which is mostly non-Jewish people, aka Gentiles, you have to be physically circumcised plus believe in Jesus if you're going to be saved.
16:31: And Paul and Barnabas said, no, no, no, you just believe in Jesus.
16:34: You don't have to be circumcised.
16:36: And then there was this whole like, oh, who's got it right?
16:39: What's going on here?
16:40: And so they send Paul and Barnabas and some other fellas 400 miles back to Jerusalem to meet with the other leaders of the church, the other apostles and elders, and they meet together.
16:51: And when they get there, they start talking about these other folks saying, well, not only do you have to be circumcised, you've got to keep all these other Old Testament rules too.
16:57: And so they get this whole debate and this council and they come to a conclusion.
17:00: And they said, God does not expect people to keep the Old Testament rules on top of believing in Jesus.
17:08: Believe in Jesus plus nothing equals God's acceptance.
17:12: That's the conclusion they arrive at.
17:14: Now, let me be clear.
17:15: They don't arrive at that because it's the answer they want or it's because it's their preference it.
17:22: Rather, they come to that conclusion because they look at how God has been at work and they look at what God has said in the scriptures and they say, God's already given us the answer.
17:32: And the answers by what God is doing and what God has written match.
17:36: We have our answer.
17:37: And so they're just affirming the answer that God has given.
17:41: So then Paul and Barnabas and a fellow named Silas who now we get introduced to and some others travel the 400 miles back from Jerusalem to Antioch to deliver this message.
17:52: And the message is, no, you don't have to be circumcised or keep any of the other Old Testament rules to be saved.
18:06: I sometimes feel like when I get from Acts 15, this amazing council at Jerusalem where they come to this amazing right conclusion.
18:15: No, you're not under the law.
18:17: You don't have to do these rules.
18:18: You don't have to be physically circumcised.
18:20: And then I get to Acts 16 and I read these first verses and I'm like, who put that there?
18:25: Right?
18:26: Like, they just got this massive decision.
18:28: No, you don't have to.
18:29: And Paul says, hey, Tim, feel like some surgery?
18:34: What?
18:35: Look at these verses.
18:37: Paul came to Derbe and Lystra.
18:39: A disciple was there named Timothy.
18:41: So Timothy is a Christian, right?
18:42: The son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was Greek.
18:47: Greek, Gentile, not Jewish.
18:49: He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.
18:53: Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places for they all knew his father was a Greek.
19:02: So Timothy's got this joint heritage.
19:04: He's got Jewish background.
19:06: He's got not Jewish background.
19:08: And by Jewish practice, he should have been circumcised.
19:11: But dad's way reigned and he didn't.
19:14: And he was well known in the area and so all the Jewish people around there were like, yeah, we know about Tim.
19:19: He didn't even value his Jewish background, yada, yada.
19:21: It would have been this barrier to ministry.
19:25: And Paul recognized that and said, I want to take this great Christian brother and know he doesn't have to be circumcised, but man, it's going to make it hard for him to do ministry in this place because all these folks know about this and it's just, it's going to be a barrier.
19:39: And so he suggests to Timothy that he get circumcised.
19:45: I can only imagine how that conversation went.
19:47: Hey, Tim, been gone a little while.
19:50: You know how I traveled 400 miles that way.
19:52: We had this big powwow.
19:53: We came to a decision.
19:54: Traveled 400 miles back.
19:56: Delivered the news.
19:58: No circumcision required.
19:59: Good news for you, Tim, right?
20:01: Yeah, you don't have to worry about that.
20:03: But what do you say about doing it anyway?
20:07: Now, if there is a single man in the history of the world has ever thought, yes, I think I'd like optional cosmetic surgery there, I've never met him.
20:21: No guy wants knives in that region of the physical body.
20:27: Okay?
20:27: And you've got to keep this in context.
20:30: Cosmetic surgery that would have made him the weirdo culturally.
20:35: Outside of Jerusalem, that was the odd thing to do.
20:38: Gentiles didn't do that.
20:41: It was optional.
20:42: It would have made him the outsider.
20:44: And this is before anesthesia.
20:47: This is before sterilized operating instruments.
20:52: And, to my horror, this is before antibiotics.
20:56: This is potentially a very ugly, painful process.
21:02: And Timothy says, not required, painful, potentially deadly, when do we begin?
21:10: He's on board.
21:12: Either Timothy's nuts or there's something more important to him.
21:17: What is that more important thing?
21:19: It's loving other people.
21:22: He recognized that personal freedom is not as important as loving other people well.
21:30: You catch that?
21:32: Personal freedom.
21:33: It's a real thing.
21:34: It's important.
21:34: It's valuable.
21:35: It's good.
21:36: But personal freedom is not as important as loving other people well.
21:41: And he said, I don't have to do this.
21:43: But if I go ahead and do this, it puts me in a position to connect with people, to bless people, to bring Jesus to people that otherwise aren't going to listen to me.
21:55: Think about it this way.
21:56: I've been on some mission trips to a few different places, one of which was Mexico a couple decades ago.
22:04: And I was told, don't bring shorts on the trip.
22:08: Culturally, it's inappropriate for you to wear shorts here.
22:11: What should I wear?
22:12: Jeans.
22:13: I tell you, Mexico is not the place where I want to be wearing denim jeans.
22:17: It's hot and humid and sticky.
22:21: And if I've ever wanted to wear shorts, it's when I was in Mexico.
22:24: But I was told, people are going to, if you're wearing shorts there, just culturally, it's not what's done here.
22:31: All right.
22:32: Or, think about when Allie went over to serve in the Middle East.
22:35: She had to dress differently there than she would potentially dress here in order to have a hearing with the people there.
22:41: She had to be sensitive to the culture of the people that she was going to serve or she was going to set up barriers to ministry.
22:48: It's not that the way that they had her dress in that place was better or righter.
22:56: It was just what was necessary for her to have opportunity for ministry.
23:04: Setting aside personal freedom for the sake of others is really important.
23:09: We saw this in Acts 15, right?
23:11: The Council of Jerusalem said, no, you don't have to do these things.
23:13: But then they also recognized, we have this challenge.
23:15: We need Jewish Christians and not Jewish Christians to be able to get along and do life together.
23:19: So let's give them some standards to help them not tick each other off and have conflict.
23:24: And they put a few things to that effect in there.
23:26: Not that those were always moral absolutes, but just in order to do life together, we're asking for you to do this, right?
23:33: Or in 1 Corinthians, Paul's going to write to the church in Corinth and say, hey, you can eat meat, you can drink wine, it doesn't matter where it comes from.
23:43: But if doing that's going to create problems with other people, when you're dealing with those people, you don't do it.
23:50: Because the way that we influence others is more important than getting to do whatever we want that we're otherwise free to do.
23:58: This is the example of Jesus for his people.
24:00: Philippians chapter 2 has this famous kenosis passage.
24:04: Kenosis is a Greek word that means to empty oneself.
24:07: And in that, it's saying basically, Jesus, God, in heaven with all the privileges and prerogatives of God, said, I'm not going to cling to all that.
24:18: I'm going to enter into the world as a human being with all the humility and obedience to God that's implied and all that instead of retaining all my heavenly privileges.
24:33: He didn't stop being God.
24:34: He didn't give up his divinity in any way, shape, or form.
24:38: But he came down and was treated very much like he wasn't God.
24:41: Being born in a stable?
24:43: Come on.
24:44: That's not even appropriate for the average person, let alone God.
24:49: So the example of Jesus, the teaching of Scripture, is that Christians must be the ones who readily, cheerfully give up our personal freedom in situations where that freedom is going to be a barrier to the spiritual welfare of others.
25:09: That sounds really obvious.
25:12: But are you really on board with that?
25:15: Following Jesus has that implication, but it's not always as easy to live out as it sounds like.
25:21: Some of my greatest heartaches as a pastor have been involved watching Christians get this wrong.
25:26: On the one hand, I've seen Christians say, I think Christians should all do this and have this man-made ideal, this man-made rule and say, every Christian needs to live this way even though the Bible doesn't specifically say so.
25:40: I even had somebody say, I want you to get the Constitution at Faith Chapel changed to make this a requirement for everyone.
25:48: No.
25:49: We're not going to put a rule in the bylaws of this church that requires everyone to do what you want them to do when the Bible doesn't say that at all.
25:58: I've seen that on the one hand, trying to impose restrictions on others.
26:02: And in Acts 15, they were saying, no, we will not accept the imposition of the requirement of circumcision.
26:09: We will not accept that as a requirement.
26:12: On the flip side, I've seen Christians say, I'm clinging to getting to do whatever I want.
26:17: I'm retaining my freedom no matter how it impacts others.
26:20: And that's not right either.
26:25: That would be like the news from Acts 15 getting out and them saying, yeah, see, we don't have to do it.
26:31: We don't care what you Jewish Christians think.
26:34: Neen, neen, neen, neen.
26:35: That's not going to create unity in the church, right?
26:38: We have to be willing to say, I value my fellow Christians more than I value getting my way.
26:45: I will voluntarily not do some things in order to get along with each other.
26:53: Will you make that commitment?
26:56: Because when the rubber meets the road, it's almost always going to be something where you're like, oh, I got to give that up.
27:02: I like that.
27:10: We say here at Faith Chapel that our mission is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply fully surrendered disciples of Jesus.
27:18: Your responsibility is to become a fully surrendered disciple of Jesus.
27:23: You need to be fully ready to do anything and everything Jesus calls you to.
27:27: And part of that is saying, I will not do everything I'm allowed to do if in this situation it's going to be harmful to someone else.
27:37: I will restrain myself willingly, happily, voluntarily if it produces good results for others.
27:44: That's what we're called to.
27:48: What is the result of this approach?
27:50: Verses 4 and 5.
27:52: As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.
27:59: So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily.
28:03: People are coming to faith, they're being more and more confident and mature in their faith, they're hearing the message that this stuff isn't required, but they see people saying, I'll do what I need to do to be able to get the message to you in a way that you can receive it.
28:19: I love that.
28:21: They're not willing to compromise the truth, but they're willing to compromise their freedom for the good of others.
28:27: Keep that in mind.
28:28: That's what we want to do as God's people.
28:30: Don't compromise the truth of God's word, but we will compromise our freedom voluntarily in situations where it serves the good of others.
28:41: Ministry's messy.
28:42: It's even messy with regards to our planning.
28:44: The final chunk of our passage this morning is verses 6 and following, and basically what we see there is Paul and Silas did this plan.
28:52: We're going to go to this area.
28:53: Verse 6.
28:53: They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.
29:01: They want to go here and the Holy Spirit is like, nope, nope, you're not going there.
29:05: Now, I don't know how God told them no or forbade them.
29:11: I just know that the Holy Spirit said no.
29:15: Now, did it come in the form of a vision, an impression on their heart?
29:19: Did it come with opportunities drying up?
29:22: I don't know.
29:25: Somehow or another, God communicated that to them that their plan A was a no from God.
29:31: Verse 7.
29:32: And when they came up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
29:39: So, God says no to plan A, they go plan B.
29:42: God says no to plan B.
29:44: That's got to be frustrating, right?
29:46: You guys ever experience that?
29:47: You got an idea and then God shuts it down?
29:49: Then you have another idea and God shuts that down.
29:51: You're like, what is going on?
29:54: So, they proceed, verse 8, to option 3.
29:57: So, passing Mysia, they went down to Troas.
30:01: All right, so you get your geography.
30:02: You get this chunk that sticks out in the Mediterranean.
30:04: That's Turkey and Asia Minor.
30:06: They're on the northwest corner of that, closest to Greece.
30:10: That's where Troas is.
30:12: They get there and then God gives them direction.
30:15: Verse 9 and following.
30:17: A vision appeared to Paul in the night.
30:19: A man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.
30:26: And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
30:34: I love that.
30:35: God gives them a vision and they still have to interpret it.
30:39: Like, well, that must mean that God wants us to go there.
30:42: God didn't just say, Paul, thou shalt go to Macedonia.
30:47: Rather, he gives them a vision and Paul and Silas have to say, well, what do you make of that?
30:52: Seems to be God telling us to go there.
30:54: Now, Macedonia is basically northern Greece.
30:57: So, they're near Greece-ish and now they say, okay, God said no here, God said no here, let's go to northern Greece and that seems to be where God wants us to go.
31:06: So, that's where they head.
31:09: Closed doors.
31:11: Messiness, right?
31:12: Plan A, no.
31:13: Plan B, no.
31:14: What do you make of closed doors where you have an idea and you want to do ministry in this direction and God's like, nope, that's not an option.
31:22: It's not available to you.
31:23: There's at least two ways we can take that.
31:25: One, sometimes it's God redirecting us.
31:28: Saying no, no, no, go this other direction instead.
31:31: That's totally legitimate.
31:32: When you encounter what we call a closed door, an opportunity that seems to dry up, sometimes that's God saying no, I've got something else for you and we need to be okay with that and embrace that.
31:42: I think there are some times when God is saying, I want to do what you don't see coming.
31:49: I want to do what seems impossible, stay put and I'm going to open this door in a powerful way.
31:57: There seems to be a lot of times in scripture where God puts his people in an impossible situation where there's no solution so that God can provide the solution, right?
32:06: God brings Israel out of Egypt, he puts them in a dead end cul-de-sac where they've got nowhere to run, he brings the Egyptian army down to bear on them, they're about to get slaughtered and God's like, now!
32:15: And he opens up the Red Sea and they get to walk through, right?
32:18: It looked like a closed door where they were trapped and there was nowhere to go but God was setting up to display his glory.
32:24: So when we encounter closed doors, I think we need to say, God, what are you doing here?
32:28: What do you have?
32:29: How do I follow you in this moment?
32:32: And sometimes we're going to find that God's redirecting us and sometimes he's going to say, stay put and watch what I'm about to do.
32:38: And both are legitimate.
32:40: I look at this and I think, yeah, it sounds about right.
32:44: I've been a pastor for about 23 years now, full time.
32:47: I've been involved in ministry for over 30 years and I can't think of a time for very long at least when ministry wasn't messy.
32:58: Right?
32:59: You let people like you and me into a club, club's going to have issues.
33:04: Right?
33:04: If we're honest, you put two or three people together and say, come up with the same plan, they're going to have different ideas.
33:12: But you know what?
33:13: God's in the midst of that.
33:14: God is in the midst of his people as we live for Jesus, as we trust Jesus.
33:19: He's going to get things done.
33:21: He's going to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
33:23: If God doesn't or can't use imperfect people with all their messiness, then God can't do much of anything in the world, can he?
33:33: Because if he's going to work through people, the only ones he's got available are messed up, broken, imperfect people.
33:37: If he wants to work through a group of people, the only groups of people available are messed up, imperfect groups.
33:43: But our God is sovereign and all-knowing and perfectly wise.
33:47: He can do exactly what he needs to do in the mundane and the messy realities of day-to-day ministry.
33:55: So whether there's people conflicts, issues of freedom versus barriers to ministry, whether we're dealing with closed doors, God's at work.
34:09: Don't think that messiness means God has turned away.
34:15: Messiness is an opportunity to trust in God all the more and to give him the glory when he does what only God can do.
34:22: Let's pray.
34:24: God, help us to be those who trust you.
34:27: No matter how clear or messy the situation may appear to us, may we believe and trust in lived out moment-by-moment practice the belief that you are in control, nothing surprises you, nothing can thwart your purposes or your plans, and that what may be plan C for us is really just plan A for you.
34:52: Grow our confidence so that we live in reliance on you for our joy, for the sake of your kingdom, your name, your glory, we pray.
35:03: In Jesus' name, amen.