THE CHURCH | Week 2 | Sermon

I immediately got in a fight with my wife. And

because that's how we roll. Now, you know, you you're gonna have disagreements in marriage. We have, and it's it's not like we've been married thirty one years and we don't disagree anymore of fights. We're just better at usually cutting them off of the past. But you know how the like, sometimes those those fights you're gonna do is, like, the ones that catch you off guard are are ones you didn't expect. They escalate quickly.

And and it's and and if if if it was anybody but you involved, you watch someone else do it, you would know that it's stupid. You would know that, hey. Why are you so emotionally engaged on this issue?

And and it's usually because a truth that is is is almost a 100% true is typically when we end up in those fights, what we're fighting about is not what the fight's about.

And you don't catch it. And so this one kind of escalated quickly. It was something dumb. We she gets upset. I guess that we start arguing. She gets to the point of being so frustrated that she did the scariest thing ever. She just quietly walked out of the room. And that that usually I thought she was over checking. Hey. Did your new life insurance come through? Because now I can make it look like an accident and live in the the the form I've grown accustomed to.

And no. But she did quietly left. I hear her grab her purse, and then I hear the door open. And all she says calmly is, hey. Remember to bring the trash cans in tomorrow. And then left. I hear her car start, and she drives away.

So I'm going, what does this mean? Did she, like, have a meeting to go to and just she was so mad at me. She didn't even tell me she had to go to a meeting and just left. But I don't think that's what it was because she had just worked out. She was in her workout clothes, and she would not just go from working out and just go to a meeting like that. And and so but I knew she was doing was she was being calm, but she was like, I'm done with you. I'm leaving, and I'm not coming back tonight is what she was basically doing this. Like, I took it as, okay. Nice little power move.

But then I thought, you know what? That's not gonna work. I've been married to her for thirty one years. She has a forty five minute get ready for bed routine that cannot be altered.

So if she said she's not coming back, she would have to have at least one duffel bag with her. And I knew that, so I thought, whatever. Well, then all a sudden, it's been fifteen, twenty minutes. So I was like, wow. Do know if she gets mad? Just wants to go sit and think. I mean so

I finally realized, be the good husband, do the smart thing. I grabbed my phone and opened find my phone. I didn't call her. I said, where is she? And I could see where she was. And it looked like she had turned into the Target parking lot.

It's like, great. Now she's just gonna go spend all of our money. And and and and I thought, you know what? Fine. She's there. We're in a fight. I know we gotta figure this out. I decided I'm gonna lighten it up and end the fight. So I said, hey, I know we're still fighting and we can finish it when you get back, but while you're at Target, can you get my favorite snack?

See, every service rep, the way, the guys are like, that's hilarious. The girls are like, you're an idiot. Well, I'm sad to report my wife agreed with you ladies. I get this terse just not at Target.

Like, do you mean? I looked down. I'm like, oh gosh. The Internet was it it caught up and she was like three miles west of Target. And I'm like, oh, man. And she said it's so terse that I go, oh, she's mad. And and and and and so that didn't work.

So then I was just watching and I was like, well, now where is she going? And I kept watching and she just kept going west. Kept going west. Kept going west. She got like nine, ten miles away. And I'm like, where is she possibly going? I know her family lives in California.

So is she heading to California? But she would get on the freeway. She's not gonna take surface streets all the way. So then I thought, I know what she's doing. Since I asked her to get something at Target, she knows I'm watching her on Find My Phone. So she's purposely driving further and further away

just to say, stick it to you. So now I'm getting frustrated. So I start to hey. Are you coming home? Where are you going? No response. No response. So now I'm like, oh, now she's just being a booger and she knows she's like, you know, in my kitchen.

And so I got I get frustrated. Frustrated. I'm I'm like, like, I'm so mad. I kept responding. Why aren't you responding? And then I finally seen her turn south. I'm all good. She's heading back home.

And then I watch. She goes right by the street that she should turn east on to come to our house. She keeps going south. I'm like, now what is she doing? And I see her turn and I see that she ends up over here off rigs coming this oh, she's heading looks like she's gonna come right by the church. And there was an event going on here that my my daughter was that was serving. And I go, you know what she's gonna do? She's just gonna go there and hang out and and and and not come home and and and and fight with me so we can be done with this.

And that's when I lost it. Because I said, she's just being a jerk. So I wrote, if you go to the church and don't come come home, I will pack a bag and I won't be here when you get back. You bring the trash cans in tomorrow. Yeah. That and it worked. She immediately apologized, came home, and it was great.

You know what I immediately saw? Pulled into the church. But then I start seeing the ghost bubbles.

She's like, what are you talking about? She goes, I only pulled into the church so I can answer your stupid text. You kept texting me and texting me, and I can't do that while I'm driving. I didn't hit any red lights, so I pulled in to finally answer you because you seem to be so stupidly mad.

And she goes, I'm actually on my way home, and the problem is I had to stop anyways because I can barely read what you wrote because I forgot my readers.

It was just I forgot our readers that finally hit me we're old and why are we arguing about something this stupid? And it made me laugh. When she said she forgot I laughed so hard. I go, okay. You know what? We'll solve the issue when you get home, but I ain't even mad anymore. That just made me laugh. And then she came home and we we dealt with it.

And what it turned out is like, well, she

reacted to something I said. She felt like I was rejecting and didn't wanna talk. And I felt like she was not respecting the fact that I have not had a day off, fifteen days. I'm sick. I don't wanna talk right now. And we were both right and both wrong and it heated up. And then I said, yeah. But why did you just keep driving west in order to like just ignore me because you knew I was watching where you were going? She goes, what?

She goes, I was chasing the sunset. Like, what? She goes, it was so beautiful.

It was calming me. I was actually going to calm and pray. I was thinking about, you know what? He's right. Maybe I'm mad. Like, I was gonna come home and talk to you, and you kept ruining it by the stupid phone buzzing and I couldn't see what you're saying. I'm like, why are you bugging me about getting you snacks and and and telling me to come home and and answer? Like, why wouldn't you just let me think?

I had this whole narrative in my head about why she was doing what she was doing.

And the the whole point is you're gonna have disagreements? That's not the problem with our relationships. It's what do we do with them?

What do we do with them? How do we respond to them? And what we're gonna see in Acts 15 is we're gonna look at a disagreement that happens. And what we're gonna see is what we need to to do is don't let disagreements distract and destroy.

Don't let disagreements distract and destroy. Don't let them distract you from the mission and destroy the relationship. Now this is true in marriage. This what we're gonna talk about today, you can apply to any relationship. But in this particular context,

it is literally talking about of relationship with two guys that are serving together and doing ministry together. And what they needed and not let happen is distract from the mission God has given them and destroy the relationship.

And so I think the challenge for us is we're looking at this. This can apply to any relationship. But it can also apply to your relationship with God. That many of us, you are in a disagreement with God.

Meaning there are things that God wants you to do as a follower and you are ignoring it. We're in this thing. We're calling this the church because this is the era of acts talking about the church growing and expanding and what it became. And what you many of you are sitting here and you just attend church. You aren't being the church.

And there's a reason why. And when I call us out and challenge us, some of you are mad at me. That's not the problem. What you're mad at is not what you're really mad at. And you're having a disagreement with what God wants because of the stuff we're about to talk about.

And and and and and if we don't apply the same thing to our relationship with God, you are gonna let the other issues in your life distract you from what God's called you to. And it's gonna not just destroy your relationship with God. It's really gonna destroy your life because you're never gonna experience

the life that Jesus died to give you. So when we go to Acts 15, there's actually two disputes. The first one is a doctrinal dispute.

Basically, over Paul and Barnabas came back and they came back, there was a bunch of the Jews that had a hard time with these Gentiles becoming believers, and they had to settle this issue because there was a group of them going around and teaching that, yeah, you need to believe in Jesus, but you have to become Jewish also. You have to get, you know,

circumcised. You gotta obey the laws. And Paul, that got settled actually pretty easily. Because Peter just said, no. We become followers of God. We're made right with God the same way they are. It's by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. End of story.

God's laws, God's commands, how he tells us to live is to live from his love, not for it. You don't do these things so he loves you. You know how much he loves you, so then you trust what he says. This is how life works. Same thing with the 10 commandments. It's the same way in the Old Testament. When did the Israelites get the 10 commandments? After

he already saved them from slavery. The 10 commandments were, hey. If you do this, I'll rescue you. He rescued them and then said, this is how to live the life I've given you.

So when God calls us, this is what a follower of Christ looks like. This is what it means to be the church. This is what it means to have spiritual gifts and to serve and use them. This is what it means to be about the gospel and pointing people to Jesus. This is what it means to take my time, my talent, my treasure, my testimony, and serve God. That is not some God holding this expectation over your head because you better do it or you won't love you. He's saying, hey, if you know how much I love you, you need to trust that now this is the way that life works.

This will make life work. So why are we ignoring them? Same principle we're gonna look at here. So in Acts 15, they settle the one disagreement, but then they end up with this personal disagreement between Paul and Barnabas.

This missionary duo. The Barnabas, if you've read along through Acts and seen Barnabas is the one that after Paul became a believer when he was trying to stop the church and kill Christians before, nobody wanted to go near Paul. They were all afraid of him. Barnabas took him under his wing

and poured into him. Got him on the inside. Now they serve together. Now they come back and they have a fight. And here's what happens. Verse 36. After some time, Paul said to Barnabas, let's go back and visit each city where we previously preached the word of the Lord to see how new believers the new believers are doing. Barnabas agreed and wanted to take along John Mark. But Paul disagreed strongly

since John Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in their work. The word strongly means it got emotional. And it got very demanding. That word in the Greek for strongly meant basically Paul, it got heated And Paul said,

he is not coming. Like, threw his weight around. Like, he had the right to say, that ain't happening. And it says their disagreement was so sharp. That word for sharp means very heated again, that they separated. So in other words, it got emotional. It escalated.

Paul said, nope. Ain't happening. I'm not going with them. And Barnabas says, well, guess what? I'm not going without them. In other words, it was got really escalated to a point where they both said, one of us has to win and one of us has to lose.

And the bottom line is that when it gets heated like that, they both probably felt the other one's wrong and they're right. And they separated. But that word for separate, a lot happens between these verses. Because separated you think, oh, say, so Paul jumped in his car and drove away and kept going west. No.

Separated was actually the way they explained next and what we know in the scripture. That was actually not just a separation. It was a solution. So they had calmed down because it says Barnabas took John Mark with him and sailed for Cyprus. Paul chose Silas.

And as he left, the believers entrusted him to the Lord's gracious care. So what it's saying is, if you look at what they did is they still went about the mission. They just divided and conquered.

They came to this realization that maybe they're both right. They both got heated. That's wrong. But they realized they both might have a point.

And so the best is, basically, Paul's like, I can't go with them. I can't go without them. Alright. Maybe we need two teams here. What they didn't let fall away was the mission that God had given them to go point people to Jesus. They did not stop serving the Lord and doing what he said. How about you?

I think a lot of us sitting in this room, the reason you don't actually fully engage as a follower of Christ in the church is because you're fighting with someone. Your marriage problem is stopping you from the mission. Your work struggle is stopping you from the mission.

Your fear over finances is stopping you from the mission. You're letting all these other issues distract you. And even though they fought, they did not let it distract them from the calling that God gave them. Matter of fact, they came up with a plan that doubled it up. It doubled it up.

But then you ask, okay. Well, how did these two guys end up getting to that point?

How did two great leaders, these great followers of Christ that's why I love how it's in scripture. It's like because they're just like you and me. They're normal people. And I think it they they got to the heated part the same way we do when we disagree with stuff. Even when it's fighting with God's word in your life over what you should be doing with it right now.

And and that is the same thing. It's fear. It's fear. We have worries. We have fears. We have these core beliefs that bring out core fears. And some of those fears are generated by positive things. Needs that we know we have. We all have basic human needs. And a lot of us, if some of them we feel stronger than others.

Like, if you have a really strong need for respect, anything that comes your way that feels disrespectful to you, you're gonna overreact. The same thing when it comes to, I don't know, if you say, hey, I need to I got this core fear of I need connection. And if someone acts disconnected from you,

you're not just mad at that moment. All of that comes out. And I believe these two guys doesn't really say why, what they were afraid of, and it doesn't even tell us exactly why John Mark left them. But there's some clues.

And it does tell us a lot about Paul and Barnabas' personality and what they're like. I think it helps us answer this question a little bit for them. Bottom line is Barnabas was worried about the mission to the man. Paul was worried about the man for the mission.

They're both right. You see Barnabas was a guy his name means son of encouragement. He was the son of encouragement. You know what he did? He always looked for the best in people and brought out the best in people.

Every time he mentioned misery, he found Paul. Now he has John Mark. He's always pouring in. That's what he does.

And he understands the mission is global. With missions, we need to reach people. He understands. But we also need to look at the man and the woman, the person right in front of us, and we need to help them too. So he goes, I know I need to go on this missionary journey, but I think John Mark's a great young leader that's gonna do this too someday. He's gonna be used from God. And I think he needs to be with us to grow.

So he he had that fear of I'm worried about if we go on the mission and leave him behind. Yeah. We did the mission, but we left the man behind. There was a mission to the man. There's also a little added tension in that John Mark just happens to be his cousin. So, oh,

that's gonna complicate it both ways. One, he feels responsible for him. And two, don't you think Paul will think that's biasing him a little bit? You just want him to come because he's your cousin. Whereas Paul is a different personality.

He's more worried about the man for the mission. He's like, hey. We've been called to do a mission. This guy hosed us. He betrayed us. I can't trust him. Trust you can lose it quickly. It's hard to rebuild. We don't have time or the resources to have this happen again. We gotta keep going. He's a driver. He he you look at the way he writes in scripture. He was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Before he was a Christian, he was tactical and aggressive about trying to stop the church. After he became a Christian, he was tactical and aggressive about going after the mission of the church.

Their personalities are getting involved. He's more worried about this man isn't fit for this mission. And there is one more clue of why Paul would have been really frustrated. Why did John Mark actually abandon them?

Well, it's interesting. If you go back to Acts 13, I'm not gonna read it. You look. It actually says the last thing that happened before he leaves. And the last thing that happened was Paul and Barnabas and them, they did this thing. They called you can go read it. They end up leading this governor who's a Gentile

to Christ. It says he became a believer. They bless him and they keep going. When they get to the next dock to take off, it says John Mark left him, went back. There is a clue in there. Very strong one, I think, that most bible scholars believe is John Mark probably believed that tension about

you let him become a believer, but you didn't circumcise him or tell him about the law of Moses. He grew up in the church in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem, a lot of them struggled with what do we do with Gentiles. And they thought, yeah, you can be a follower of Jesus, but you have to become Jewish.

And so most scholars, and I tend to believe, it's like he didn't abandon because he was sick or tired or young. I think Paul could've got past that.

I think what Paul was deeply hurt by was this guy left over that issue. He got back early. By the time they got back, there was this controversy, and teachers had already left from the church following where they went, falsely teaching this to the churches they had already went and established

and created the problem, which is why I think they also said, let's go back to the churches we've already been to was the plan for the mission instead of going to new churches because I think Paul wanted to go clean that mess up.

So what he's looking at him is saying, you gotta be kidding me. You wanna bring the guy that left over that disagreement, came back and stirred up a hornet's nest, who then sent people out that caused problems in the work we already did, and you want him to come with us?

There is no way that's happening. And then Barnabas was probably here, like, but I did that for you. You don't trust me? Now you're gonna demand to be the leader that knows it all? If I acted like you, I think Barnabas if I acted like you, you wouldn't even be here.

Sound familiar, doesn't it? But here's the problem. When you step back, they both had a point. Can I trust this guy? Is he really over this? Is he that? But it hit their deeper fears. It hit their deeper worries. But they figured it out. They said, you know what? Maybe we're both right.

Maybe Jean Marc has realized he he was wrong. And the clue is that he wanted to go with them again, which what I think Barnabas saw was Peter had actually mentored John Mark. Peter's the one that settled that fight in the first place when he got up and said, no. You get saved this way. So he saw the guy that Peter used to teach in his mother's house. They hosted a house church. He would come and preach.

And so the the idea is maybe he saw that, oh my gosh. Peter actually agrees with them. I was wrong. But Paul's like, nah. What what's the next thing gonna be? So they both have a good point. But they came up with a solution. And how did they do that? Go from heated to a solution. Instead of just separating,

they had a solution. And I think they were able to snap out of what causes a lot of us to get stuck. Call it the fear cycle. It's written about a lot. Guy named Gary Smalley talks about it. He calls it the fear dance.

It's in this stuff called the DNA of relationships they teach. It's it's it's biblical based Christ. And then when you look at scripture and you look at human nature and counseling and you look at people, we tend to notice this pattern that we get stuck in what's called the fear cycle, which makes those disagreements

just become a storm that just starts destroying us. In other words, the problem is if you look at the the the the Titanic, what sank at the Titanic? Iceberg. Right? But you know what sank the Titanic? Not the part of the iceberg they saw. They didn't run into that part.

They ran into the part of the iceberg they didn't see. And here's the problem with icebergs. More than 75% of the iceberg is underwater. And that's the same thing we do. We keep fighting what we see, but we get sunk by what we don't see.

And if we don't dive into that cold water and figure out what's going on, we will stay in this fear cycle because we will keep seeing that fighting over that when it's really the thing under the surface that's tearing the hole of our relationship wide open and sinking us. So what is this fear cycle? There's four things.

The first thing is I hurt. I hurt. Meaning when you start to argue you start to get emotional and that should be your first clue something's going on. Why is this getting so heated no matter what the thing is

because I have these feelings and the problem is when I hurt and have feelings. We almost always take the wrong view of feelings. I did a whole series on it called All the Feels. Go listen to it.

And and the whole idea of that was we tend to just think there's good feelings and there's bad feelings. And the goal of life is to always get the good feelings and get away from the bad ones as quickly as possible. That's not true. Feelings are indicators.

They they they actually help you. They're indicator lights. And sometimes you need to have certain feelings that aren't pleasant. Pain. Like, have you ever, like, burnt yourself and go, god, why did you make me so sensitive to pain? And then they we there's people that are born with a with a with a condition

where they do not feel pain. You realize how rarely they make it to adulthood? You know why? Burn themselves, don't notice, get infected. Bruise themselves and truly hurt themselves bad, but they don't even know there's pain, so they don't say anything. Die. God gave us pain to keep us alive.

But, no, if you live this way, pain always equals bad. Sometimes, we need pain.

And so the problem is if I hurt and I don't understand this, I live in that hurt. So then what do I do? I'm living in a hurt, so then I want. What do I want? If I don't understand the deeper meaning of why these feelings are indicator lights, that means there's something else going on. I should look under the hood and see. I should I should test it and look at it. Instead, we jump right to I want. I want a solution. And what I really want is I want out of the bad feeling.

The problem is when I jump right to that and don't analyze it, 99.99% of the time, the solution you come up with is the other person has to change. The top of the iceberg has to move. And and and and and the problem with that is you're not looking at yourself. You're not understanding.

And so the thing is, what we've done when we hurt first and then go right to I want, this fear cycle, is what happens is we say the problem and the solution is you.

And and then we're we lose the mission. I'm gonna use marriage as an example. Is is is instead of being two becoming one, it's one versus one. Because the only answer is you have to change and you have to be different. Here's the weird thing is, there's probably some things they do need to stop doing and start doing.

But so do you. The issue is you wait too long to get to counseling. And then when you do go to counseling, the first thing you're looking through is a scope with your hand on the trigger. And the target is them. When the first thing you should look at is a mirror. That's the only way counseling will help.

Because what happens if you sit in there, do you think, I hurt. The answer is them changing. Then the problem then becomes the fear.

I'm now afraid. So every time so this is why you keep having the same fight. It gets worse and worse. Every time something even hits up against that fear, hits up against that moment, you're right back.

And it gets worse and worse and worse. And you get more and more demanding, get more and more frustrated, you get more and more. It just digs in and digs in and digs in because that fear then drives you to react. And my reactions in this whole process are never healthy. They're always unhealthy.

And so then you go from being distracted to where two people actually start to actively destroy the relationship, whether you're fighting or not.

You realize do you realize the Korean War is still on? North And South Korea are technically still at war. My dad fought in that whole entire war that was why they're fighting. Three and a half years, he left in halfway through 1953 and came home.

They are still at war. All they did was draw a line, put up some barriers and say, all right, we're sick of fighting. We're gonna agree to disagree and stay right here.

And now you have we have over 50,000 troops there just watching the border all the time. There's always tension. You know, there's there's this whatever. They they do a few snipes at each other, but they're they're they may not be actively fighting, but they're still at war

because they didn't get past any of the past. They didn't work on that. They just they just thought, you know what? The solution was at least we're not fighting. Am some of you sitting in this room, that's your marriage. You're not fighting, but you're not at peace. You're at war because you're stuck.

And right now you're like, well, at least we're not fighting. We got this truce going on. We don't have a peace. And the problem with the truce going on, at any given moment, anything

could snap you right back to war. So we get caught in that. We get stuck. So what do we need to do about it? How do we get out of that? How do we deal with disagreements by not getting stuck in this loop all the time? Well,

there's there's there's a three things you need to do. It's funny. I say, you don't want me to counsel you?

Because if I tried to counsel, I realized counselor, you kinda need to meet people that be a little nicer. I'm gonna listen to your problem for about five minutes and say, take a pen and write these three things down. It'll make you better. Now I'm telling you to take three things and write it down. But the truth is I am right. If you do these three things, it'll work.

But I know in counseling, you probably need more comfort than that and someone to help you unpackage this. Ain't me. But I can tell you the three things.

But in to inspire you better than just tell you, music helps inspire us. So I think I need to put this to to words and songs. So guys, can you help me out with a beat here?

Alright. Stop, calibrate, listen. The Holy Spirit's here with some new inspiration. You got a problem? Yo, he'll solve it. Open up your bible and let JC resolve it.

Thank you. Just call me Bill Miller Ice. Some of you this is your last time at church. That Daniel guy was okay, but I'm out of here now. I probably feel like I'm gonna be under pressure from the lawyers for David Bowie and Queen for using that music. But music history thing. If you don't get it, look it up. You

know, incredible rapping skills aside, what I just said is absolute truth. That's how you do this. That's how you you solve this,

is you need to stop, calibrate, not collaborate, calibrate, and listen. What do I mean by that? The first thing we need to do to snap this cycle and this is true with our relationship with God too. Because problem is we'll do the same thing with God, only it's one-sided. We're the only one that's wrong.

But we still do the same thing when it comes to listening to God. And so the first thing is stop and identify my feelings.

When you start to get frustrated with someone else in a marriage or or a work relationship or you're frustrated when when you hear a sermon where I say this is what God is telling you to do, and you're like, ah, and you're not doing it,

why are you getting so upset? Why are you anxious? Why are you sad? Why are you depressed? Why are you angry? Instead of just saying, I want him to stop telling me to do that or getting mad and you go go find a church that they stop talking about this stuff. If you find a biblical church,

they're gonna talk about this stuff. And the problem is wherever you go, there you are. You didn't run away from the problem. You are the problem.

And and and God knows that. He wants you to listen to him. So the first thing you gotta do is whenever you feel any strong feeling, you gotta stop and identify that. In other words, ask yourself, why am I getting so upset right now? Why when she says this or he does that, why do I get so anxious?

Why do I get so depressed when Bill tells me I should serve and give? Because Jesus loves us. And we've had 2,000 people come to Christ this year alone in this church. We've baptized 800 of them already. We've launched two daughter churches that both launched with over 700 people in the last two months.

We are now helping churches in England and Africa, and and we are reaching people left and right and we need this building. We need more room. We need to be able to keep reaching people. And so yeah, I need people who say this is their church to give to financially do what God's asked you to do because

we are reaching people. I'm inviting you to be a part of changing eternity. And Jesus loved you so much he died so you can do that. And you're mad at me for asking you to do it. That tells me you need to stop and think about that because there is a lie you're listening to

see what you're getting frustrated with me when I say give is you're like, but you don't understand my fan is you don't understand you don't understand where I'm at. You don't get it. It's like you're getting mad because you think I'm telling you something you can't do.

But you can you just need to do what God asked you to do. But I can't lie is overpowering that. So when I challenge you, you think I'm telling you to do the impossible,

And you're gonna miss out on the eternal.

You're gonna run after all these things you think will make you feel good. And you're gonna miss what Jesus died to give you. It's that simple. But you're never gonna get there if you don't stop and go why do I not want to do this? Why do I not do that and when it comes to another relationship?

Why what is it that's really causing this reaction? And they need to calibrate. Calibrate is calibrate your personal responsibility and your emotions. Go, how much of this is coming from me? How much of this is my own issues that are just being vomited up into the situation?

How how much of this is my past, my own struggles, my fears, my things? And own that and calibrate it. Get it back in alignment with what you need to be responsible for in your missions. And then finally, you need to listen. And that is listen to God's word. Listen to God's word.

In other words, we need to trust God's word as the truth, and we need to trust that he knows how we should live. You also the Bible says we need to take every thought captive. We try to take feelings captive. You realize trying to control feelings is trying to hurt cats or see the Cardinals win a Super Bowl? It

just doesn't ever seem to work. And and and and and and and so the the issue is but you know what you can do?

You can take a thought captive. You know what the Bible is saying about that is? When you have a thought that's coming from a belief. So you need to go, what is the belief I'm believing that's driving that thought? Because that thought is what's generating the feelings. Then you need to get down to the belief, and you need to let God's word analyze that belief and go, is it true or is it not?

If God called you to follow him, you can put you can listen to what he asked you to do. You can do the mission he's given you. You do have enough time. You have the money. You have the resource to do what he's asked you to do.

It's absolute. Wherever God guides, he provides. That is the truth from scripture. And if you don't believe that, how can you trust that he died on the cross for you? You have a belief problem, not a feelings problem. And that's what it means to take a thought captive.

That's what faith means. You go back to the truth and go, do I believe this or do I not?

And so when I'm dealing with others, yeah, there probably is some stuff they do need to work on and you need but you can need to the best thing to do is you can handle you better than you can control them.

And that's why guys, I'm just gonna tell you this is for free. I didn't say another service. When the Bible says you're supposed to be the leader in the home, I think that means you go first because it's amazing.

One person chooses to do that. It usually drops the wall with the other person. And for whatever reason, God said, that's your job, man. So ladies, if you're like, alright. Why do guys get to lead? It doesn't mean boss. It means show the way. That's what it means. Step up and show the way.

Now if your wife doesn't follow, that's on her.

But about 99% of the times of every case I've ever seen,

If the man leads, it gets fixed. I wonder why it works that way. Hey, maybe that's why God set it up that way. Hence, back to taking a thought captive. Quit listening to what culture says. Quit listening to what you the Facebook and social media says matter of fact quit listening to what I say

listen for if I'm saying something that's scriptural listen to that Even if I'm wrapping it poorly like Vanilla Ice but listen to his word. That's what these guys did. They did they listened. They chose humility and that gave them a path by the power of the Holy Spirit that preserved the mission

and the man it preserved the mission and the relationships.

But you got to choose it. It's like I said who is right who is wrong. They're both right and they're both kind of wrong when they got mad but we do know in the end and ended well in first Corinthians Paul mentioned Barnabas commends them. And then the craziest thing the coolest thing is

if you look in second Timothy chapter four at the end, this is the last thing Paul ever wrote. He knew he was dying. He was going to die for his faith. He knew his then it's like twenty five years after you know, it's over ten years past this he knew this was the end

and he wrote to a guy named Timothy that he poured into interesting. I think he learned that from Barnabas.

He had this guy that he poured into and poured into and defended and helped He was writing his last words to him. And after he says, I know I'm done. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. He's writing this whole thing. I stayed faithful to what God called me to do. He then gets real personal about what's gonna happen between now and he dies. He goes, he's under house arrest. He's rested. He knows he's not getting out. And he goes, I'm alone here. Only Luke is with me, which is interesting because Luke's the one that wrote acts.

And he says to Timothy, send John Mark to me for he has been useful.

Their relationship was fine. They didn't just walk away from each other. They refused to let the disagreement distract them from the mission and destroy the relationship. And all these years later, Paul said John Mark's been useful, which really actually commends Barnabas for what he knew, which is interesting.

Barnabas pours into Paul. Paul writes about two thirds of the New Testament. Barnabas pours into John Mark, and you might not know who John Mark is, but you might know him from his his title of the book he wrote, the Gospel of Mark. He ended up writing one of the gospels.

So if you're really keeping score on certain things Barnabas actually poured into two people that wrote part of the Bible Paul had zero

because they're different in the way they're wired

and they didn't let it get distracted. And the only way you're gonna do it is stop collaborate and listen. Some of you you're mad. You're gonna remember that forever and it's stuck in your head. Good. It'll be on your deathbed. Any last words? We love you, mom. Stop. Collaborate and listen. You're

welcome. But let me put it this way, final thought. God wants to change your heart, and this is the way it happens. You know, my my my dad, he had this massive heart attack when I was younger, so he lost part of his heart muscle. So he had this point that if he got too worked up,

he'd start gurgling and couldn't talk and then you have to sit down and shut up. My mom loved that. Because if they started getting a stupid argument and he would start getting worked up, he'd be like, Diana, I'll get and you see him go

he had to stop, calibrate, and listen. And usually, that solved the problem. Because as he stopped and sat there, he calmed down, and then it kinda settled the problem. And I go, listen. How did that happen? His heart changed.

He had a change of heart by way of heart attack, but it changed his heart. God wants your heart to change. He wants you to stop, collaborate, and listen. But guess what? He is not beyond giving you a heart attack to make you do it.

Do you wanna choose it? Or do you wanna wait till you get under so much stress, so much defeat, so many problems that you have a heart attack? You have that crisis of faith. Because he will do it.

He will use the feelings. He'll use pain. He'll use that. He does that all through scriptures. What he kept doing with Israel. It's what he'll do with us. He will use some of you are in a painful situation. If this would just stop, then I would change. And God's like, I'm doing this to get your attention.

I need you to stop, and I need you to listen because I need you to calibrate some things

because then by the power of the Holy Spirit, I will use your life. In ways that you will finally get the thing that you're chasing after through all the other dumb things. The peace the joy the contentment the desire for more desire to have your life mean something. It comes from listening to what God's called you to.

How about you? Father God. Thank you Lord. Thank you that you love us. And I pray for myself everyone in this room anyone watching online that you would change our hearts and that, Lord, that we'd surrender to it, that you wouldn't have to give us a heart attack to cause us to stop and to listen to you Lord and to calibrate.

Let us be a people that when we come up on disagreement that we stop calibrate and listen. And we trust you and Lord I pray if anyone here is struggling. They're just struggling overwhelmed with feelings that they just can't seem to get past and fears or I pray they would talk to someone and

I pray they would surrender to you and I pray that they would learn what it means to let your word take that thought captive. Help them encourage them. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey, I love you guys. Thanks for being here. It's awesome. Thanks

for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.