Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "A Study of the book of Acts" by Neal Pollard - Part 8

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"A Study of the book of Acts" by Neal Pollard - Part 8 · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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  to our culture in our day, our challenges that we still face,
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  circumstances, situations that the Cumberland Trace congregation has
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  or potentially will encounter. And so this is very helpful
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  to us as good things happen for us in a congregation.
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  And inevitably, as I look out over the— this auditorium
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  this morning, folks in different stages of circumstances
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  of life. And so I think as we look particularly on the Second
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  Missionary Journey, we're going to see a lot of what hits us as a church
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  and as individuals. The Second Missionary Journey is the
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  longest by reason of how much time it took, how much
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  distance was covered, but we're not really going to be looking at the missionary
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  journeys as a geographical
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  download. We're going to be looking at some of the things that happened on there.
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  I want to just tell you up front, there will be some things we won't
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  hit that may be even familiar territory. We are going to spend 2
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  or 3 seconds on the Philippian experience that we have
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  said a lot about. And again, I refer you back to Chris Young's fantastic
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  class on Acts. He took 2 quarters to walk through the book of Acts and
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  really helped us a lot. So that would be good background or supplement to what
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  we are talking about today. The first challenge that we see in Acts 16,
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  and by the way, remember where we left off last week?
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  Paul and Barnabas split because of a disagreement over whether to take
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  John Mark. And Barnabas and John Mark go off to Cyprus.
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  Barnabas, as far as the book of Acts is concerned, disappears from the
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  scene. And John Mark is going to reappear in
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  the epistles that Paul writes and that Peter writes later
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  on. But as they go their way, Paul takes
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  Silas with him, and they're going to go on a missionary journey. And Paul's
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  going to pick up a couple of fellow workers that are going to
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  be very important to the events that take place in the second journey.
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  Now, as we look at, in terms of the challenges that they
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  faced, one of the challenges is related to that pivot point,
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  that break in the first and the second missionary journey, because that
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  pivot point centers around 2 young men. Who are they? I already mentioned one.
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  Who's one of the young men that's kind of at the center of this this
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  break between the first and second journey?
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  Okay, so Timothy's one of them. It's the one we didn't just mention. Who's the
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  other one? John Mark. Now,
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  they play an important role even though they're very secondary. Mark, as far as
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  we can tell, was only ever an assistant. Maybe he was an attendant.
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  He took notes. He maybe handled logistics.
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  Everything we can see, there's no indication that he
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  preached sermons or taught Bible classes. He was more in the background.
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  Maybe that served him well because what's he going to ultimately do later
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  at some point? Okay, Paul's going
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  to call for him, but in his own life and ministry, what significant
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  thing does Mark do later? Write the Gospel of Mark.
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  It's pretty big. It is a
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  very focused document in which he deals
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  with the identity of Jesus. It's at the heart of it. Who is this Jesus?
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  That's what the book of Mark is all about. Mark 8:28-38.
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  But then there's Timothy. Do you see the irony
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  that Paul is going to go find a young assistant to
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  help? Maybe in Paul's mind he's thinking, I can train him in
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  some ways that some deficiencies that John Mark I may perceive
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  in him, Although I think we can say that Paul's going to have to at
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  least say he was at least part wrong in his assessment of Mark. And you
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  see that when he begins to write about Mark being useful,
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  Mark being a coworker. Send him to me because I find
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  him one that would help in the work that we're doing. But there's also going
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  to be Timothy himself. And the first challenge— and it's a challenge we
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  face here— is how do we develop tomorrow's leaders?
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  How do we identify in this congregation those young people
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  that, uh, and, and we'll talk about what young means in just a moment,
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  who are so much a part of who this church will
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  be in 20 years. Maybe they're not in positions of leadership
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  right now, but as we continue to march toward the grave,
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  all of us, and to age out, there are those coming up behind
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  us. And what are we doing substantially to help them to be the leaders
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  that God expects us to perpetuate in
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  the body of Christ. Now, just a little bit of facts
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  as we get started this morning with regard to this church. I reached out to
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  some of our vision groups to get some solid numbers on those
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  that we would call the young people of this congregation.
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  There's some of you, and I hope you don't ever take that as a negative
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  thing. Who here would mind being
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  called a young person? Do you feel pretty good about that? You know, I don't
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  remember when it happened. I remember for years being taught, you know, Neil's one
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  of our young preachers. I don't hear that anymore. I don't— I still feel
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  the same as I did when they said that before. So there are a
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  lot of us who are going to be excluded from that group. But in this
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  congregation, it was surprising to me. I asked, you know, we just renamed
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  one of our vision groups from young adults to the 20s and 30s. And so
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  in the strict observation of that, anybody have any idea
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  how many we have that would be— now don't include the college students
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  or those in the college age range who are post-high school.
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  How many 20s and 30s do you think we have in this congregation?
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  Okay, wow, y'all are all on top of that. Okay, 57, 60.
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  That's a sizable number when you think about the fact we've been averaging
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  about 400 for our morning worship. So, somebody who's smarter
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  than me, isn't that about 20%? Pretty close to it?
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  I just did that in my head just then. Now, college students range
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  between 20 and 30, and I know that's somewhat seasonal. It drops some in
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  this time of the year, but when they come back here, as they start trickling
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  back in the next few weeks, That's,
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  that's an incredible addition to the almost
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  60 that are 20s and 30s. Now, how many do you think
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  are— I don't know how to say it— 0 to 18, or newborns
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  through 18 years old, high school seniors? Let's say just high school seniors is
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  how I actually reached out and asked the committee.
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  Somebody said 60. Okay, Joyce,
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  you're almost there. 97. Now, when you consider
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  that we have several expectant mothers, then that's probably a pretty good number. We're going
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  to count them, right? So where's Chris, you know, or Jack? Count those ladies
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  that are obviously pregnant, that you know they're pregnant. So now, when you— we
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  were on our honeymoon and I learned a lesson very quickly. We was going up
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  a gondola at Ober Gatlinburg and I asked the woman when she was
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  going to have her baby. I've never done that again. So now
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  you take that number, those numbers together, and we're talking
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  about almost 200 who are what
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  the Bible would call youth. When you think
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  about Timothy and what Paul's going to say to him in 1 Timothy 4:12,
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  that let no one despise your youth, that's over
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  a decade after this, these events in Acts 16.
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  And so he's possibly a teenager here. And so we talk— we think
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  about the resource that God has given to us. And when I got all those
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  numbers initially, I got to tell you, I was excited to
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  think about that kind of a number, almost 200.
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  And then it got very sobering very quickly. You know, there's a, there's a parable
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  Jesus tells in Luke chapter 12, verse 48 about those— that
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  servant who knew his master's will and he didn't do it.
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  He's going to receive many stripes. The one who didn't know his master's will,
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  by comparison because he didn't know, he didn't have the knowledge
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  that is expected of one who's a follower of Jesus, the one who
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  knew his master's will and didn't do it, what kind of punishment did he receive?
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  Many stripes. Now, here's the upshot of that.
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  This— we use this statement a lot, but that's the context of
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  it. To whom much is given,
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  what? Much is required. And so
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  this is a passage about accountability, and it says to us, what are we going
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  to do to develop the raw material of
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  tomorrow's leaders, of our young people? And of course, we say it,
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  and we should, not just tomorrow's leaders. And that's part of
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  how we respond to that challenge is to recognize that
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  we have such an opportunity in front of us. So with that being the
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  case, let's look at Acts 16:1-5.
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  Turn your Bibles over there in Acts chapter 16, verse 1
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  through verse 5. And again, this is
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  at the very beginning of that journey as Barnabas
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  and John Mark have headed to Cyprus. Paul came
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  also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy,
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  the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was
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  a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.
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  Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of
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  the Jews who were in those places,
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  for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
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  And as they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for
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  observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who
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  were in Jerusalem. Do you remember back in Acts 15, they all met together?
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  All these Gentiles are being won to Christ,
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  and the question is, what does God expect of
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  them? And do you remember how they worked through that? They talked
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  about the great results that God had given them, but I want you to notice
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  how especially James It's a great pattern for
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  us. Takes them to the Scripture. What does the Bible say? What do the Scriptures
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  tell us that we ought to do? And so, once they leaned
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  on that foundation and they came to a consensus, they weren't making policy for the
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  church. They were trying to figure out how do we handle this practical situation.
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  Then they sent Paul and Silas out to tell
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  others what the congregation had decided.
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  Suggested was the way to handle this. Okay? So, that's the
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  context in which we see these things. And as you look at the passage we
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  just read in Acts 16:1-5, what does the Scripture there tell us about
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  Timothy? What are some of the facts?
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  Okay. Alright. So, what does that tell us?
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  His father is a Gentile or Greek. His mother is
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  a Jew. Might have
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  felt some prejudice, particularly by the Jews. Yeah?
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  Okay. Now, we're going to learn that for sure outside of the book
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  of Acts. That's going to really help us. But there's
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  some indication here that he's been taught the Scriptures.
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  All right. So he's of mixed heritage. Joel? All right.
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  He's got a good reputation. Folks who are in
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  that area, it's a 50-mile radius.
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  Are knowledgeable about this man, this young man.
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  He's well spoken of. He's got a good reputation. How do you do that?
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  Your deeds, your actions have got to weigh in on that. So look, we do
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  say he's raw material, and I'm going to show you that he's not finished yet.
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  He's got some work to do. But already we see that he's got
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  a background, a religious background. But something
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  else about that before we leave this idea that Kevin brought up that he was
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  A Gentile father, a Jewish mother. Yes, some prejudice
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  from the Jews. What else would that tell us? Would it tell us anything
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  else? Okay, we're going
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  to find out here. So that's actually something else that Luke tells us about him.
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  He's not circumcised. And that's going to matter,
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  and we'll talk about that in just a second. Anything else you see?
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  Here's my list. He's a disciple. What does that tell us?
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  He's a follower of Jesus. We don't have to complicate that.
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  And he is a true follower of Jesus.
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  There's no Apollo situation here. There's no circumstance
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  like the men in Ephesus who only knew the baptism of John
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  and were baptized again. He is a New Testament Christian
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  who is following Jesus. And some of what we see here
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  is going to reinforce that idea. He's well thought of.
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  And I think that's where Joey was leading us there in the area
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  that he had been doing the work. If you're a follower of Jesus, you're going
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  to be doing the kinds of things that make people think well of you.
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  He had a mixed heritage, so there was conflict in the home.
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  And is there any significance that it was his mother who was a Jew and
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  his father who was a Gentile?
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  Okay. Again, Miss Dolores, we're going to get there when we get outside
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  of Acts. Yeah, we know your knowledge is— that's right. That's going to be very
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  huge. But would it have been different if his dad
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  had been a Jew and his mom had been a Gentile?
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  Probably so. In a male-dominated society, that probably
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  would have read a little differently. But how many
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  circumstances do we know, maybe even that make up our congregation,
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  where there are folks who've been raised by a
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  godly mother whose father has been at least spiritually absent,
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  if not physically absent? And yet,
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  what great leaders can come out of those contexts.
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  Great leaders in the body of Christ come from a lot of different directions.
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  Look, wouldn't we all say that the ideal would be that we are
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  producing a lot of young people out of homes where
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  mom and dad are faithfully following Christ? Won't that give them— if
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  we don't believe that, then we wouldn't gear a lot of what we do here
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  to try to encourage and strengthen and build up our youth. And we
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  tell— what are we doing next month? We're having a parenting seminar. What are we
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  trying to do with that? We're trying to encourage mom and dad to be spiritually
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  united in raising their children in such a way that when they're old, they won't
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  depart from it. And so there's certainly advantages to that,
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  and some people in this room are the products of that.
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  But I'd say that there are a great many of us in this room who
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  maybe only had one spiritual role model in the home. And yet you
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  still can be a spiritual all-star in the kingdom
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  of God in a situation like that. He was willing to
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  be circumcised. Now, sometimes we say there's a conflict
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  here because Paul doesn't circumcise Titus in Galatians 2:3.
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  What's the difference between Timothy and Titus and
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  why he did the one and not the other? Say it again.
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  Okay. And Kevin says where they were working at.
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  And specifically, what does Paul like to do on his missionary journeys
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  or in any of his mission efforts that we see in Scripture? When he goes
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  to a city, where does he go? Synagogues. Who's in the synagogues?
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  Jews. And there is something to be said about the fact that being
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  known and his heritage being known apparently widely
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  enough as he's well thought of and his character is known around the area,
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  If you have a mother who is a Jew, then there is a certain expectation
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  that from a ceremonial, circumstantial, cultural side,
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  you are going to adhere to that. And if you have Jewish blood in you,
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  then you need to remove any impediment
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  that would keep Paul from being affected. And so, he is
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  going to do that. Titus is going to be working on Crete. He is
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  going to be working among Gentile people, and there are Judaizers in that area
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  who are saying that you have to be circumcised in order to be a Christian.
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  And Paul says, we're not going to play that game. We're not going to do
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  that. It's not necessary. And he doesn't need to do that for the work that
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  he's doing. And so we're not going to. This is an accommodation. This is to
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  help the gospel to go further. Now, I wanted
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  to clarify that, but what I want you to do is look at Timothy,
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  this young disciple, well thought of, mixed heritage young
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  man who says— and just to think medically
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  for a moment, here's at least a teenager, Who's saying, I will undergo
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  that. Look in the Old Testament. You know, the Bible gives us some insight into
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  what happens when mature people are circumcised. It's a surgery.
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  It's going to lay you up. It's going to be painful, much more
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  painful than— you know, babies can't recall that.
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  And maybe it's humiliating to some degree, but he's willing
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  to do it. That's the raw material. Now, I also want us to look at—
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  I don't know why that happened. I'm sorry. What does the rest of the New
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  Testament tell us about about Timothy?
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  We've had some of it. Let's review. He had godly
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  women who taught him the Scriptures. He knew the Scriptures from childhood. What else?
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  What else do we know about Timothy?
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  Okay. Alright, so he's a son in the faith.
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  He's entrusted with carrying on Paul's work. He's going to— we're going to see
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  the evangelism take place on this second missionary journey.
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  All right. That— yep. Very, very much so.
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  He's considered a youth. 1 Timothy 4:12. Again,
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  that's written in the '60s. This is happening in 49, 50,
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  maybe 51 from the beginning to the end of that. And so
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  he's a lot younger there than some say the Jewish standard would
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  be up to 40. And then that's when you leave that Jewish timeframe.
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  So he could have been a little older than a teenager. But still very young.
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  What else?
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  Okay, very good. Maybe this is going to
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  tell us why. He's number 3 on the trip, by the way. Paul, Silas,
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  now there's going to be Timothy. Who's the 4th guy that
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  we're going to pick up? Luke. And how do we know that? Because we're going
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  to switch to we from they. That's going to always be your indicator in the
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  book of Acts that Luke's on the journey. He's the writer of the book of
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  Acts, and when he says we, we're along. Is it possible that
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  the connection with Luke at least had one dimension to it, that he was a
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  doctor who could meet the physical needs that Paul
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  and Timothy had? 1 Timothy 5:23 indicates
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  that he had some stomach issues were the particular problems. All right,
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  what else? So, he's maybe infirm, got some
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  health problems. He is
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  appointed by Paul. He's his son in the faith. Maybe he's converted on the first
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  missionary journey when Paul first comes through Lystra, Derbe, Iconium.
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  Him. And he's taught the scriptures by his mom and his grandmother.
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  What else? Anything else about him?
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  He was timid. And that's a very— that's a very huge
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  factor here. When you think about— I want you to draw the comparison.
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  We don't know exactly what John Mark's problem was.
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  We can theorize. And some folks have
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  said some things that maybe we can ground into the book of Acts, and that
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  is that He was a mama's boy. She was a very prominent
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  member of the church at Jerusalem. Acts chapter 12, the church is meeting in
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  her home when Peter's in prison and they're praying there. She's wealthy enough
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  that the church can meet in her home. He's a Jerusalem boy,
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  and maybe he's just so far from home, never been that far, and he goes
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  back. Maybe it's the rigors of the journey, and it's
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  so hard. Just making that crossing that they make
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  when they cross the Mediterranean and where they land at Antioch of Pisidia,
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  There's a— I think it's the Taurus Mountains, whatever that mountain range is, it's very
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  high. It's very difficult. And if you have physical infirmities, maybe that's what takes
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  place. Something causes him to leave the work.
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  Paul assesses that as being— he's fickle,
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  he's not trustworthy. But Timothy,
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  Timothy's got some struggles too. I mean, and these are going to extend at
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  least a little while because when Paul writes near the end of his
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  life, so about 64 AD, maybe 14, 15 years after this,
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  you're going to have Paul admonishing him.
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  1 Corinthians 16:10 kind of alludes to his being timid,
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  but Paul says, God's not given us a spirit of timidity. You take hold
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  of that gift that God has given to you. All right, so we learn a
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  lot about him. I had it at the top of my list, Tim. He's young,
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  1 Timothy 4:12. He's sickly, as Brittany said. He possibly
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  has no male spiritual role models before Paul
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  comes along. And yet, that being the case, we have somebody
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  that Paul saw as someone that he could make use of.
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  Now, here's a question for you. Today,
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  what do you think are our biggest challenges in developing spiritual
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  leaders among our young people? What are the
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  biggest challenges we face?
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  Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna wed those together. Technology was
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  specifically mentioned, but the influences of the outside
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  world, and if we'll broaden that out, man, think about all the
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  different distractions that all of us are facing.
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  Now depending on where you are on that age continuum, you jumped
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  into the technology sphere. By the way, it's impacting a lot of us more than
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  we would think or know or admit. It's distracting us.
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  It's absorbing us. It's pulling us into its
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  sphere of influence. And dare I say,
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  even addicting us to some degree. But if you're a digital native,
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  or they even say that's not even the right term. I mean, but it's so
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  endemic. It's all you've ever known. There's a lot
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  of ways for it to catch you. But beyond that, there's the distractions
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  that every generation deals with. Okay, I think that's fair. What else?
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  Okay, so one of the challenges is you're saying fault
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  rests on our shoulders that we're not entrusting them as we could.
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  Potentially, right. Yes, sir.
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  Okay, so I don't know if I didn't say it when I started, Cumberland Trace
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  is somewhat exceptional. It's not as much the rule.
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  We have just an embarrassment of riches of young people.
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  Here, but it's not that way in some places. And so finding candidates
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  to mentor and to help develop can be hard. And you think about churches
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  around in this region that are
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  facing that challenge. Yes,
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  ma'am.
• 22:41
  Yeah.
• 22:46
  So that's— so you think about how technology is a unique challenge we face in
• 22:49
  our times. So is kind of our cultural approach to group
• 22:55
  dynamics. And there are times when it's healthy and good,
• 22:59
  and I think we believe in that, where we— you'll notice we
• 23:03
  don't have the 2s and 3s in here today,
• 23:06
  or the 1st and 2nd graders. We believe that there's,
• 23:10
  you know, when Paul would say something like, when I was a child, I spoke
• 23:13
  as a child, I thought as a child, and understood as a child, there are
• 23:15
  circumstances where it's good for them to be together and learn together.
• 23:19
  But if we're not careful, we can overreact to that and break away from what's
• 23:24
  been the cultural norm in civilization for most of civilization, and that is an intergenerational
• 23:29
  approach where we spend time together. And I think what Miss Laura
• 23:33
  said is important in this. Some of that is we who are older
• 23:38
  need to be humble, be open, and to
• 23:42
  take the first step in reaching out to our young people.
• 23:45
  Why don't we do that? Why don't we want to take the first step?
• 23:50
  Okay, we fail to take the time. We really don't maybe realize the,
• 23:54
  the priority, the importance it is for us to take a moment because
• 23:58
  we're looking for maybe that non-Christian visitor. We're looking for that new person
• 24:02
  who's in the assembly. We're looking for folks that we needed to tell something to.
• 24:05
  And, and it's real easy for us to be looking here when
• 24:09
  it would be great for us to take a moment to look here or You
• 24:13
  know, even metaphorically, if they're a teenager and they're taller than us, but taking
• 24:16
  time to look at them and value them and see them.
• 24:23
  I think maybe there's something else. Maybe it's just me. Go ahead, Ian.
• 24:30
  Okay. Sure.
• 24:32
  Absolutely.
• 24:40
  So if we can say it another way, I think you're exactly right.
• 24:44
  What are we prioritizing as we look down to look
• 24:48
  across to that generation that's being developed?
• 24:53
  Maybe we take the time to coach a ball team, which is great.
• 24:57
  I did that when our boys were coming up. It's wonderful because it's
• 25:01
  a great experience to have with you, with your children.
• 25:04
  And it tells them that you're interested in that part of their lives.
• 25:09
  Maybe many in this room have done that. Maybe we've taken on young apprentices
• 25:13
  or in our professional life to try to give them a hand up, right,
• 25:16
  or to give them some skill and experience that will help them as they try
• 25:20
  to think about their career. Maybe there are even some in this room who have
• 25:23
  spent some time tutoring, at least your own children, where you spent
• 25:26
  some time agonizing over open books trying to figure that stuff out.
• 25:32
  But how much time are we spending in trying to mentor and develop them spiritually?
• 25:35
  Taking somebody who's in that age range and
• 25:40
  saying, hey, come with me on a visit. Or would you be my— would you
• 25:44
  sit in the classroom with me as I teach, be my assistant there?
• 25:47
  Would you be my silent partner in
• 25:52
  a Bible study? You know, something like that that tells them, I see something
• 25:55
  in you. And I recognize that we need
• 25:59
  you. And so come alongside and
• 26:03
  we've got to put as much in. We got to put more emphasis if we
• 26:06
  believe Matthew 6:33 on those kinds of relationships even
• 26:09
  than we do the others. Yep. Go ahead. I heard.
• 26:13
  Yep. Go ahead, Chuck.
• 26:18
  Don't die until you plant that faith and that
• 26:22
  this generation, the generation that's emerging now, that's great. Yes,
• 26:26
  ma'am. Absolutely. Um,
• 26:30
  and that's where I was going to head with that. And, and I want to
• 26:32
  admit something here. I know that we even have some in here.
• 26:35
  This goes back to when I was— my first ministry job,
• 26:39
  um, I was 19. I was a
• 26:42
  youth minister with the kids who were a year younger than me. That's, by the
• 26:46
  way, that's not a good idea. It's really not. You know, who's the, who's the
• 26:50
  mature voice in the room? And if you knew me at 19, you know it
• 26:53
  was not me. Um, but, um, from,
• 26:57
  from that time to now, there are times I don't wrestle with it like I
• 27:00
  used to, but there are times where I, I'm a little intimidated.
• 27:04
  Y'all hear that? Teenagers in the room? I don't know. I probably
• 27:08
  shouldn't say that out loud, but, but why? Does anybody else ever have that?
• 27:12
  Why, why are you intimidated? I can
• 27:15
  tell you why I'm intimidated. I want to hear why you're intimidated. Maybe it's therapy
• 27:18
  here.
• 27:20
  What? Okay.
• 27:23
  There's, there's, what do we call that? That's the, um,
• 27:26
  the generation gap, right? So we feel like, um,
• 27:30
  their world is so different from ours that, that we'd have a hard time relating
• 27:33
  to one another. They'd have a hard time relating to me. You know, maybe you're
• 27:36
  searching for when, when I was coming up,
• 27:40
  you were dating. You had a girlfriend and boyfriend.
• 27:44
  You know, I hesitate to say, is that even the lingo? Is that the terminology
• 27:48
  that you— so if you— and sometimes there's a perception that
• 27:53
  you're not relevant, you're not
• 27:57
  cool, whatever.
• 28:00
  And I guess if we were looking for a theological word to
• 28:04
  address that, it would be hogwash. It's not that way. It's not
• 28:08
  so. We have got— we've got to move past that and anticipate.
• 28:14
  And there could be a lot of different things that you're— what you're perceiving is
• 28:16
  not reality. If you feel insecure, is it possible ever
• 28:20
  that young people feel insecure? That they don't feel sure of
• 28:24
  themselves or they're facing a peer pressure that
• 28:28
  they're trying to navigate through when you're trying to interact with them? Maybe if it's
• 28:31
  in a Bible classroom setting. And so we've got to work through some of that.
• 28:34
  There's more that we could say, but I think this goes back to
• 28:38
  what was said at the beginning about the distractions from the outside. There's the bad
• 28:41
  influence of the world that makes our job of developing tomorrow's
• 28:45
  leaders harder. There's an attrition rate in every generation.
• 28:49
  Paul says there in 2 Timothy 2 to Timothy, flee also
• 28:53
  youthful lusts. Well, what does that imply to us? Some don't.
• 28:57
  And we can think back, no matter what generation you're in, you can think of
• 29:00
  peers who did not overcome that challenge and they fell away.
• 29:04
  The bad influence of the home. Really,
• 29:08
  at the end of the day, look, the church is in a support position.
• 29:12
  We need to be active. We need to not abdicate that
• 29:16
  role whatsoever, but at the end of the day, the instruction of
• 29:20
  the Bible is addressed primarily to the home, to the father and the mother
• 29:24
  and the instruction that takes place there, and we can't hope that
• 29:27
  the church is going to offset A life that's lived
• 29:31
  where Christ is not first in the home. And so the good
• 29:35
  news is each of us in our home units can, can be contributing
• 29:39
  to tomorrow's spiritual leaders. Misplaced priorities,
• 29:43
  we mentioned that. Matthew 6:33, that's what Ian was talking
• 29:46
  about. Lack of commitment by potential mentors where we go,
• 29:50
  I'm not enough, I can't break through. I want you to remember
• 29:54
  what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:5, if you hesitate to encourage Young people,
• 29:59
  our adequacy is not of ourselves.
• 30:02
  It is of God. Why not take this challenge up?
• 30:07
  Commit to yourself that you're going to encourage a young person
• 30:11
  before you leave here today. And before you say anything,
• 30:16
  remind yourself of Paul's words here. Our adequacy is not of ourselves.
• 30:21
  It's of God. And understanding that,
• 30:25
  Let God work through that situation. You may not be able to perceive anything
• 30:29
  in that moment. You may not get a very— what you would
• 30:32
  perceive to be a very warm response or what you were looking for,
• 30:35
  but you have no idea. And in most cases, you're planting a seed
• 30:39
  deep down in their heart. You are making a positive difference.
• 30:44
  You know, I think a lot of us could say what Lee says is that
• 30:48
  when you start collecting your— looking back on your collected memories when you grow up,
• 30:52
  I want you to think about how many of those formidable moments
• 30:56
  were not given to you by your peers,
• 31:00
  although there are some. But I think of the same thing. I can
• 31:04
  think of a lot of folks who invested in me who were a lot older
• 31:07
  than me, and man, it made such a difference. Yes, sir.
• 31:17
  Well, it's a reminder that
• 31:21
  this is one of the ways in which we can make use of Ephesians chapter
• 31:25
  6, that we're in a battle, we're in a fight. And man,
• 31:29
  there is no more precious resource than our young people. And so we can't
• 31:32
  afford to let that go by the wayside. Lack of interest
• 31:36
  in youth being mentored. And that's
• 31:40
  real or perceived? It's probably more perceived than real. And that is
• 31:44
  maybe tags on to what Bill just said. We don't think that they're
• 31:48
  interested. We don't think that they would, would like that.
• 31:52
  So I don't know, it may be that you go up to somebody and you
• 31:56
  try to— and, and, and you need to have a relationship first. Don't just go
• 31:59
  cold turkey out there and find somebody and say, hey, you're my, you're my Timothy.
• 32:03
  I don't think it works that way. Spend some time,
• 32:06
  get to know them, find out what's going on in their lives.
• 32:09
  And I say this, guys, I think this is This is a challenge that,
• 32:13
  that a lot of us who are not in that 200 people that I just
• 32:16
  mentioned, that we, for these reasons, we don't,
• 32:20
  we don't try to work against. And to the degree that
• 32:24
  we do, we are impressing tomorrow's leaders.
• 32:28
  Yes, sir.
• 32:56
  And I would say that we can take that outside the assembly and we could
• 32:59
  take that to every facet of ministry life. And so maybe you're a woman here
• 33:03
  saying, well, um, you know, That's, that's a worship example, which is very important.
• 33:06
  It's very huge. But are there other areas where,
• 33:09
  ladies, that you could be doing the same thing where you give somebody an
• 33:13
  opportunity, um, to, to grow in those positions, whether it's in a
• 33:16
  Bible classroom or, uh, in serving, um,
• 33:20
  uh, or in organizing some event like some of the several
• 33:23
  ones that we just had? Yes, ma'am.
• 33:32
  For sure.
• 33:39
  For
• 33:45
  sure.
• 33:51
  Great, great point, Miss Dan. And by the way, you never know
• 33:55
  how you're, you're being perceived. I hope this
• 33:58
  isn't being projected as, man, we really are blowing
• 34:02
  it here, because we're not. There are so many ways in which— and I was
• 34:05
  going to mention that here in just a moment. But let me just tag on
• 34:08
  to that and say they did, and Mike's comment too. How did Paul and
• 34:13
  Silas do it? Same way that we need to. And I'd love— and by the
• 34:16
  way, I hope y'all aren't, because I just gave up about 2 minutes in.
• 34:19
  And I'm thinking, I'm teaching next week, so I got 2 weeks in a row.
• 34:22
  I was— I'm prepared through the end of the second missionary journey. We're still—
• 34:26
  we just got out of the gate. We're still in Lystra. We hadn't even gone
• 34:28
  yet. But that's all right. We'll get there. Next week.
• 34:32
  But what they did is what we can do. And I think this is important.
• 34:36
  They put them in a position to serve. That's what I
• 34:39
  just heard. I gave you some examples where Paul gives
• 34:44
  Timothy a task that surely stretched him
• 34:47
  outside of his comfort zone. And those of us
• 34:51
  who have worked in some position of spiritual
• 34:55
  leadership of some sort, have— could go back and say somebody threw us.
• 35:00
  I heard Kevin said somebody we went and visited this week
• 35:04
  said they— the person that taught them how to swim threw them in the deep
• 35:06
  end of water and said, swim or drown.
• 35:10
  And maybe not just swim or drown, but, you know,
• 35:14
  maybe have a life jacket somewhere nearby, but throw them out there where it's a
• 35:18
  little bit challenging for them. And I think that's huge. Yep.
• 35:37
  There he is.
• 35:44
  The same, the same thing being said by somebody besides your parents can be,
• 35:47
  can be huge. That's why You've probably experienced this as a
• 35:51
  parent. Somebody goes, oh, you just have such a wonderful child. And you go,
• 35:55
  5'5? You sure?
• 35:59
  But they will listen. That's for sure.
• 36:02
  They set the example. They weren't passive. They weren't do as
• 36:06
  I say, not as I do. And so you can look in Barnabas. What was
• 36:10
  Barnabas known for? Encouragement. He's setting
• 36:14
  the example. He's showing what that's like. And could Paul— I mean,
• 36:17
  could Timothy say, I don't think I should pursue courage
• 36:21
  because my mentor, he's not that courageous? Well, we know different
• 36:26
  from that, even though that's one of our challenges we'll see next week. They challenged
• 36:28
  them to grow. They admonished. They didn't just encourage.
• 36:32
  And maybe that goes to what Chuck was saying. They were willing to say,
• 36:35
  look, you need to step up and do better. We don't have that conversation between
• 36:39
  Barnabas and John Mark. They're related to one another. Maybe that's a conversation they
• 36:43
  could have, but it's obvious that whatever Barnabas did, it,
• 36:46
  it helped John Mark to stay strong. They treated
• 36:51
  them as coworkers, not children. And that's how Paul will
• 36:55
  refer to him in Romans 16:21. And in 2 Timothy 4:11, that's where
• 36:59
  Paul says, send me John Mark because he's useful for ministry.
• 37:03
  And they balanced encouragement and admonition.
• 37:06
  And so when we Look at what they did. Every one
• 37:09
  of those objectives are something that we could do today. And more
• 37:13
  than that, I would say that it needs to become a priority that we have,
• 37:17
  that we need to encourage one another to see what we're doing to help those
• 37:21
  who are coming along. Satan will throw up all the barriers,
• 37:25
  all the reasons why we shouldn't, couldn't, it's not me, should be somebody else,
• 37:28
  whatever that is. But so start developing those
• 37:32
  relationships. And then start utilizing those relationships as
• 37:35
  we should with every relationship, and that's to bring people closer to Christ. Any thoughts
• 37:39
  or comments? I've got miles to go before
• 37:43
  I sleep, but there's no way I can hit anything now,
• 37:47
  so the irony is we're going to end this class a little short even though
• 37:49
  we've got so much more to do. Thanks very much for your comments and your
• 37:53
  attention. I think we dealt with one of the greatest challenges we face, and we'll
• 37:56
  look at some more next week.