Excellent. Final technical setup. I remembered them this time. A few messages back, I forgot to bring my message. Then the next message I remembered to bring my message, but I forgot my glasses. So, today I remembered both my message and my glasses. So, I don't know if this bodes well or what it says. For this evening, I would ask you to turn your Bibles to Acts 15. Acts 15. We're going to look at only a small portion of verses. Before I even read this, I will acknowledge up front that we are not that far out of Pastor Justin's study of Acts. But in terms of as I was praying about it and trying to land on what to say for this evening, this portion of scripture seemed to keep coming to my mind. I will be honest, I thought maybe I should re-listen back to Jesse's message just to make sure that I am not taking anything out of context, but hopefully this just adds a little bit of perspective, at least from my brain, to this text. So Acts 15, and we're going to read verses 36 through 41. Beginning at verse 36. Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord. and see how they are doing. Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John, called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barmiz took Mark and sailed to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Sicilia, strengthening the churches. So I would start by saying it's a sad yet inevitable reality that we as the flawed creatures that we are, that even in the pursuit of God's work and service, it is possible for us to lose track of our purpose. It is possible for us to lose track of why we are doing the work, and in some cases, start to mingle our own personal ego and pride into God's service. Now, as much as I say that it's a sad but inevitable reality in the Lord's work, chances are it's a fairly normal occurrence in our daily lives, whether we like to admit it or not. We might have to work with someone we don't always like, don't mesh well with, or don't really like all that much. We might resent our role on a team. We might be defensive when receiving criticism. Or we might just be having a bad day. But depending upon opportunities like this, If we're honest with ourselves, we don't always react in the best way. We don't always say the right things. We don't always glorify God with our words and our actions. And especially in today's society, now I will admit and confess in a positive sense, I am blissfully ignorant of many of the issues of the day in terms of social media. So I don't know what is causing people to be upset with each other, but I do know this. It seems to be that in this day and age, once you disagree with a person once, that is it. That person is dead to you. And there's nothing that can be done to ever work together with that person or that person could ever do to redeem themselves. Case in point, I tried to keep this a very nice, safe choice. Somewhat painful to some here, though. The Toronto Blue Jays. If we were to go back seven days, our week was beginning with the promise of the playoffs and the hope that we might be good enough to make a run and to win the World Series. And then they threw the first pitch on Tuesday. And then we were out by Wednesday night. And if you were to go on the line, or talk to fans, or to check the sports radio, or to check the commenters to internet articles, the day after, the moment after, the anger and the negativity that you would see It was how this person failed, or that person failed, or this moment, or that moment. Get rid of this guy. I never want to see this guy on the team again. Fire him, fire that guy. And essentially, the way you would see it is we would have to get rid of the entire team. None of them could come back next year because they are all just tainted and they are destroyed and there is no way we could have any of them back. When the reality is, Most of them are going to be back next year, and most of those people who are saying all those things, they will be fans on day one, and they will be cheering and hoping for the better things. But looking at the ministry once again, example, the most well-known example or story that I could think of in terms of where there was sometimes conflict in the ministry was in Acts with Paul and Barnabas. As I mentioned, Pastor Jesse has recently covered this. Somewhat recently, I'm not sure how far back Acts 15 was, but within the last 12 months, I want to say, give or take. And as I say, I will attempt to give it my little spin. So just sort of a really summary of what we read, first and foremost. As we reach and start in verse 35, what we do know is Paul and Barnabas had returned and completed their first missions trip. It was a notable trip. It had much success. There were new churches. There were many new converts. There were many that they angered along the way. Part of that first trip, though, as we read, there was a man named John Mark. I will just refer to him as Mark the rest of the way. And it refers, in verse 38 in our reading, that he had departed from them partway through the trip. And we can also see, specifically in the moment, in Acts 13.13. So if you turn back just a couple pages, we see in Acts 13.13, now when Paul and his party set sail from Pathos They came to Perga and Pamphylia and John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem. So what we read here is that something happened and he abandons the trip. The specifics are not given, but he had a failing of some sort, or he was overwhelmed by the work, or he had a weak moment and made a bad decision. whatever the case may be, and he left. And in this day and age, if we were to look at it, we would judge him resoundingly. Why did you leave halfway through the trip? But if we are honest with ourselves, before we judge too harshly, let's consider, as we go back through that first trip, the objections they faced. They were beaten. They were whipped. I don't know which missionary trip it was, but Paul was even stoned at one stop. To say that one's faith could be tested or challenged in this trip and in that moment, I think is a very fair thing to say. And we see here that Mark did not react well. But, what we do know is that since that first trip, he had grown. He did go back to Jerusalem. That is in his favor. He did go back to the church. That is in his favor. And he had grown enough, as Paul and Barnabas decide to talk and start planning for their return trip, that Barnabas wanted to take Mark once again. Barnabas had been encouraged enough by whatever he had seen in Barnabas to be inclined to include him and to feel that he would not make that decision once again. But we also read that Paul had not. And Paul was not convinced that this was a wise decision. And their contention was so sharp, we read that they both basically seemed to draw a line in the sand over this one man, And he becomes the source of what appears, in terms of at least from working together scripturally here, a breakup of the team of Paul and Barnabas. Now, in many ways, as we look at that, that can be sad. I think we can all probably trace back to moments in our life where we had something, where there is whether we were working in a place or with certain people or whatever the case may be. And, you know, it felt good and it felt right in that moment. And then through whatever reason or purpose, it was taken away. And in that moment, it did not feel good. It felt like loss. In that moment, it looks like you know, in terms of the ministry of the gospel, that it is somehow lesser because Paul and Barnabas are no longer working together. But if we were to fast forward, we would see the result of Mark's future endeavors. Acts does not record specifically any of the trips of Barnabas and Mark, but it is fair to say that they were productive in spreading the gospel. We know this because as we read later in Paul's letters to the churches, he makes references still to Barnabas. He makes references even to Mark in a later gospel, commending him and saying that he was useful for him when many others had departed him. So what we can see is there is life after the moment of failure. And by all accounts, the story of Mark is a comeback story in terms of his service to the Lord. But as we look once again to Paul and Barnabas, we look to these individuals whose names were synonymous with each other, and they had accomplished much in that first trip. They were both mighty men. They were both teachers in the New Testament church. and they were personally separated and called by God for this work. Now we know much of what the rest of Paul's future missions trips look like because most of the book of Acts covers it, plus all his letters to the churches. We don't read so much of Barnabas after this, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of a sudden Barnabas fell down or that he failed or that he was no longer important. In today's terms, he would be less famous. But Barnabas in the church was no slouch and he did not stop his service. He simply pivoted and stayed in service and moved on to another area with another person. And it's a good reminder to us. It's not about amassing as much glory as we can for ourselves. It's following God's will for us. There were many lives touched by Barnabas that we will never know of, that are never recorded in the Bible. But we can be certain that he was an effective servant. But unfortunately in this case, neither are willing to yield and they split. Paul and Silas go in one direction, Barnabas and Mark go in another. But what we see in this is that the work of the Church was not halted. It was not stopped. It was not thwarted. In fact, it proceeded on and expanded into some territories that would not have been possible had Paul and Barnabas stayed together. So it's new teams and new opportunities. And the Gospel expands as a result. It's not the anticipated route by the men, certainly. But God knew and he uses it despite the human weaknesses shown where Paul and Barnabas would argue so vehemently over one person. We also see despite their contentions, Paul and Barnabas are still able to support each other. In this day and age, a split like this would be rumor fodder within the churches Their ministries would never intersect again. Only one person would be able to stay. The other person would have to leave. But this was not the case. Because Paul and Barnabas were not in the ministry for Paul and Barnabas. They were in the ministry for God. And ultimately, despite their disagreement, their service was intended first and foremost for God. So, what I want to do just really quickly is just look at a few takeaways that we can glean from this passage that we could apply to ourselves here in the moment in our daily lives. So the first one is, we can agree to disagree in ministry. The whole phrase that, you know, agreeing to disagree sort of seems a lost art in this day and age. You know, in terms of in sports, in politics, in pretty much anything. You know, it's somehow it's, you know, where before the, at one point in time, the spirit seemed that we could agree to disagree. Now it's, if you're not with me, you're against me. That's not a healthy attitude. It's okay to not agree all the time. If I were to take a very personal example, I'm not going to give any specifics, but I will say this much. Pastor Jesse and I have worked together for a long time now. We have not always agreed. And, we're not always going to agree in the future. But that's okay. Disagreement is always viewed as something negative, but it's not. Sometimes it can lead to better discussions, better decisions. Sometimes it can lead to better results. In this case, I'm going to give you the hypothetical example of us here at Ennerdale and our friend Hope in the morning. Now, we are two ministries. Is it fair to say? Two very different approaches. It's fair to say, also, two very different results. But we preach the same gospel. Would we structure a service like them? No. Would they do the Thanksgiving dinner the same way we're going to do it next week? Probably not. And that's okay. The Gospel is stronger having two healthy churches spreading the Gospel in the area than one. It's not a competition. It's not an us versus them thing. The Gospel only functions best when all of God's churches are serving His will regardless of, you know, in terms of what the numbers are. The strongest church in God's perspective is not the church that draws the most people. If you look at the churches that draw the most people, how are they able to do that? Generally by watering down the gospel and making it really simple and really easy and non-offensive so that more people might come in because they just don't want to hear that they are sinners. That's not the gospel though. I've shared this before But, you know, I was guilty of having this tunnel vision that, you know, when I thought of the gospel, I thought of Ennerdale, and I thought of what Ennerdale was doing, and that was the extent of the gospel as I saw it. Even though I knew there was other churches in and around the area, but the one thing I definitely took out of it is, you know, through the work of the orphanage, I get to work with multiple churches. Last Sunday morning, I was at another church for a missions conference. The first few times I went there, it was strange. It was a little weird. Having the translator speak half the message and have the speaker speak half the message, I didn't quite get that. But what I can say now is when I go there, it feels just as much as home as if I come here. They greet me as if I'm one of their own. And we understand that the Gospel is stronger if Ennerdale is doing well, and if Carmel Lagos is doing well. So, we can agree to disagree, even in our regular service. Hypothetically. I'm just going to pick two names who are here tonight. As we are getting ready for the Thanksgiving dinner next week, If Beata all of a sudden said, I can't come if there's no turkey. And I looked at that and thought, I can never talk to you again because you cannot have turkey here. That is a line that I can never ever cross again. That would be ridiculous. But if we read about some of the things that cause contention in churches. The sad reality is it's probably a whole lot lesser things than Turkey. I don't know yet which that church that split over the color of the curtains or the carpets was. But I'm sure there was one. And it's a sad reality. So we need to remember that we can agree to disagree. And we can still love each other even in the disagreement. We need to also serve with the proper focus. We are called to do God's work, not ours. It's not about our position, our glory, our pride, our ego. Once we start inserting our motives or ego into our service, then that service is immediately tainted. That service is immediately going to, the results of that ministry or that service is going to be affected. Consider the church stories you've heard over the years of what happens once ego gets in the way of service. I don't need to give you a story as an example, but you probably all have a story in your head that you've known of or heard of. And it's probably a ridiculous story. In this case, the best example I thought of as I was trying to develop this point is John. John was a mighty servant in the New Testament. And he comes with great glory. And he even comes where some think that he is the Messiah. But he is very clear. I am not the Messiah. I am here to proclaim Him. I am the forerunner. And, by all accounts, he had a wildly successful ministry. If they made a movie today about the days of the early Gospels, John would be one of the stars of that movie. He would be one of the early stars. Yet, as his ministry was hitting its peak, Jesus comes on the scene. And what do we see that John says? John's analysis to his disciples is very simple. He must increase, and I must decrease. John knew and understood and was okay that, okay, because of this, I'm going to take a step back. But it's for the Gospel. And we even read in the Gospels how the disciples of John And the disciples of Jesus may not have always gotten along like that, but John knew his role and did not allow his ego to be bruised. Even as we think about, quite frankly, the New Testament Church and Acts, as they, in their early days, gathered together. They all gathered together. Everything was held in common. And yeah, certainly Peter And some of the others got a little bit more glory or fame or reference. But you don't see that all of a sudden that everyone within the New Testament church was all of a sudden arguing over who should be doing what role and how much pride and glory and fame I should get. So, we have to remember when we're serving it is to honor God. and we have to leave all of our weaknesses aside. We must be unflinching in the fundamentals, but be flexible in all else. Some things we cannot compromise. The Gospel cannot be compromised. God's Word cannot be compromised. God's truth cannot be played with. But beyond that, we need to be open to be flexible team players. Ministry is not done one specific way. It is not one size fits all. If it was, you could go from church to church and it would be like a Lego set and you could just basically pop yourself in. But it's not. Change is okay. Change in many ways can be a good thing. I have two examples to share with you here. I'll go with the work example first here. I remember in my early days, there was a person whose job was to basically look at everything that was being done and essentially figure out, is this the best way to do it? Is there a better way of doing it? She was not the most liked person because she would sit beside you and she would watch you and she would ask you step by step, what are you doing? Why are you doing it that way? And you would have to basically say, I'm doing this, this is why I'm doing it, and I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that. And I made the mistake, even though I had been warned, when she asked me once, well, why are you doing that? And I'm like, well, that's the way it's always been done. And that was a bad answer. When I said that, she looked at me, she's like, that is a terrible answer. It's like, is there a better way of doing it? Why do it the wrong way? Why do it a bad way if that's the way we've always done it? And let's think of how many times we might have used that phrase within the church. How many things have we done simply because that's the way it's always been done? It's not a right answer. An example more on the positive side that I would note is, and I'm not sure, there's probably only a few people who would remember, so I can say the names in this case, but we had a couple that came a few years back, John and Chloe, and they had come from another church. And I don't know exactly what he had done within the church, but he was fairly important in the church and he was fairly in service within the church, and he was doing a bunch of things. And they came, and they watched for a bit. And I can remember getting in a few conversations. And he would ask sometimes why we would do things a certain way. But what always impressed me was he didn't try to tell us, well, you should be doing it this way instead of that way. Now, in the way he had seen it before, Did we do it differently? Certainly. But he understood that what we were doing, we were probably doing for a reason. And he was willing to offer his advice, but he wasn't going to try and tell us how we should do it. And that is a good thing. So we should be open to change. We should be open to looking at what we're doing and updating things as we need to. We can be flexible in pretty much every area, but we cannot compromise God's truth in any way, shape, or form. Two more quick items. The church is stronger with the involvement of all people. No church or ministry belongs to one person, family, or group. Now, in saying that, You know, what I would say is if you were to look over at our annual reports in years past, one of the things, how we've always measured it, is if you look at the people, the slate of people we elect, what we've always sort of seen is, you know, there's many positions, but a few names. And, you know, what we've always hoped for is more names and fewer positions for certain people. and the involvement of others is a good thing. It's something we would still encourage this day. Now, in saying that, experience is not a bad thing. Experience is good, too. Experience is a teacher. Experience helps us learn. I always find it funny to some degree, it's this weekend, even, for example. There's a couple things, as Lewis was doing a couple financial things on the accounting side, And whenever he tries to close out a month, he always sends me a series of questions. And when I see the questions, part of me is impressed, part of me, it's a funny thing because I see the questions and I know the answer immediately. Doesn't mean I'm smarter than him. He knows, I would admit this, he is probably smarter than I am. But I've seen them, so I know what was happening, so I can answer them right away. That's experience. That's not me being necessarily smarter. That's just me having the experience of seeing it before. So experience is a good thing, but the more hands, the more heads, we are better off. Not that many years ago, I can recall, we actually were about to have a major change in the youth group, at least by Underdale standards. We were going to introduce two new helpers to the youth group. So all of a sudden, the helpers would no longer be just myself, Rob, and Kristen. And I can remember a couple of the kids were absolutely adamant, like, no, you cannot do this. You cannot do this. Like, can we be ourselves around them? Will we have to be better behaved? Probably not a good sign of what the leaders were before. But, you know, like the first reaction was like, how is this change going to affect things? And what we saw as we introduced the new leaders is within like three to four months, we were so much better having new voices, new people doing stories, new ideas. It just opened up new doors that we would have never opened up if we had not considered doing so. So our desire should be to see our brothers and sisters grow and that can only be done through service. It very well could be the best thing for us at times is to get out of the way so others can serve and grow. Always remember that we are not essential. God is. One of my favorite Ennerdale stories has always been with Mrs. Wilson. The very first Lord's Table after she stepped away from doing the setup for the Lord's Table. She had done the setup for years and years and years and I can remember We talked in the car as I drove her here on Sundays for probably four months, and she was so concerned about stepping down from setting up the Lord's Table. And in my mind, I was like, it's pouring some cups, it's getting some, you know, crackers ready, it's putting a tablecloth down, you know, we can do this. But in her mind, it was something that was very, very hard to take away. And the very first Lord's Table That was done without her. It was just really funny because, you know, she sits in her memorial seat at the back and she comes walking up here and she starts looking at the table and she's inspecting the tablecloth to see if it's at the right angles and everything. And in the moment, I'm not sure what came over me at that time, but basically I remember I went over to Mrs. Wilson, I put my hand on her shoulder and I basically, it's going to be all right. I'm going to walk you back to your seat." And she was like, OK, yeah, it's going to be OK. It's going to be OK. And last I checked, we still have Lord's Table. So, in saying all that, sometimes we do need to let our brothers and sisters step in and do the work. Finally, Church needs to be a place of love, not contention. As I say, we can agree to disagree, but we should love our brothers and sisters here, and in the other churches around the city, and the country, and the world. Contentions in church or service gives the world ammunition against the gospel. We need to really consider what are we fighting over and is it worth it sometimes. Because if we are putting the gospel in a fence because we can't agree on the color of the curtains, how are we going to win others to come into this building? And the answer is we can't. What I see in this, you know, it's partially a sad story in that you see the contention was so sharp that Barnabas and Paul had to separate. But we see that God is also working in it. And in doing so, even though they separated, the gospel was stronger for it. More people were reached. And God's word reached many lives that may not have previously been reached. So sometimes we just have to consider ourselves in our day-to-day, in the church, even at home. Consider even this weekend, Thanksgiving weekend. Many families are going to be sitting around a turkey, either yesterday or this evening or tomorrow. And believe it or not, all families will not get along. There will not always be agreement. We are somewhat fortunate here by, in terms of, there's one of the people I talk to at work quite a bit, who's based out of the States, and I've heard the stories of some family gatherings in the current environment, because it's so politically charged and everything. And his comment was, there are certain, relatives and cousins that I cannot have Thanksgiving dinner with anymore, or Christmas dinner with anymore, because we can just not sit around the table and agree. And that's a sad thing. So, we should not make that what Ennerdale is. And I'm not suggesting that it is, but we all have our moments, we all have our times, and we just have to make sure that we are in all times, looking to God and ensuring that we are serving Him and Him alone.