232. Welcome Back, Updates, & Dealing with Conflict

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   Welcome back Would have thought they'd lead ya Would have thought they'd lead ya Back here where we need ya Back here where we need ya Yeah, we tease him a lot Cause we got him on the spot Welcome back Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back

   We always could spot a friend Welcome back Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the show The 4-Freedom Podcast Man, what a great time this summer has been We've got updates, we've got exciting things going on But man, we are great and glad to be back in the

   saddle It's good to be back in recording mode and recording land And we have a great summer We had a great summer But we have a great season coming up As we have interviews lined up And different talks coming up A book that we're gonna go through That I think you're gonna be

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   Very enjoyable as we go through And sort of debunk this a little bit

   But man, Brett, me and you Have had a great summer We've been able to get together a couple times It's always great to see you in person How are things in your world And in your land?

   You've got some life updates As far as stuff going on in power And storms and everything that's going on right now How's things going there in Mississippi?

   Well, I'll tell you, man We have had a great First of all, glad to be

   Welcome back to our podcast land And back to our audience So we're glad to be here back in the studio recording

   And we had a busy summer It's like, it's one of the busiest summers on record One of the shortest summers on record Because class is starting back

   You know, quickly And school Summer's getting shorter and shorter You know, back around here The public school started back Before July was over Which was unheard of when we were kids But man, things are going really well We've

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   had a busy summer We're glad to be back in the saddle But man, I tell you what We have had quite a week this past week I'll tell you I woke up This past Sunday morning Not this Sunday But last Sunday Woke up out of bed And my lower back

   completely locked up Could not move I told Emily, look You know, I think in the four years That I've been pastor at this church I've never called in sick That I can remember But I've got a man in my church Bruce He's always on standby

   He's my standby When if I ever need it And I called him Early Sunday morning I was like, man I can't move my back You're going to have to come And preach And he said, don't worry Brett, we'll take care of it

   And man, I stayed in my house For a few days Monday, went to the doctor Got on some, you know Some muscle relaxers And some anti-inflammatories And of course, that didn't do any good And then it got

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   so bad Wednesday, I couldn't even walk I had to go to the emergency room That's when they gave me The big boy medicine And I started to feel A little bit better

   I still got some issues With my back Don't know what I did But then on top of all that Thursday evening We had a straight line wind Storm come through

   Knocked all the power out Around us And I've got a power pole In my backyard Without a transformer on it I'm at the end of the line So that power pole Knocked over And so we've been Without power

   for four days And so My back issue And then put on top of that We've got no power You know, we had to go Spend the night In a hotel over the weekend Because, you know Didn't want to

   show up To preach on Sunday Stinking to high heaven Had to go get a shower somehow

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   But man Just this morning Drove by the house Saw the power company Working on the pole Getting that back up So I'm pretty confident We'll have power tonight But man, it's been quite a week And But I tell

   you I had solace And what I knew Is like, man I'm recording with James On Monday morning And

   Once I get to that microphone Everything's going to be okay And everything's going to Fall into place So I'm glad to be back Recording with you That's good, man Hey We had a great summer We were together In

   the convention Recorded a couple episodes There in person With Luther Rice And a couple other things

   We got to go to Nicaragua And we did a pastor's conference While we were down there You led a team From your church I brought my family Which was our team From our church

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   Still talking about that trip And my wife and kids Every day are bringing up something My son

   Brody Who went with us Has been talking to Javier Every single day And he's Javier's continued To text me every day And so it's been great To just Continue having Those relationships That we made The encouragement Carlos and his sister They've been texting me

   So it's been A great refreshing time As we came back From there Just to help Encourage those pastors We preached on

   How to be a Grace-filled pastor And how to lead With grace And so we talked Through what legalism is We talked through Spiritual abuse We talked through The ditches in the road We pulled out Al Mohler's

   Triage system Of how to handle Situations And doctrinal beliefs In the church So we covered a lot When we were down there And we got to see Lots of good things happen

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   And so Brett Thoughts on those things And then we're going to Sort of talk as well Before we get into that About The things with the IFB That have been going over The last couple of months As well Oh man We had a great time In Nicaragua Now at our church

   I think you've already Had your report At your church But we haven't had Our report yet Because I've been Wanting my Digital guy To really work on me A good video And so he's For the past couple of

   weeks He's been working on me A mission About Five to seven minute Mission video That we're going to show In the church And so I think In a couple weeks Let me look at my calendar here We're going

   to Have our mission report Sunday on the 13th Which is One Two It's still three weeks away But I kind of want to Have it right before Homecoming Service revival Give our team Time to plan What they were

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   going to say But man We had a great time We did so much Good Good stuff In Nicaragua From the Pastors conference To going to The maternity home 65 pregnant women Some of them young Some of them 12-15 years old Got to share the gospel With them Encourage them Went to the

   dump Talked to these families Who live in the garbage dump And recycle And they breathe that smoke From that fire That never stops And it was A great We gave out The food At the EAC party Where we

   had over 300 kids And families And each family Got to take A big 20 pound bag Of food home That would last them A long time We got to put those together And man We did so much Ministry

   And ministering On this trip I think it was One of the most Fulfilling mission trips I've ever been on And man We had a great Great time I'll tell you What I remember most About that Pastors conference

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   Is I think it was Old Carlos Coming in there And dropping soccer The question of soccer On us And then Then dipping out And then leaving me And you holding the bag For our listeners Who don't know A lot of those pastors At that conference Oscar Jr.

   Not Carlos Oscar did it Oscar did it Yeah And Oscar Jr.

   A lot of those pastors At that conference Believe that soccer Or any sport Is a Is a sin Like you play soccer You go to hell And I know that's That's so weird For us to hear In our

   culture But for them It was You know And the whole conference Was about legalism And so You know We're trying to explain You know The You know How Christian liberty works And And things like this And when we

   said That you know You can play soccer To the glory of God They just Laughed us to scorn man And that's when You pulled out The triage The next day That was one of the Most memorable parts And

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    one of the most Stressful parts Of it But I really enjoyed That pastors conference And getting the opportunity To preach

    And You know That's just That's just about all You know We just had a great time Yeah It was great man We very much enjoyed it We made some great things

    There We were able to help A maternity home Where moms were able To come in from hours away And Get Help Physically With A place to stay Medical stuff Things like that And then my wife got up And got to share The gospel with them

    It was great for me And I I think you would echo this To have our sons there with us To For them to be able to Experience ministry On that level Be able to see some things And experience things as well

    So yeah We're We're excited about that Brett We've got some things coming up For the podcast We've got

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    Some interviews lined up We've got a guy coming on Next week Lord willing If everything comes out right He was a Reporter for about 20 years I believe And one of his big things Was reporting on all the

    Jack Howe stuff At Howe's Anderson So this was pre-preacher boys Pre-our stuff He reported for Christianity Day And a couple other things We're gonna have him come on Talk about his time Under Howe's And studying under him We're gonna have

    Hopefully I've reached out to Willie Rice President of the convention He's gonna come on Share some things That are going on At the convention level And But we We did an episode A couple of Months back Weeks back

    now Covering When When Shepherds Fall We had a lot of people Asking us What's going on How do we handle These things

    And since then You know We Of course We Did that in response Of Kenny Baldwin And a couple of things there

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    But I mean Even since then We've had some Some uproar In the IFB You know We cover Spiritual legalism And abuse And as we see These things We don't cover it As in depth As like the Preacher boys

    does And some of these Other guys do But we want to Hit the highlights And be an encouragement Man The The

    I don't want to say The double downing But the Just continuing To have that Set That That That Separate standard Of Of Of how we Judge people How we Do things I mean Some Every church That That hosted

    That was an IFB church That hosted Kenny Baldwin They put out a statement Immediately Like Trying to distance Themselves And I Really feel like That was just a PR Like insurance Thing They had to

    But it's just Discouraging To Really not see A lot of change After that What's your thoughts Brett on some Of those things Exactly You know It's really a shame In fact I've seen A video I think Preacher boys

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    Put it out And I've seen it This morning And it was A video Of Jack Scott And Kenny Baldwin Together I don't know If you saw This But it was A video Of them Together Addressing The same Tie

    For youth Conference And It said Jack Scott Said Here's My Here's My My Twin Brother And then The caption Was This Didn't age Well And You know It's really A shame

    Of what What happened But it's Something We've got To deal With There's An underlying Issue

    And You know It's That's Really all I have to Say about It You've Said Most of It

    But it's Something we Need to talk About in the future Going forward Yeah Hey You're You're from Indiana You're from Indiana You lived in Indiana for a Little bit What scares you a Little bit Gary Indiana My dad told me About this Yesterday

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    I mentioned it to You and I Said hey Are you familiar With Gary Indiana What's going on Here

    Tell us your Story that you Have connected With Gary Indiana And then I'll Share sort of What's going on Up there Sort of a Life update Event What's going On Okay so When I was At Howes Anderson Gary

    Indiana Was the Murder capital Of the world That's where What it was And so Usually When we You know We're not Familiar with The area On Wednesday Night Church We would Take the Bus to The church And on

    To First Baptist For Wednesday Night Church But that Night I decided To take My truck So I Drove And then I was Like I'm Driving Back And one Of the Guys Is like Hey let Me drive Back With

    you And if I'm Not Mistaken It was Chad Williams Chad Williams Is a Pastor He's Part of The RFP Fam In fact He's Going to Be on Following The Way Podcast In a Couple Weeks But me And Chad

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    Are trying To find Our way Back To How Anderson And we Take a Wrong Turn And we End Up Driving Through Gary Indiana And let Me tell you Something

    We were It was With two Scared White Boys Driving Through Gary Indiana In the Middle Of the Night It was Dark It was Scary We got Lost And we In the Back of Our Minds We just Remember Our

    Professor Telling Us This is The Murder Capital Of The World And it Was The Most Scared I'd Ever Been But Eventually Me And Chad Found Our Way Out And Found Our Way Back To The College And It Was Interesting To hear

    Right There What's Going On In Gary Right Now Yeah That's Crazy So My My Dad He's A Doomsday Guy

    Love him To death But he He plans For the Worst He's Got Generators And Everything Else Going On

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    And he Says Hey Man You Storm Came Came Came Came Came Came Knocked Down All These Power Poles And Storms And You Know I'm Thinking Of Brett As He's Telling Me This He Says It's Been Like 14 Days In The County Still Gary Indiana Still Doesn't Have Power Like People Without Power

    Shores Stores Have Shut Down He Said Let's Show Him Videos And It Looks Like A Doomsday Has Come Through There Where Everything Has Been Raided And People Were Just Like Fending For Their Lives Without Power Like 800,000 People Without Power Going On Or Something Like That So Crazy Situation

    But You Know Sort Of Helps Us To Get Into Our Mindset Of You Know What If It Were To Happen You You Lost Power If You Lose Power For A Little Bit Of Time How Would You

    Listen You You Can Get Primitive Real Quick Without Power It's Imagine How It's Crazy How Fast Things Grow Third World

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    Without Power And You Know What We Have Just Been Without Power For Four Days I Can't Imagine Being Without It For 14 And So Definitely I Feel For Them Pray For Them Hopefully They Get Their Power Back Soon! When Hurricane Helene Came Through We Lost Power For

    Five Days I've Got Solar On My House With The Battery Back Up So We Didn't Lose Anything Everything Came Back On Because Of How We Have It Set Up But There Are People Around Me They Lost Power And

    They Come By Like Hey Did Y'all Lose Power You Have Power On I So Well That Solar And My

    My She She Dogged Me For Years After We Got That I Can't Believe We Spent All This Money Getting These Things And You Know It Will Never Pay Off And I Remember Laying In Bed Like Night Two And

    She Rolled Over And She Said I Want To Apologize For All The Bad Things That I Thought And Said You You Made A Really Smart Decision We Have This Now And Now

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    We That Wall Outlet Is On Has Power So We Had Lights In The Living Room Internet TV We Had A Fan Going But Can't Run The AC Can't Run The Frigerator So

    And When You Live Out In The Country You Ain't Got No Water Because You Can't Run The Water Pump That's Right That's Right Well Brent I've Got Some Exciting News That I Want To Share With The Podcast And

    Our Listeners Last Year Two Years Ago We Had The Opportunity Me And John Partnered Together And Count With A Book From Brokenness To Freedom I Hope You Picked Up One Of Those We Gave A ton Of For Free Thanks To Provision Ministries And So We Want To

    Hope And Avail Yourself To That If You Never! Read It You Can Go To We'll Have The Link In The Show Notes We've Also Got On Our Brand New Website That's Been Redone If You Haven't Had A Chance To Go By Check Out Our New Website 4-Freedom Podcast Dot Com

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    Brett One Of The Craziest Things About This Website Is One Of Our Church Members My Church Member Patrick Peter Lewis Built!

    Lee You Can Type Any Name That You Want And If We've Talked About It On The Podcast

    It'll Search All Of Our Transcripts For Every Single Episode And Bring Up Each Episode That Has The Name RG Lee In It And It'll Bring Up The Timestamp And You Can Click On That Timestamp And It'll Just Play That Clip Of The Podcast For You

    You Can Go To The Episode If It's In The Episode The Title Or Whatever And You Can Listen To The Whole Episode I Had A Guy Reach Out To Me Probably Two Weeks After This Update Came Out For Our Website And Said Hey I'm Looking For A.V. Billinger He Was A Deacon

    A Sunday School Leader At Howes Anderson Church You You You You You You

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    I! I Want To Listen To It And I Messaged John And He's Like I Don't Remember It May Have Been Like Episode Five Or Eight Or Something And So Before I Would Have Had To Go Back And Listen And Find It And Give It To

    Him I Just Went In There I Was Like Let Let See How This Works I Typed In The Name A.V. Billinger It Popped Up Episode Five At Minute

    For A New Church If You Struggling With The King James Only Issue Everything Has Been Categorized

    Based On Topics That We Talked About As We Put Those In There So You Can Go And It Is A Great Resource For You You Can Purchase Our Cigars From Our Website You Can Look At Our Books!

    Right After I Started Working On The Manuscript A Really Bad Incident Happened Here In The County Where I Met And So I Decided To Put Together A Book To Help People Who Have Dealt With And Are Dealing With

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    Depression And So We Titled It Freedom From Depression And This Book Just Recently! Back From The Editors We We We Calling It Freedom From Depression Finding Grace Through And Those That Are Going Through Depression

    Maybe You Have A Friend That Is Going Through It And You Can Find This On Amazon It Is A Quick Easy Read About 60 Pages 70 Pages Just Like The Other One

    There There's 11 Chapters But Each Chapter Is Really Small I Broke Into Five Different Parts I Know It To Help To You You Can Get That On Kindle And Paper Back On Amazon We'll Link That In The Description

    As Well And Once We Get That Updated On The Website You'll Be Able To See That On The Website As Well We Just Want To Give You Tools Give You Resources To Help You As You're Going Through Your Day And As You're Going Through Your Life

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    Amen Hey You What Happened With That Data Center Well They Want To Put A Data Center In Your Backyard Bro If They Pay Me I Would Let Them You Know Ten Million Dollars Yes Sir Go Right Go Hey How Quick Can You Get It Up Yeah If They Weren't Paying Me I Be Against!

    It But If They Paying Me I Be Like Even So Go Right Ahead That No Problem That's Right So Yeah Yeah I think That's Everything We Got

    Free I Think So Yeah We We've Got A lot Going On A lot Of Things Coming Up We've Got Some So We're Going To Jump Through

    The This Season Lord Will And Brett I Think You Are Going To Help Us Go Through The Illustrious The One And Only Really It's The Greatest Manual That's Ever Been Written On

    I Mean I Been I Never Had To Read It It Was Never A Textbook For My

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    School But It Was Referenced A Lot And So I Been Able To Start Reading Through Some Of It Brett Some Of It's Just Like Like I Bet The Business Meeting It's Literally Just The Transcripts Of A Business Meeting That's All It Is Like What You Do Or What You Shouldn't Do In

    KJV When We Were At First Baptist And It Was No Joke It Was It Was It Was The House Church Manual And The Fundamental Man Those Were The Two Which Was Jack Howell's Otto No Biography And So Those

    Were The Two Books You Had To Have And I Been Really Looking For We Been Knocking Around This Idea For A Couple Years Now Of The House Church Manual And Kind Of Seeing What The Big Fuss Was About

    And We Been Breaking It Down And We're Looking Forward To Getting Into That In The In The Future Especially This Season For Freedom You Set Me Free Not For Change Not For Guilt Not For Pharisee Grace Lit The

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    Flame Now I'm Puffing Peace Cigars And Victory! Everyday Issues Toast Toast To To To To To To To To To To To To To To

    To To To For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released.

    For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin.

    For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Now here are your hosts, James Safrit and Brett Martin.

    To kick off the episode of the season today, we want to come quickly just share with you just some help and encouragement as you go through your life, as you go through different things.

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    One thing that you're going to go through, we talked about this yesterday at dinner with my mom. My stepmom and my dad were sitting there and we're talking through a couple of things. And she said, you know, there's a couple of things and she's she's devout Roman Catholic. My dad is still IFB.

    They still have their conflicts and differences. And I had mentioned something and she said, your dad, he's still King James only. He's like the the only thing you can read is the King James. And if you're not reading that, you're going to hell.

    And she's sort of saying some of this underneath her breath a little bit. And I said this, I leaned over and I shared the Ankerberg debate, the debate that helped me come out of the King James only idea. And I said, you should bring this up sometime because he loves you, too.

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    I said, you should see if he'll listen to it. And she said, not going to happen.

    She said, the two things we don't talk about is politics and religion in this house. And she said, if I bring that up, it's going to be a fight. And so, Brett, as we go through that, as we think through that,

    oftentimes in our life, in our world, as we separate from things that we're a part of, we avoid things. We avoid situations because conflict is going to come with it.

    So how do we handle conflict in a biblical manner? How do we handle conflict when it comes to we know they're going to disagree with us? So do we just avoid it? Do we just not talk about it? Do we just put our hands and our fingers and our ears and not listen?

    Like, what do we do?

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    How do we handle these things? Well, you know, James, the truth is that if you spend enough time around people, you're going to have disagreements like that. You're going to have conflict. It doesn't matter how much you love Jesus. It doesn't matter how spiritually mature you are.

    It could be a marriage, a family, a workplace, a church. Wherever there are people,

    there are going to be conflict. And the interesting thing about it is conflict itself isn't a problem. Conflict in certain contexts can actually be healthy. The problem is how do we respond to conflict? When handled biblically, conflict can actually expose something that needs attention.

    Conflict can sharpen our character. It can deepen relationships. And conflict can even advance God's kingdom. But when you handle conflict in the flesh, that's whenever it leaves hurt, it leaves division, and it leaves broken fellowship.

    And I think for our listeners, if we want to show how to handle conflict, I think we should go to the word of God.

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    And I think we should take a look at a conflict as recorded in the pages of Scripture. And if it's okay, I'm going to read the account right now. And we're going to read Acts chapter 15, verses 36 through 41.

    It's typically never wrong to read Scripture on this podcast. So I'll grant it this time. I'll read Scripture a little bit. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Yes. Yes.

    After some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let's return and visit the brothers and sisters in every city in which we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Barnabas wanted to take John called Mark along with them also.

    But Paul was of the opinion that they should not take along with them this man who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. Now, it was turned into such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another.

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    And Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and left after being entrusted by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

    And so, you know, we have this conflict right here and we have, you know, we have Barnabas who's from Cyprus.

    And he says, OK, Paul says, let's go back. Let's go back to all these churches. Let's go on another missionary journey. And Barnabas is like, you know what? That sounds great. I've got a great idea. How about let's take Mark and let's make Don Mark. And Paul's like,

    John Mark, I don't want to take John Mark. And, you know, back whenever Mark left Paul and Barnabas the first time and a few chapters earlier, we don't know why Mark decided to leave. He could have wanted to go home to mom's house.

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    Maybe he was upset that that Paul had taken over leadership of the team from his cousin Barnabas. We don't know. We don't know the reason why he left. But when we get to this point in Scripture, we do know how Paul feels about it. Paul uses a very strong word to describe Mark.

    He uses the word deserter. I mean, a deserter is a very, very strong word to use to describe. And that shows us how Paul felt about Mark. I mean, Paul's mission, Paul's goal is all about the work.

    Anything, you know, anything that's going to hinder the work. And from Paul's point of view, he's like, man, we're going to get out there. We're going to need him. And he's going to go away. He's he's not going to be there for us. He's he's he's going to leave us again. OK.

    And so that's kind of what what Paul was thinking of.

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    And maybe we need to look at it from from Barnabas's point of view. James, can you take us through Barnabas's point of view? Yes, we begin to look at Barnabas and his point of view. You know, we we don't know their their thoughts together.

    We don't know why he was there, but we do know that Barnabas had a love for this person. We know Barnabas was was caring for the ones that were there. And he said, hey, maybe we can use Barnabas. We can use him, John Mark, in this way.

    Paul was showing us that his love for the mission was greater than his love for the person that moment.

    And he couldn't bring himself into this moment where he said, you know, you've got this quitter with you. I can't I can't go into that. And so we do know that we get to where Barnabas is at in this passage.

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    We see that Barnabas saw it a little different. He said, you know what? I want to be an encouragement to this man. I want to be the person that comes alongside and and builds this guy back up. I know that life gets tough.

    I know things are difficult. I know things are going to not go the way we want them to go. People aren't going to people are going to let us down in life. But how can I come alongside, be gentle, be kind, be loving, be a listener,

    be someone who's going to be believing in second chances?

    And so when we get to this point, we begin to see Barnabas believing in him.

    And, you know, you fast forward. We're going to talk about it. But but John Mark is beneficial at the end of Paul's life as well, because I believe Barnabas stepped in and said, I want to give this guy a second chance.

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    I want to care for this guy. I want to give this guy a gentle, compassionate restoration.

    Exactly. And that brings up a good point. This is not a this is not a conflict between someone that's good and someone that's bad. This is a conflict between two godly men who are both standing on biblical principles. Yeah.

    Paul is standing on the biblical principle of, you know, the work is the most important. We have got to put the mission before everything else.

    We have to be able to rely on the people we bring. And then Barnabas over here, he's standing on the principle of redemption.

    It's like we've got to give this guy a second chance. Listen, it was Barnabas who gave Paul a second chance. It was Barnabas who, whenever Paul came to Jerusalem and said, hey, I'm I'm part of you guys now. And they didn't believe Paul.

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    It was Barnabas who stood up and vouched for Paul. And whenever at Antioch, whenever they needed leadership, it was Barnabas that went and found Paul and brought Paul to Antioch.

    So Barnabas is a guy that believes in second chances. So these are two godly men standing on two different biblical principles and they have a conflict.

    And that just goes to show you that, you know, it can have, you know, that you can have a conflict between two godly Christians.

    Now, here's here's something that I this is my opinion and you can tell me what your opinion is on it. There's no evidence.

    All right. So when this conflict happens, these two teams go their separate ways. You've got Barnabas.

    He takes John Mark. He goes to Cyprus. Paul takes Silas and they go on the next missionary journey. And so these two separate. There's no evidence in Scripture that Paul and Barnabas ever make up again, that they ever reconcile.

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    And, you know, Paul mentions Barnabas's name one time in the book of First Corinthians.

    He mentions it in passing, but I'm not saying they never reconcile, but I'm saying it's never recorded in Scripture that they ever made up and came together again.

    But that's not that's not that's not the case with that's not the case with Mark and Paul. In fact, later on, Paul even talks about Mark a couple of times. And what does Paul say about Mark later on in Scripture? Yeah, in Philemon, verse 24,

    Mark is called a fellow worker of the gospel with with Paul there.

    In Second Timothy 411, the Bible says, take along Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service. So time has passed. We see that Mark has now proven trustworthy again to Paul. He's faithful.

    He's reliable. He's reliable. And Paul is saying, listen, I need this guy in my life.

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    I need him to be here with me at the end of my life as as I am nearing the end. Bring me Mark.

    Bring me John Mark. I need him to be here with me because I need to tell people how much he means to me. And one of the names that he brings to attention is he just calls him Mark. It shows that affection.

    He's not using his full name. He's just like, hey, I need I need my bro here with me. I need I need this guy with me here. And so where Paul saw that he was unfit at one moment in the ministry.

    Now he's been restored and now he's been encouraged through the ministry of Barnabas to be used to be used so much mightily for the gospel. And, you know, you see, what happens is Mark, his greatest failure, it didn't end up defining him.

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    He went on to get to be one of the gospel writers in the New Testament. He becomes restored and he ends up writing this book that we so much love. It's the shortest gospel we have. I love teaching to young people because it is such a fast paced book.

    Some of the chapters of some of the other gospels can be really long and drawn out. But, man, it's like an ADHD guy writing a book of the Bible.

    He's like, I got I got to talk about all these ministries that Jesus was doing, all these miracles that Jesus was doing, all the people Jesus is going to. And like you just you just can't put the book down. It's so exciting. It's fast paced. It's moving.

    And all of a sudden we begin to see that Paul uses this in a way to help encourage him.

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    And now look at what he does. So, Brett, thoughts on that before we jump into some advice on how to handle conflict? You know, conflict is especially painful when it's with a close friend. And when it's someone that, you know, you're really close with.

    I'm reminded of Psalms 55 verses 12 through 14, where it says, For it is not an enemy who taunts me, then I could endure it. Nor is it one who hates me, who has exalted himself against me, then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal,

    my companion, my confidant. We who had sweet fellowship together, who walked in the house of God among the commotion. You know, we've all experienced the pain of fallout with a close friend.

    And it's one of the harshest pains that you will ever feel in your entire life. Conflict is unavoidable.

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    But I do believe that fallout is avoidable. You know, we live today, James, we live in a throwaway culture. Let me give you a quick example.

    When my great grandmother had a dresser and she gave that dresser to my grandmother. And that my grandmother gave that dresser to my mom and my mom gave that dresser to me. And this is the dresser I use today.

    You know, so, you know, back in the day, furniture was meant to last. And in the South, you know, we would have a dresser go through four generations. But now, I mean, we live in a culture of Ikea where we buy throwaway furniture. And, you know, we have throwaway relationships, too.

    And that's trickled down to our friends. When someone disappoints us, we throw them away. Someone fails us, we write them off. Someone makes a mistake, we cancel them.

40. 40:51

    So, you know, we look at this story in Acts chapter 15. And this story doesn't give us the excuse to say, well, if Paul and Barnabas couldn't work it out, I guess conflict are just part of life. And I don't think that's the case here.

    I don't think Luke is giving us permission to excuse conflict.

    I think he's teaching us how to prepare for it. Now, conflict is unavoidable, but fallout isn't. You can't always control disagreements. You can't always control how another person will respond.

    But you can choose that you can respond in a way that honors Christ. So very quickly here, we're not going to spend too much more time. Me and James want to give you four biblical principles on how to avoid unnecessary fallout when conflict comes.

    Yeah, let's jump into it. Number one, we have the responsibility as Christians to pursue peace.

41. 41:54

    Jesus calls us peacemakers. There's a whole book that's called Peacemakers by Ken Sandy. Fantastic book. If you've never read it, please go and read it. I've done lots of research on it and with it. Use it all the time in my counseling material. But 2 Corinthians says like this, chapter 13, verse 11.

    Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice and mend your ways. Be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

    Notice as we look at this verse, it tells us that peace doesn't just happen, but we live in it. It commands us to live in the peace that God has given us. Peace isn't something we hope for. Peace is something that we actively pursue.

    I often like to say that peace is like prayer. We have the opportunity to pray to the Lord, which is our connection to God that we have.

42. 42:54

    We don't just automatically have prayer. We have to actively go toward it. Peace is the same way. We have to actively go toward peace. We have to be people who are actively pursuing peace in all of our relationships.

    People are going to hurt us. People are going to do things that we don't like. But we have the opportunity to say, you know, I want to come and I want to put away my own desires, my own mandate in order to maybe not win an argument, maybe not lose a relationship

    just so I can put on a hat to say I won and I have the victory. But to say, you know, we have peace with brethren, even though we may not agree on every little jot and tittle of what we say we believe. Exactly.

    And, you know, we just want to be clear. You can't make another person live in peace with you.

43. 43:48

    You know, Paul says in Romans 12, 18, if possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people. You know, sometimes you've done all you can do and the other person still refuses reconciliation. But as Christians, we never have the right to be the one fueling the fire.

    You know, Jesus was asked the question, what's the greatest commandment? He didn't give one answer. He gave two. And basically, he said, love God, love people.

    And if we think about it, every sin is ultimately a failure of those two areas.

    Either I failed to love God correctly or I failed to love people correctly. And a lot of times we a lot of times what will keep us from apologizing to someone is our pride because we love being right more than we love our brother or sister.

    And we don't as Christians, we don't need to be concerned with winning an argument.

44. 44:43

    Our concern needs to be how can I love God and how can I love this person? You know, winning an argument and losing a relationship is not a biblical victory. God is not happy. He did that. Jesus didn't say the world will know us because we win every argument. We'll win every debate.

    He said, you know, we he will. He said he will know their might of cycles by the love they have one for another. Now, let's move on to the second one. Christians have a responsibility to speak directly to the friend we have a conflict with.

    And, James, I think this is the big one. And, you know, we're going to take this from Matthew 18, verse 15.

    Now, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that on the testimony of two or three witnesses,

45. 45:39

    every matter may be confirmed. You know, one of the greatest causes of church conflict is that we talk to everybody else except to the people that's involved.

    You know, this passage, it deals specifically with sin, but the principle applies to conflict in general.

    If you have a problem with something, go to that person, not your best friend, not not your your Sunday school class, not Facebook or Sister Susan in the church parking lot. You go to that person in private because you're not trying to embarrass them. You're trying to game them.

    I can't tell you how many times over the years people have walked in my office and want me to referee a conflict for them. And I'll spend, you know, they'll spend 20 minutes telling me what the other person did wrong. And then I'll ask a simple question. Have you talked to them yet?

46. 46:38

    And a lot of times, James, they'll say, no, I haven't talked to them yet. I was like, well, then you should do that first. Sometimes I've even brought out Matthew 18 and went through it. It's like, look, this is what it says. You need to go to that person.

    And, you know, don't ask me as the pastor to referee the conflict. Most of the conflict would be set on if they did that, just that one step instead of gossiping and talking about to everybody else about it. If they would just go directly to that person.

    James, what do you think about that? Yeah. Yeah. You know, we live in a non-confrontational world.

    We have so many keyboard warriors. We have so many people that deal with everything privately that when it, you know, they'll be the greatest theologian when it comes to typing it out on a Facebook comment.

47. 47:30

    But, man, when it comes to standing up face to face with somebody, yeah, not going to happen. People just don't like it. They don't do it. They don't want to have any pushback. I remember almost a year ago now, Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

    And I reached out. Someone had put something on Facebook. And I just probably, he challenged the narrative that everyone was saying. And there were people commenting.

    And I just don't feel right commenting on a bunch of stuff on Facebook. So I just reached out to him privately. And I was like, hey, man, can I give some pushback to where you're at? And he said, sure. What's your thoughts?

    And so we just had this discourse and dialogue. And I knew him well enough. I could have done this face to face. And I would have. I just didn't have the opportunity. And I laid out my point of view.

48. 48:18

    And he didn't like it. He didn't agree with it. But it wasn't just public. Like, I've got to have everyone look at my opinion.

    And I think part of that is the culture we live in today. We must be people who are willing to live peaceably with all men, even if it means I've got to go and address it head on and say, hey, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm feeling.

    Number three, we'll look at number very quickly here, which goes along with number three. We have the responsibility to deal with things quickly.

    We should not allow things to be building up in our life and through our life. Ephesians says like this, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity. Notice here what it's saying here.

49. 49:02

    The verse is not saying that anger is automatically sinful. It's saying that there are things that in life that should not make us angry in life that leads to sin. We should be angry at sin.

    The Bible talks about this righteous indignation that we have. Paul's not saying not to be angry. He's saying be angry and do not sin.

    So when we're not letting the sun go down, he's saying, listen, this is a timeline. This is something that you've got to quickly get a hold of. You can't allow this to fester and continue to go further.

    Paul goes on later and say it talks about the root of bitterness. Well, how does something become a root?

    It begins to go down deep inside. It begins to take hold and begin to wrap around all of our life. And so Peter's not saying, you know, you have until bedtime.

50. 49:51

    What he's simply saying is you must not let anger settle in. Do not let resentment build up in your life. Do not nurse the anger.

    Do not replay the conversation over and over and over in your head and say, you know, how can I get through this? How can I get back at this person? When you begin to feed this, it gets deeper and deeper in your life.

    You know, think about a splinter that you get in your hand. If you don't take that splinter out, it's going to fester and get an infection and it's going to get hurt worse and more and more. But the moment you take that splinter out, the pressure is relieved.

    The feeling of relief begins to happen immediately. I remember, Brett, I was riding down the road and I don't know how it happened. Somehow I got a splinter inside my fingernail.

51. 50:44

    And I was driving the bus. We were heading to camp and my finger was throbbing. And finally, I couldn't handle it no more. I said, Allie, I got to pull over. So she runs into Dollar General. She grabs this like fingernail kit with clippers and tweezers.

    And she basically just operated on my finger right there on the bus. And she was like, she dug inside my nail bed and she was able to grab this splinter and pulled it out. My fingernail died where that splinter was at.

    I don't know how it got in there. I don't know what happened. It was the most painful thing that I ever had done to my hand. But her digging in my nail bed wasn't painful at all. The pain was the splinter that was in there. The moment she pulled that out,

    all the pain went away. Like I didn't even feel her operating.

52. 51:36

    There was no numbing that was going on because that was the thing that was causing all the pain in my life. And I got to the point where I couldn't handle it no more.

    And we, at the same way, must be to the point where the moment anger happens in our life, the moment conflict happens in our life, we can't deal with it anymore. We've got to be quick about getting past it and handling it very, very quickly.

    So when conflict arises, deal with it as soon as possible. Don't ignore it.

    Don't sweep it under the rug. Don't pretend it's not there. Because the longer you wait, the harder reconciliation will be.

    Exactly. And to that scripture you read, the last part says don't give opportunity to the devil. And Satan loves unresolved conflict because it's the perfect way for him to get a foothold in the church.

53. 52:24

    And this is how disagreement becomes division. You know, when conflict arises, we need to deal with it as soon as possible. Like you said, don't ignore it. Don't sweep it under the rug. Because when you do ignore the conflict, that's an opportunity for the devil to get his foothold in and mess things up.

    And finally, the fourth responsibility that a Christian has when it comes to conflict is Christians have responsibility to regularly evaluate their relationships.

    Did you know that every time you worship Jesus, he wants you to reevaluate your relationships?

    Amen. Chapter 5, verses 23 says, therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.

    Jesus says, look, I don't want you to worship me before you go solve your problem with your friend.

54. 53:32

    Jesus is saying your relationship with me can't be separated from your relationship with others.

    Listen, God is not impressed with our outward worship if we're harboring a broken relationship on the inside that we're unwilling to address.

    That offering, it doesn't mean anything if I'm harboring this bitterness and this resentment on the inside. And that means every Sunday,

    every time we bow our head in prayer, every time we prepare to take the Lord's Supper, every time we worship,

    every time we do this, we need to ask the questions. Is there somebody I need to forgive? Is there somebody I need to call? Is there somebody I need to apologize to?

    And that's, you know, when Samuel said to Saul that to obey is better than sacrifice, what he meant by that is God is not impressed with our religious activity that substitutes for obedience. He doesn't want that offering if we've got a disobedient heart on the inside.

55. 54:42

    Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is some encouraging thing for us because as we go through our life, conflict can be redeemed. God is the God of second chances. He's the God that says conflict is there to make us better sometimes.

    And at first glance, you know, we may have the knee jerk reaction to step back and not conflict and not be in conflict with someone. But look at what happens as we read back to verse 39 to 41. One, Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.

    Paul chose Silas and they left after being entrusted by the brothers and the grace of the Lord. And he was traveling through Syria and Sicilia and he was strengthening the churches.

    Paul and Barnabas go their separate ways. But Luke doesn't end the story with just these two men quitting. He ends with now two different teams going out from each other and serving and multiplying their discipleship.

56. 55:37

    Not because they're mad at each other. And I'm going to go over here and start another church because I don't like the color of the robe that you've got on.

    And Paul, you're not doing these things right. So I'm gonna go over here. No, they realized that the conflict they had, they wouldn't be compatible in ministry. And so they've got to go and they've got to multiply their ministry elsewhere.

    The enemy, Satan wanted to come in and cause division and both of them to go home and not do anything. But instead, God said, you know, I'm going to create two new teams.

    They're going to go and do more than what we could have done together, more than what they could have done. They just stayed together.

    And so we need to take our conflict, not always say that, how is this a good thing, but ask ourselves, how are we producing what God has designed for us to do through this conflict?

57. 56:25

    So, you know, the point should be always to pursue peace. Conflict does happen. Do everything we can to reconcile it as quickly as we possibly can.

    Stay faithful to the Lord and God will use us as we begin to go through our life. So last thing I want to say here, Brett, is God restored the relationship between Paul and Mark. And if he can restore that relationship, what is it that he can restore in your life as well?

    Conflict's going to happen, but how do we turn that conflict over to the Lord? Exactly.

    And the last thing I want to say about it is, you know, the greatest conflict in history wasn't between Paul and Barnabas. It was between a holy God and sinful humanity. We rebelled against him. We deserve judgment. But instead of leaving us in our sin, God pursued us.

    And Jesus came and he lived a life we couldn't live.

58. 57:21

    He died the death that we deserve. And he rose again so that we could be reconciled to God. And Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 that God has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

    So, James, how can we refuse to pursue reconciliation with one another when God has reconciled himself to us through Jesus and has called us to the ministry of reconciliation?

    And so we need to keep that in mind as we live our Christian life. Listen, life is too short. The gospel is too precious to let bitterness have the final word. Absolutely.

    I lived in bitterness for a long time. I was sharing this this last week with a friend or a counselee of ours of mine. And I said, you know, I lived in bitterness for two years when my mom left my dad.

59. 58:16

    It was overtaking every part of my life, my attitude, my conversation with others.

    And until I began to deal with that attitude and that anger, that bitterness, the Lord wasn't going to use me. And he wasn't using me until I began to get over that. Took me a long time to forgive my mom. But it was a difficult road. And I could have stayed in that.

    And that's what Satan wanted me to do. He wanted me to stay in that bitterness. He didn't want me to get over that.

    And he wanted me to always be living in that so that I wouldn't have a relationship with the Lord the proper way. And I wouldn't have a relationship with my family the proper way. And so God desires for us to live peaceably with all men.

    And I pray that that's what we do. And so thanks for tuning in today.

60. 59:04

    Looking forward to our season coming up. It's going to be a great one. Make sure you subscribe and like our podcast. Go by, share this with somebody. If you want to check out my newest book, it's all available on Amazon. And it'll be a great read for you. Until next time,

    to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing.

    And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the 4-Freedom Podcast.

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