The problem with teens- Acts 15:37-39

Ever been frustrated by the lack of follow through in a teenager? You give them a chore and they "forget" to get it done. You entrust them with a responsibility and they drop the ball. You celebrate their commitment to Christ only to be frustrated with their seeming apathy about carrying out that commitment.

You don't have to get a group of adults together long with "kids these days" as the subject matter before someone will inevitably start bemoaning their lack of work ethic, lack of motivation, and lack of maturity.

Why do I bring this up? Because in all likelihood, we get a glimpse of a 1st century conversation in Acts 15 about those exact problems.

Here are some things you need to know about Mark:

• He was a cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10)
• He was the son of Mary whose home had been one of the meeting places of the early church (Acts 12:12)
• He was probably in his teens when Jesus was killed and was a young man when he deserted Paul and Barnabas (Mark 14:51-52; 1 Peter 5:13)
• As inferred from the passage above and as recorded in Acts 13:13, Mark had accompanied Paul and Barnabas of the first missionary journey but had deserted them. And that was the rub.

(These passages all assume that the John Mark spoken about is the same Mark as the one in question. There are different theories about that, but it seems that since he was referred to several times in the New Testament and no further description was given to clarify which John Mark was being referred to, then the church would have known to think about this Mark in particular.)

When Paul was ready to set out again and revisit the churches they had established the first go around, he was simply unwilling to let Mark have another chance. I'm sure he was weighing the pros and cons of trying to help an individual at the expense of the mission. Barnabas on the other hand was trying to give Mark a second chance and believed in his ability to follow through. Both men were so insistent on their well-reasoned and good intentioned points, that they eventually parted company.

I want you to think about Mark as a person a little more. Since the church was meeting in his mom's home (Acts 12:12), it was likely that they had a large home in Jerusalem. He was probably a fairly wealthy kid and was very devoted to his mother who was a Godly woman. I have to think that was part of his reasons for desertion on the first trip. Perhaps he wasn't used to the rigors of travel. Perhaps he missed the comforts of home. Maybe he was simply not emotionally able to handle life away from his mother and home yet. We don't know exactly what led to his decision.

Get another earlier glimpse of Mark's personality from the gospel that is likely from his hand. Mark 14 tells the story of a "young man"  wearing only a linen sheet who was following Jesus after he was arrested in the garden. His following turned to fleeing very quickly, however, when the soldier tried to grab him as well. He let them keep the sheet and he ran away completely naked! Most people think the evangelist was referring to himself in this story. Let's think through this . The young man must have been asleep in bed when he got the news of Jesus' arrest. He must have jumped up impulsively to find out what was going on. He didn't even take time to get dressed! He was a young man that was so timid, he would rather run away naked than claim allegiance to His arrested Lord.

Why do I want you to think about Mark as a person? Because he reminds me a lot of the kids that fill our churches. They are impulsive. They are fearful. They often fail on their commitments and give every indication that they cannot be counted on. They are often more concerned for comfort than for Kingdom work. They quit when the going gets tough. But deep down they love the Lord!

I am so thankful that Mark had a friend and mentor in Barnabas. Someone who was willing to give him another chance. Someone who was willing to bring him alongside him in his own ministry. Someone who was willing to stand up for him in spite of his failure. Paul, himself, was thankful for it. He would later ask for Mark personally because Mark had become someone that was very useful in ministry (2 Timothy 4:11).

But would Mark have become useful for ministry...would he have become Mark the evangelist whose words we still read today, if Barnabas had not first been Barnabas the encourager?

What if Barnabas had let Paul convince him not to give Mark a second chance? What if Mark had felt the sting of rejection because of his past failures and never recovered from it?

I ask you about Mark, because I want you to think about the teens you see in the auditorium. Some of them seem more concerned about the girl sitting next to them than the Lord sitting in their midst. Some of them are currently more committed to their sport's team than to their body of Christ. Some of them treasure their cell phone more than the word of God. But I believe from the bottom of my heart that some of them LOVE THE LORD!

The question is whether or not there will be a Barnabas who will vouch for them in spite of these weaknesses of youth. Who will include them in their own ministry? Who will give them space to fail and then shove the responsibility right back on them giving them absolute proof that people still believe and count on them? Who will wrap their arms around them and teach them how to praise and how to serve?

Of course, having someone to do all of that for a teen requires first of all that we adults have a work and a worship to include them in ourselves!

Who will you be a Barnabas for? I'm not asking you to take all of the teens in your congregation under your wing. But I am asking you to be intentional about taking at least one of them under your wing. Let them know you believe in them. Let them see your work and your relationship with God. Challenge them to be true. Challenge them to live with purpose and not just comfort. And then praise God that they have become useful for ministry. Who knows what they will leave behind them that people will still be reading in another 2,000 years!

Can God Really Use Me? Acts 11:24

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I've found that the doubt that often creeps into the minds of followers of God is not typically the doubt that we think of. Yes, every Christian will have questions that they must wrestle with about the supposed "evidence" of the Big Bang versus the evidence of the Genesis account. Yes, every Christian will struggle with how to know whether the Bible is the reliable Word of God or just another book. Yes, every Christian will need to question and reaffirm their reasons for believing that Jesus really was...and is who He said He is- the Son of God.

But, for most of us, I've come to believe those doubts only surface from time to time. I believe there is actually a bigger doubt that is almost always our constant companion. The doubt that I am speaking of really has nothing to do with the power of God- at least not at first glance. But it has everything to do with doubting the the power of God working through us.

We feel inadequate for the task God has given us. We feel incapable of accomplishing the Great Commission. We feel unprepared to teach the souls in front of us. We feel...small. And while we recognize the bigness of God, we just can't help fearing the smallness of us. And the enemy paralyzes us with that fear so that if he cannot have our souls, he can at least keep the souls that we might have reached if only we had faith.

But as Paul would say later, "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline" (2 Tim. 4:7). Therefore, I'd like you to consider Barnabas because what Luke recorded about him in Acts 11 sums up all that is necessary for us to be used by God in very big ways.

1. Barnabas was a good man. I want to be careful how we look at this fact because in my work with teens, I have found that we have somehow paralyzed our young Christian brothers and sisters with the idea that they must first be good in order to be saved. That is imply not what the Bible teaches. We are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8). But the fact that are have been saved, then puts us into a position where we can then become good! How many people have been content to be forgiven of their sins without pursuing the reality that God promises of being freed from our sins!? Barnabas was fit for God's work, not because he deserved it based on his goodness, but because he pursued goodness as one of the fruits of the Spirit that had been given him as a pledge! And that fact leads us straight to the second thing Luke tells us about him.
2. Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit. On the surface, we might balk at the idea of our having responsibility in the Spirit filling our lives. After all, baptized believers are promised the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). If the Spirit is a gift, then is there anything that we are supposed to do? Wouldn't that defeat the whole idea of a gift being something that is simply given? But then Paul said in Eph. 5:18, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,..." (Emph mine). Paul's command to not get drunk on wine which leads to dissipation, or wastefulness, could also easily be applied to the many other things we get "drunk" on- think sex, pleasure, entertainment, accumulation of things or of power, etc. A life that is focused on those things is also dissipation; it is wasteful! Instead, we are to be "filled with the Spirit!" Perhaps part of our role in being filled with the Spirit as Barnabas was is that we are very conscious not to live wastefully and not to fill our lives with all of these other things that leave no room for the Spirit to take up residence in us and fill us up! How can we be full of the Spirit when we are already filled to the max with sports, or TV, or social media, or other unrepented of sins that we are not willing to let go of? In fact, those "pet sins" that we think nothing of might be another thing to look at in our quest to be filled with the Spirit. Are we not blocking access to the Holy Spirit in our lives when we live in such a way that we are grieving Him? Look at the walks that are contrasted in Ephesians 4:17-32. If we are "walking as the gentiles walk," then we are grieving the Holy Spirit of God! No wonder we feel inadequate to the tasks God has placed before us!
3. Barnabas was full of faith. And this where the rubber meets the road, and really it is back where we began. I have no doubt that Barnabas' faith in God included the faith that God could use even him. I wonder if Jesus' rebuke of Peter's lack of faith- when Peter began to walk on the water and subsequently began to drown- was more about Peter's doubt that he could walk on water by the power of God than that Jesus could walk on water. After all, Peter could still see visual proof that Jesus could do it. It was his fear of his own safety that caused him to sink. But though we say that we have faith in God, if we limit His power and ability to work in the world to only working through others who don't have our flaws and weaknesses, then we don't doubt ourselves after all. We doubt God.

May we be a people that are good. Not so we can be saved or so we can keep our salvation. But may we be good because we are saved. May we be a people that are full of the Holy Spirit because we have made room for the Holy Spirit to fill us. May we be a people that are full of faith in God...including faith in God in us.

And may a great many more people be brought to the Lord in our day as they were in Barnabas'.