Psalm 1 23 says, we turn our eyes to the Lord until he shows us his mercy. Hebrews 12 says, we fix our eyes on Jesus. He's the author and finisher of our faith. We actually believe that around here at each of our sites right now. The worship has been so powerful and so beautiful, but I need y'all to know something. The words we have sung are absolutely true. Does anyone else believe that today? Because that's why we're here. And if you don't believe yet, I want you to know that when you turn to him, that's when things change. So let me pray for us and we'll keep moving. Father, we come before you. Now. We are grateful for your mercy. We're grateful for your presence. We're grateful that the story we tell is actually true. That this isn't us going through the motions, that this has power to change our lives right now. That you are still up to something in each of our lives right now. So we're asking as we bring our story into your story, that you would speak to us today through the words of your son, Jesus, through the words of those who have gone before us. God, please, we ask this now in His name, the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright, Fenton, mid Rivers, grants Trail here at home. As you're sitting down, before you sit down, after you sit down, could we please thank all of these worship leaders and musicians for how they've led us so far today? So thank you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay. So, um, there's an author, a business writer. His name is Daniel Pink. Uh, he wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, I wanna say three years ago, uh, bestselling author. And, and he said something that I thought was real interesting. He said this no regrets approach to life. You're familiar with that? It's like, no regrets. Which by the way, I totally appreciate the heart of that, like that go for it mentality. But he suggests that's not exactly a great blueprint for life. Interestingly enough, I I, well, especially like if you don't even know how to spell regrets, like if you've seen those kind of tattoos, that's a, that's a thing. I'm sorry. Be careful out there if you go into it. Yeah. So, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. He surveyed over 16,000 people who gave him stories of their own personal sense of regret over 105 different countries. I mean, that'd be some pick me up reading, don't you think? But what he noticed was that not everybody was hobbled by their regrets. Not everybody was destroyed by their regrets. There were actually people who used that moment to pivot. They, it's like they learned from their regrets. He is suggesting as awful as regrets are. And can we admit that regrets are awful? Quick show of hands. Anybody ever had a regret in their life? If only I had, if only I hadn't. Why did I say that? Why didn't I speak up? Why did I do, why did, uh, but what he says is, it can be useful if we learn from those regrets. If we pivot from those regrets. And you know what? I agree with him that there, there's something there for us to learn. We don't wanna keep going down the same path. Like if there's a pattern of behavior, if there's, if there's something that we're doing, we gotta turn away from that. If there's what the Bible would call sin, sin always leads to regret. But if there's a pattern of sin, you turn away from that and you turn back. Here, we go to Jesus, right? But you see, for us to move forward, for us to live this life, it isn't just, oh, I learned from my regrets. If we're gonna move forward, I, I don't think we can do this without the grace of God. You remember a couple of weeks ago when I said that God is still in the business of breaking chains. And some of you were like, Ooh, yeah. Amen. Preach it, brother. Remember that? I don't think anybody did that. But you, you know what I'm saying? This is what I'm talking about. God is still in the business of helping us to break free from a past that we can't change. So what do we do? We drag the real stuff of life like our lives. We drag it into his presence. What did the song just say into the light of his glory and grace? Man, we can't live without his grace. You see, grace is when things are healed. Grace is when life takes off. Grace is when we can begin to move forward. Grace changes everything. Now, I know I'm moving real fast and I'll slow down, but I'm about to tell you a story. And that story is gonna span decades. And, um, there'll be three principle characters. I'll tell you who all three of 'em are. You'll know as they're coming. Uh, but it's a story of opportunities and missed opportunities of victories and flat out failures. A boatload of regrets, a fight that shatters a friendship, forgiveness, healing, second chances, and the surprise ending, it's a pretty cool story. Won't make a lick of sense without the grace of God. So here's the deal. If in the coming minutes all we do is learn a little bit about some folks that lived 2000 years ago, I'm gonna count that as a massive fail. You don't need a history lesson today. What you need to know is can the word of God still move into your life today? So I'm asking you to bring the real you into the story today. So it is promotion weekend. Welcome middle schoolers. Cool, cool, cool. I'm gonna say this to all teenagers today. I see you. I can't even imagine what life looks like through your eyes. I can't even imagine some of the anxieties and pressures that you deal with trying to say, well, what's the world gonna look like 40 years from now? I can't even imagine that you're gonna, you're gonna hear more about that in just a minute. 20 somethings. You're feeling a sense that God's calling you into the story. Are you ready? 30 somethings? You're building a career, uh, 60 and 70 somethings. You're on the backside of a career. 40 somethings. You're just trying to keep up with the schedule and keep the, the, the recitals from the concerts, from the games. And, you know, you're trying to make all of those things 50 somethings. You're blowing it going, but it feels way different than it did in your thirties. Are y'all ready? Every one of you got is calling you into the story. We're gonna bring the real us into the light of his glory and grace and watch what happens. So here we go. We'll pick up the story just a little bit after the resurrection of Jesus. Uh, it's weeks after the resurrection, um, Peter, one of his disciples now preaches the sermon of a, of a lifetime in the temple complex to thousands of people. And thousands of people turn to Jesus. They actually accept him as the resurrected son of God. This is when the church explodes into existence. I mean, it immediately becomes a mega church. There are thousands of people now. They are gathering together. They're trying to take care of each other, and they're also trying to proclaim the word of God as they tell people the story of Jesus. And we read this in Acts chapter four. 'cause the book of Acts, we're gonna go back to it again and again. This tells the story of the early church. God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all, that there were no needy persons among them. There was something moving so powerfully through them. There was such gratitude that was going on that they made sure they were taken care of. Everybody, people were investing in the church, were giving money to the church to take care of people and to proclaim the gospel from the very beginning. People invested in the local church to get things done. And then there is this fellow Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. So that's kind of his nickname, Barnabas. He sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostle's feet. Now, some of us would almost call this like a gifting kind. It's like, Hey, you know, not money, but I've got this or I've got this. And can, can we give that to the kingdom? And that's what happened. And, and, and it was so outrageously generous. But this was just one example. This happens all the time in scripture where people are investing in the kingdom of God. They're doing this to, to proclaim the name of Jesus. You see, they're, they're treating their possessions as if they were a gift from God. I mean, that's how your heart grows, like bigger. That's what protects your heart from getting too, like, hooked into some of the things that we get hooked into. Now, if that throws you, this is what the Bible says about how we treat our possessions. It's all a gift. And now we share what we can. We enjoy what we do. We, we we're grateful for how we make money, but then we share and we invest in the kingdom of God. But I need you to know, didn't just encourage the church. I think it encouraged Barnabas. You see, if you read the rest of the New Testament, this particular fellow is drawn deeper and deeper into the story. He gets a deeper and deeper sense of God's place for him in the story. And it's, there's like, there's legacy and there's meaning and there's purpose. And it's like, whew. He gets to be a part of it. Now, everybody listen to me, y'all listening, this is not a message on giving. So for those of you who are at home, put the remote down. Just that's not where we're going today. I'm not even now going to suggest to you that, well, if you'll give to this ministry, you're gonna win the lottery on Tuesday. I can't say that. I won't say that. The Bible doesn't indicate that. I will tell you that if you look at the scriptures, the people who ignore this aspect of life with God are missing out on something. I mean, they're the ones that are missing out. They're missing out on this, this sense of joy and satisfaction. And wow, I am in it. If you look around and you see p people around you and you're like, y'all just seem like there's a, there's a, like something's alive, there's a spark. There's something where you know that, you know that you're in the game. It might just be that you see, God is calling us if we have accepted His grace to do more than observe. We get in and we invest. But it's not just money. It's our, it's our time. It's our talents, it's our wisdom. It's our, uh, experience, our, our connections in the community. It's everything. Hey, how do we do this together? And I want you to know, that's why we keep inviting people at every level to, to get involved. And it's why I am absolutely humbled and grateful for the generosity of so many of you. You see, it happens on a regular basis around here, but it also happens in those unique moments like when a tornado ravages parts of our city. Now, we've talked about this, but lemme just share a couple of things with you. Uh, there were, there were folks, the, the, the, the weekend that the tornadoes hit, that tornado hit downtown. There, there were people with chainsaws within hours carving paths for people to, to, to get to their homes and to get back to their businesses. There are people who since then have been volunteering again and again and again. I hear stories after each of our services of people who are going, Hey, we're there. This is what's going on. And I want you to know this is going to take a while. This is not going away soon. And for those of you who are just looking at it through the lens of a maybe a news story, it's not telling the story. It is not telling the story. We're gonna try to help you see some of that in the coming weeks. This is gonna take a while. We're partnering even now, these cleanup efforts with some of our, uh, folks that we work with, uh, throughout the area. Like Restore St. Louis, like love the loo, like mission, STL, uh, uh, the, the, the, the Tabernacle Community and Development Corporation. That's, that's Pastor Andre's, uh, organization. All of these things, we're working together with them. But I want you to know, talking with our outreach team, the organization that is in the area that was hit the hardest is Love the Loo. Now we're working with a bunch of organizations, but Love the Loo after a period of time came to us and said, our team is spent like, there's so much for us to do. Would you help us? Would you cover like, coordinating and leading this food distribution thing? 'cause that's not even what we're made for. Would you help us with that? And so for like eight, nine solid days, I mean all day our leadership staff and volunteers came down and coordinated hundreds of people coming in, not just from our church but from other churches, from other organizations, from people who don't even go to a church who were saying, can I help? And then the love the loose staff was able to get out into the community and do what they do with their neighbors. This isn't going away anytime soon. I will tell you that in an unsolicited, like it was just on a, I think it was Friday, maybe Thursday or Friday, I got this from a, a local community leader who showed this video. Now, just so you know, they didn't know I was gonna talk about this. This is Love the loo inside it. And this is what the note said. I can't begin to tell you the blessing that your volunteers and staff have been over the past two weeks, but I thought you might like to see a glimpse of what they're doing. So it's churches of all sizes. It's organizations, organizations, local and global. It's the big C church trying to figure it out. Gang, we're going to keep trying to help organize and get efficient at this and be effective at this. We're learning as we go. But there are steps that we can take. I'm gonna give you two. The first is just like take out your phone and you might as well leave it out 'cause you're gonna use it in a few minutes. But text outreach to 4 8 0 9 9 and you'll now be, uh, subscribed to, uh, to our, our our outreach. Newsflash, this situation is changing almost daily. If you want to know how things are going, this is the best way we will keep you updated. And then the second one is a link that you can go to the Crossing God church slash disaster Relief. And you'll see there are links, there are ways that you can get involved, including how you can continue to give to this disaster relief fund. Because I'll say it one more time. I don't think this is going away anytime soon. And we are going to come alongside those in need. And I just wanted to say thank you. Y'all are so generous. Y'all are so, so ready to step into those moments. I think you would make someone like Barnabas grin because you are giving honor to the same Jesus he worshiped. You are proclaiming the same Jesus that he proclaimed. And speaking of proclaiming, let's get to the second character in the story. He's a fellow that you know, you recognize him. He's famous. He wrote a whole bunch of the New Testament. He's got schools and churches named for him all over the world. It's the Apostle Paul. Now, you may know this, we're gonna do the deep dive on Paul in a couple of weeks, but Paul started off as an enemy of Christianity. Just take his word for it. Uh, he says, later in the Book of Acts, I put many of the Lord's people in prison. And when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. When those of us who were in charge we're talking about the death penalty. I voted yes, Paul is saying, I have blood on my hands. But then there's this once and forever moment where he's confronted by the resurrected Jesus. And now he believes the trajectory of this man's life changes instantly. We'll talk about this, but this enemy of Christianity is now one of them. But nobody's buying it. Can you blame them? This is what it says. Uh, Christians were all afraid of him not believing that he really was a disciple. And here it is. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the Apostles Barnabas. He's this encourager, he's this bridge builder. He's the one that takes a risk to go to this infamous pole and says, I'll take you to the apostles. I'll come on. I know where they are, I'll connect you. And we read later that he takes Paul to Peter and James, who was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James, who's the half brother of Jesus through Mary and Joseph. I know, but it's in the gospels. Guys, you need to listen to his story. And Paul is now cautiously invited in. He's like, okay, okay. This must be real if you keep reading. He's not on the main stage now for years. He's off the radar. He's preaching Jesus, but he's not on the main stage. The kingdom of God is still growing, particularly in these urban centers. One of 'em is like in Antioch, which is north of Jerusalem. Think of it as southern, uh, southern Turkey, right on the border of Syria. That's where Antioch was. Huge church. So much going on the Barnabas. Oh, by the way, Barnabas was more than likely older than Paul. He was certainly a believer longer than Paul, which means in some ways he's Paul's mentor. Barnabas sees all of this action and goes, I need to go get Paul. He needs to be on the main stage. He walks a hundred miles on foot in one direction to get Paul and say, you gotta come with me. I want you here a part of this for a year. They both preach at Antioch. The church continues to grow. So much so that when Jerusalem goes through its own natural disaster, they have a famine going on. They collect money, they take the money down to Jerusalem. It's the two of them. And then we read this. Once they're finished, it says that they return from Jerusalem taking with him. John also called Mark. We're just gonna call him John Mark. And that's the third character. His mom is Mary. Not that Mary, she's the Mary that we've talked about in recent days. She had a big house in Jerusalem. Apparently she had an upper room where the church would gather right after the resurrection when it wasn't that big. Some people put this together and go, probably the same upper room that Jesus went to for the last supper. We don't know that for sure, but a lot of people connect those dots. And then there's this strange, strange story. So by the way, if that's true and that's happening in his house, that means John Mark probably knew Jesus like from a young age. Think about that. There's a weird story on the night that Jesus is arrested. They're in the garden of Gethsemane. And uh, and you know, the, the, the mob comes and they grab him and the the disciples all scatter. There's a really interesting story in one of the gospels where there's a young man, probably a teenager, if you look at the word there. He's following along from a distance. It's late at night. How does he even know they're there? I don't know. Maybe they left his house. He's wearing a linen cloth robe. He's there watching all of the action from a distance, just trying to kind of keep up the mob. Comes across him in the garden, grab him, they wanna arrest him. He says this wiry teenager. And he squirms out of their hands, leaves them with just the Lenin cloth robe and it says, and then he ran naked through the woods. That's in your Bibles people. It's the oddest, weirdest story. There are some, and we'll come back to this at the end, who wonder well could have that, could that have been John Mark? All I know is that when I look at this young man, what I see is a guy who volunteered for things, gets involved, maybe gets in over his head. Anybody ever done that before? But he sensed a calling, I think, on his life, even when he was young. How many of you cross sites? How many of you are young? Go ahead, raise your hand. Not young at heart guys. Not younger than the guy. Two rows in front of you. You're young here. Here's one way to tell, um, like when you're scrolling on, on, on your social media or maybe just in the internet in general. Now, if you don't know anything about what I just said, then you are officially not young, okay? But if you're scrolling on your socials or maybe the internet and you come across the word brain rot, do you know what the word brain rot means? Some of you do, some of you don't. See if you can take a crack at defining brain rot. And here's a hint, if you are around someone who is under the age of say 20, 25, let them do all the talking. Okay? But what is brain rock? Go ahead. Talk to each other real quickly. Okay. All right. Some of you were just taking a wild guess, weren't you? Yeah. So, so here's the thing. Lemme let me help you with this. First of all, it's not a new phrase. It goes all the way back to Henry David Thoreau in the 18 hundreds. Oh yeah, yeah. On in, in his book Walden, he writes about people suffering from brain rot because they, they only want simple ideas, not complex ones. Yeah. So this isn't a new thing, but in the last 15 years or so, something began to happen where people used, used it to describe kind of like if you've been scrolling through content that really just doesn't matter too much for a period of time. It was sort of a, a, a humorous way of kind of goofing on yourself and saying, ah, yeah, I think I'm probably on internet overload. I have brain Ron. But then something happened with Gen Z and, and, and Gen A where it became something else. It was, it was this thing where it was a really specific way to escape, to escape the pressures of what kids go through, like with, you know, school families that aren't getting along. Bullies, headlines, anxiety. I mean, I could go on. And it became a way to just kind of have some fun. It was silly. It was absurd. But then it kind of ha it began, especially on TikTok, it began to kind of develop its own language where these kids could talk to each other and like, what you're looking at now, these absurd images, and then they become memes and then all sorts of things. Like this is a particular vein. It's called Italian brain rot. Yeah, it gets really specialized. But here's the thing, here's the thing. It became a way for kids of a certain age to like bond and connect with each other. And it was sort of this inside joke and a funny way to just sort of communicate. I'm also telling you it's an amazingly creative way for them to, that they're mixing and remixing and creating content. It's, it's, it's a thing. And you're going, well, so what? So what? Why are we talking about that? Well, lemme just help you with a couple of things. First of all, if you're not young, don't just roll your eyes at these things. Don't just stand there like some cranky oldster and shake your fist. You Kids are wasting your time. You should be learning how to Change the oil in your car. You know? No, don't do that. Don't do that. Ask curious questions. How come you guys did what you do? Tell me how you did that. What is that? Not to push in here. Please, please, please. You don't need me to tell you this, parents, you already know this, but please now, since you've learned that there's a language, don't go learn the language just so that you can press in on your kids. Son, be honest with me. Do you think, do you think I have Riz, I don't wanna be chuy about it or anything? I mean, only in Ohio, am I right sc No, don't do any of that. Don't do any of that. Just ask curious questions. How come you're doing what you're doing? Now, let me just say to those of you of an age where this matters, like you're in it. Cool, I get it. But curate your feed. That algorithm on TikTok is for real. It, it is. Just pay attention to, you know, uh, FYP and, and you know, TikTok and you're all just pay attention to what's coming to you. You're in charge more than you think you are. If something takes you down a road, opt out, you're in charge. But the fact that you're doing this, the fact that you want to escape the fact that you're saying, man, I just need to hang out with my friends. I get it, I get it, I get it. But let me just say this to you. We sang a song earlier that said you were made for more have fun. I think some of these memes are clever, they're hilarious, but God has made you for more than escape. God has made you for God doesn't even just want you to survive this world. God made you to change this world. I'm telling you, you young people who have like such amazing creativity and the stuff that you're doing and creating, I'm telling you right now, God is calling you into the game right now. Don't you let some not young person tell you? Well, you gotta wait, you gotta wait, you gotta wait. I love the way the voice translation renders the Hebrew at the very beginning when God is calling, uh, Jeremiah into the game. And, and Jeremiah goes, Uhuh, I'm too young. And chapter one, it says, don't use your youth as an excuse. You can and will say what I give you to say you can and do what I give you to do and you'll not be alone. I am with you and I will protect you. I just want you to know, even if you're of a certain age, God is saying, come on, help me make a difference. And he doesn't need your help, but he's giving you this beautiful opportunity. John Mark was somebody who just would put his hand up and go, well, I'll get involved. I don't know. And yeah, he got in over his head. In fact, lemme just show you how he got in over his head. Uh, the, this, this first missionary trip with, um, with, uh, Paul and Barnabas, it takes place and they leave and they go, they start from Antioch and they go to where Barnabas is from. They go to Cyprus and they work their way through Cyprus. And it was a difficult trip. It was hard, probably harder than John Mark thought it was gonna be. And then they cross the, the Mediterranean Sea and they get to a place called Perga. And this whole region is called Paraphilia. And don't even worry about that. It's gonna come up in 90 seconds. So I'm just giving you that. But it's right here. And we don't get any, uh, we don't get any more details. The guy who's chronicling all of this says, yeah, and it's right here that John Mark left us. He goes home. I mean, the thing's just getting started. And he goes home. Was he homesick? Was he like really sick? We don't know. Was it the prospect of climbing those mountains that they were now about to climb as they went deeper into Turkey? We don't know, but he's gone. He left. And Paul is ticked. I mean, he's so aggravated. I think Barnabas was embarrassed. I think they're all full of regret. I think Paul's regretting bringing this kid. I think Barnabas is regretting suggesting his cousin come along. And at some point, I don't know when, at some point, maybe it was on the ship, maybe it was once he got home, maybe it was years later, I don't know. But I can make the case that John Mark regretted making that decision that he said, man, I could have been mentored by these Hall of Famers. What was I thinking one more time? Anybody ever had a regret? Anybody ever said, man, I wish I hadn't said this. I wish I hadn't done that. I wish I had stepped in. There was a blown opportunity. There was a Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. I asked you to keep your phones out. We're gonna use the app now, if you're new here, uh, you can get the app at any app store where you get your stuff. Uh, but I'm gonna ask you if you would to help us, we're gonna do one of those mass confessions. Now, we'll come back to it in a minute. Like, what is that one regret that still follows you around? Let's just go ahead and confess this out. No specifics, like no names, right? But what's that one? What's that one that like, it just taps you on the shoulder like, Hey, I'm still here. If you wanna put it positively, what is the one regret that you want God to heal? Help us with that. We'll come back to it. But while you're helping us, uh, Paul and B Barnabas finish out this, this missionary trip, it's amazing, it's difficult, you know, it takes up a huge chunk of the book of Acts. They head back to Antioch. They need to rest. They rest, they take a long time to rest. They go and do some stuff in Jerusalem. So some time passes, but eventually Paul says we should get the band back together. Let, let's go back to this, all the churches that we, that we co-founded. And sure enough, well, right about the time the band gets back together, it breaks up why Ax tells us why Barnabas wanted to take John also called Mark with him. But Paul did not think it wise to take him. And because he had, because he had deserted them in paraphilia. So there you go. You see, they had a real sharp disagreement here. And I want you to know, uh, the English fails to really capture this. 'cause these guys in, and we won't get into Greek verb tenses, but they are both intensely insisting their own way. Oh, yes, he is going, oh, no, he's not. Oh, yes he is. Oh no, he's not. Who was right? I mean, you can kind of see Paul's point, can't you? The stakes are high. This is, this is telling the story of Jesus. The the mission is a big deal. Paul's focused on the mission and this kid deserted us. I'm not gonna trust him again. Barnabas is focused on the man and his potential. Yeah, but Paul, he needs a second chance. Now, this is me, strictly me reading into it a little bit, but if Barnabas was the mentor to Paul early on, and he was a little bit older, don't you think? Could you, couldn't you at least imagine that comes up? Paul, you were a bit of a handful in your early days, but they disagree. I mean, it's intense. In fact, it says that they have such a sharp disagreement, that word sharp, there is the word used for sharpening a weapon. You could cut the tension with a knife. 1 1, 1 writer puts it like this. Um, he says, one's judgment may go with Paul, but one's heart goes with Barnabas. That kind of says it, doesn't it? Like it makes sense logically. No, we can't. But my heart is like, oh man, we gotta, now you trend one way or the other. I'm not gonna ask you to commit in front of everybody else, but you either lean towards Barnabas or you lean towards Paul. I think they both had a point when Barnabas says, you know, we, we gotta give him a chance. When Paul says, listen, I would have to have major conversations with this kid. There'd have to be parameters. And I don't even know. I don't even know if I could trust him. I, I, I don't know that Barnabas would ag disagree with some of that. There's a Sri Lankan, uh, theologian named Aji Fernando, and he describes, uh, Barnabas's state of mind this way. He says, this is not blind hope, of course, but hope that comes outta the possibilities of grace. I love that phrase, the possibilities of grace. So now let me go back to people of a certain age. If you are a teenager, if you are a 20 something, if you're a 30 something thing and these days you sense that God is calling you into the game and, and you can't quite put your finger on what that is, I want to hear from you. Now, we have leaders that will, I'll, I'll connect you with, but I want to hear from you. I need to learn from you. Some of you're like, well, wait, I think we're missing it. I think there's something going on here. I don't know if you know this, Greg, but there's this thing, the spirit of God is moving in a certain way with my friends and with the church, or there's an opportunity here. I want to hear from you. Some of you're going, well, wait a minute, I don't even think I can do that, because don't you have to kind of have your, like all your questions answered and you gotta man, you just, you, you, you, you gotta like, have everything figured out before, before you step forward on something. No, we're learning as we go. There are some of you of a certain age that you stepped out to follow Jesus and you took a wrong turn and now you believe that's it. I blew it. That was my one shot. I'm stuck. You don't have to be. You see, if God's grace is real, then I want to talk to you. I, when I say I wanna talk to you, I really wanna talk to you about the possibilities of grace. I want to hear about your ideas, your creativity, what you are seeing in your world, your perspective. 'cause I'm not in that with you. I just want to hear from you and learn from you. So what does that mean? That means you come down and you talk to me. It means you dm me on Instagram as people who have been doing all weekend long. If you really want to go old school, you could email me, But I wanna hear from you. And here's the thing I wanna learn from you. I believe God is about to do something in our community through this generation. It's already happening. I'm talking with you guys who are in it. There is a spirit that is moving. The spirit is moving through. Let's do this and let me learn from you and let us connect you to other people who might not be young, and let's get stuff done. Turns out John Mark was not a bad risk for Barnabas to go back to him. It's a good call. Now, we don't know what happened because the writer of Acts stays with Paul. But when this thing splits up, Barnabas and John Mark go back to Cyprus and they preach the word of God. They preach who Jesus is. We don't know what happened there, but I gotta thank God worked through them. I know that God was working on Mark, John, mark because we get hints of it in the scriptures. Now, by the way, lemme just say this. To grow up, to mature in something takes time. Will you turn to the person next to you and say, be patient with me? It takes time. Yeah. Some of you're afraid to even look at the person around you. Listen to me, listen to me. Listen to me. You cannot microwave spiritual maturity. Now, I'm not saying that we don't have accountability. I'm not saying that we don't need to be making progress. I'm just saying it takes time. From the moment that John Mark bails on Paul, it's now been 15 years. 15 years. Paul is in prison for preaching. Jesus. He's in Rome. He's under house arrest really? So he's kind of in this rented house. He's not in one of the bad prisons, but he's still under chained. He's still under guard. And he writes a letter called Colossians. And at the end of that, he says, Hey, there's this one of my fellow prisoners. Aris star says hello. And then look who else says hello. You know Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, what? 15 years later. He's a part of the crew that now moves around with, with, with Paul. Apparently he grew up, maybe Paul did too. I hope Barnabas got to see that history tells us that about 62 ad that Barnabas was burned at the stake on Cyprus, his home island for preaching Jesus and his ashes were scattered on the sea. He never stopped preaching the gospel. Now it's years later, pulls back in prison for preaching. Jesus in Rome this time, he's in the infamous Mamertine prison. Some of you have been there. You've heard me talk about this before. It's a tough spot. It's an infamous prison. It's a cold hole in the ground, carved out a stone. When you're standing there and you read the last letter that Paul ever wrote, it's it's, we call it second Timothy. It kind of starts to make sense at the end. You feel the emotion. You can see, you can, you can just sense it. He says at one point to his protege, Hey, uh, bring my coat. You stand down there and you feel it. Bring, bring, bring back hope. Bring those scrolls of scripture. 'cause I wanna read them. Oh, do it quickly like he senses. This is it. Go read the last part of two Timothy and you'll feel the urgency. He says, I fought the good fight and kept the faith. I finished the race. He's handing this off to a new generation, and he's almost alone. Luke is there with him, but he's almost alone. I mean, you can, you can hear it. And then these, which are almost the last words that Paul writes in the New Testament, two Timothy chapter four, get mark and bring him with you because he is helpful to me in my ministry. How about that? Way to go, mark, you talk about a comeback, go get Mark. I trust him. Go get Mark. He's he's good for me. Now, how did that happen? It didn't happen because, uh, he just gutted it out and just said, by golly, I'm gonna grow up. No, it happened because he faced his regrets. He owned his regrets, and he leaned into the one who could help him with those regrets. If you asked John Mark, he would tell you it's the grace of Jesus that healed him and pulled him forward. I wanna say this very clearly. If you want to know what it's like to do life with God, it is not religion. It is not trying to impress God with your good works. It isn't trying to outrun your bad memories. It is coming to the foot of the cross and saying, Jesus, I got nothing. I need you. I need you. Will you forgive me? Will you lead me? Will your grace now heal me? Will you begin to help me with these regrets? You see, this is how you own your regrets without being destroyed by your regrets. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus. So nobody gets out of the, the story unscathed, right? We, we've all got regrets. And to go through an exercise like this and just say, Ooh, we're just gonna admit the regrets. No, We're gonna say this out loud against the context of a God who heals us. Psalm one 30 out of the depths, I cry to you, Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you kept a record of my sins, Lord, who could stand, but with you, there is forgiveness so that we can with reverence serve you. I wait for the Lord. My whole being waits and in his word I put my hope for with the Lord is unfailing love. And with him is full redemption. One John one, nine says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and and will forgive us our sins and purifies from all unrighteousness. Romans eight says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ's Jesus. Some of you're looking at this and you're like, man, I didn't, I didn't even, I didn't even participate. But some of those look real familiar Because Of who Jesus is. Psalm 1 0 3 says, as far as the east from the west so far, has he removed our transgressions From us? Hi, I wanna learn from my regrets. I wanna own them, but God, please help us to move past them, heal us. Romans 15 says, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of us look at a list like that, and when we say, whoa, okay, like I don't even know everything on those lists is, is, is is a sin. Like I saw one that was like, I missed the free throw. I forgot the birthday. That's human, right? What do you do with that? You go back to the same God who heals. You go back to what we were singing earlier. You go back to your identity in Christ. Galatians says that those of you who are in Christ, you are sons and daughters of God. You go back to that again and again and again. What did we sing? I am who I am because the I am says who I am. That's your identity, and you go back to it again and again and again. If you think sometimes these regrets and these memories in my heart that it's just like, whoop, yep, done. No, I run back to the cross again and again and he reminds me, I have got you. You are who I say you are. You don't think John Mark had to do that again and again. By the way, uh, Paul didn't even see the greatest comeback. He didn't even see his greatest accomplishment. You remember when I said that, that you remember that weird story, the kid in the guard of Gethsemane and all of that. Guys, that was the story of a kid running naked through the woods. Have you already forgotten that? Do you know where that story is found? It's only found in one gospel. It's in the gospel of Mark. That's why some people think it might have been Mark who was anonymously talking about himself. See, here's what you may not know. Mark also hung out with Peter like he's in Rome with Peter. Now, Peter's awaiting his trial. Peter and Peter tells him this is what it's like being a disciple. And it's Mark who writes this exciting gospel down that's fast moving and intense. It's Mark that is putting all of this together. Who knew when this story began that it would be Mark that we go back to every time you read his gospel? You are, you are, you are experiencing the legacy of this kid who blew it early on. I don't know what God's in store got in store for you. I, I don't, I don't know, but I know he's calling you into something. So bring your regrets, bring your fears, bring your unhealed wounds. Bring your stuff into the light and glory of his grace and let's see what happens. He's Jesus the Christ son of God. That's how Mark starts his gospel. If you have questions about that, let's talk. We have pastors and staff and volunteers who are willing to pray with you right now. It's been happening all weekend long. If you're saying, I think I wanna go public with my faith, this whole baptism thing that we're leading up to, I, I, I'd like to talk to somebody about that, then let's have that conversation now. We wanna make sure that you understand what it is and what it isn't. Because it will always, always, always come back to who Jesus is. It's not religion, it's relationship. But if you're ready, let, let, let's talk. Somebody said last week, I heard somebody say, uh, do I have to get baptized? No, you get to, for some of you, there is a relationship that has flat out fallen apart part, and you're wondering, are there possibilities of grace there? My honest answer is, I don't know what it looks like, but I know that God has a thought for you. I'm not saying you go all the way back to the way things used to be. I'm not saying that this isn't gonna take time. I'm not saying that there aren't gonna be parameters and accountability, there are consequences for behavior. All of that is true. But can we continue to consider the possibilities of grace in our life? I say, yes. Nobody gets out unscathed. We all have regrets, but we don't have to be trapped in them. So drag your stuff into his presence, his light, his glory, and his grace, and let's see what happens. I think some of you are about due for a comeback. Some of you are ready for a second chance, but it will only be Jesus. It will only be His grace. So as you leave here now remember that and ask this question, God, what's the one thing the next step, just the next step you want me to take this day, this week, go now in the peace and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.