Walking with the Lord doesn't happen in a straight line very often. That was the opening line of Sunday's message at The River Church, and everything that followed in Acts 15 and 16 proved it. Plans change. People leave. Doors close. And through all of it, the claim the message kept returning to is this: change plans do not mean that God has stopped leading us. Sometimes the change is the leading of the Holy Spirit.
When the Road Gets Complicated Because of People
Acts 15:36 opens with a good idea. Paul says to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord. Barnabas agrees — and wants to bring John Mark. Paul refuses. Back in Acts 13, Mark had gone out on that first missionary journey and then left them in Pamphylia and returned to Jerusalem. Luke never tells us why. But Paul did not see it as a small thing. He saw someone who withdrew from the work of Jesus, and he had to be asking himself what happens if Mark does it again when opposition comes, when persecution comes.
Barnabas saw something else. Colossians 4:10 tells us Mark was his cousin, so there may be family in this — but Barnabas was also the man known as the son of encouragement, the one who took Paul in when everybody else was scared of him. Now he's doing for Mark exactly what he once did for Paul.
Luke's word for the result is a sharp disagreement. Not a mild one. The message paused there to make a point about the Bible itself: if these were made-up stories, the men writing them would have made themselves look far better than this. Instead, the Bible doesn't pretend that spirit filled people never disagree or that leaders never have tension. And the takeaway wasn't that conflict is good — it was that sometimes the road gets complicated not through prison or persecution or an attack of the enemy, but because two people who both love God and both care about the mission see the same situation differently.
The Kid Who Dropped His Potato Sack
The illustration came from a field day at Southside Elementary. Kids in groups of five, sacks on their feet, hopping to the fence and back, teammates screaming for each other regardless of whether they even like each other, because they want to win. A ten-year-old named Ezekiel took the last leg and finished first.
But other kids tripped, fell on their face, jumped out of their sack — and quit. And in a relay, when one kid quits, every kid behind them loses their turn. That, the message suggested, is a little bit of what John Mark did. Paul and Barnabas could have taken anybody from the church at Antioch. They chose Mark, and he walked away. In the kingdom of God, if one person quits, it can hurt the whole body of Christ.
Then came the turn. Some of us are Paul — burned, remembering, unwilling to trust that person again. Some of us are Barnabas, still seeing God at work in someone who failed. And some of us are Mark, carrying a chapter we'd love to rewrite. Acts 15 is not the end of Mark's story. Near the end of Paul's life he writes in 2 Timothy 4:11, get Mark, bring him with you, for he is very useful to me in ministry. The same man Paul refused to take is the man Paul asks for by name. A failure in one season does not have to be the final word in your life.
Your Comfort Is Not the Gospel
Acts 16 introduces Timothy at Lystra — and Luke's first description of him isn't pastor or preacher or missionary. It's disciple. Before Timothy has a title, he's walking with Jesus faithfully. Before he's used publicly, he has a private walk with Jesus. The application was direct: you cannot have a public ministry if you don't have a private relationship with Jesus.
Then Paul asks Timothy to do something genuinely painful, and the message did not soften it — no modern anesthesia, no recovery meds, an adult undergoing a procedure normally done on the eighth day of life. It wasn't required. It wouldn't grow him spiritually. It did one thing: it kept Jewish communities from fixating on Timothy's status instead of hearing about Jesus. Paul would never change the message, but he was willing to remove obstacles.
Which is where it got close to home. We can begin to treat our preferences as if they're biblical principles. Music style is a preference — and if the next generation begins to receive Jesus through a different style, we'll switch, and those of us already following Jesus can worship to our own music at home. Suit and tie or jeans is a preference. Bright sanctuary or dark sanctuary is a preference. The gospel is Jesus crucified for the forgiveness of sin, risen from the dead, and salvation for the one who believes and repents. Everything else gets laid down for the mission of building a house in Post Falls that lasts for generations.
Closed Roads and the Next Step
In Acts 16:6 Paul has momentum, a plan, and a new teammate — and the Holy Spirit forbids him to speak the word in Asia. Not modern Asia; the Roman province in what we'd call western Turkey, capital city Ephesus. Here's the detail worth holding onto: Paul would eventually spend nearly three years ministering in Ephesus. Sometimes when God says no, it's a never. Sometimes it's a not yet. Then they try Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus does not allow them — a reminder that the ascended Jesus is still leading his church. Paul doesn't argue, doesn't throw a fit, doesn't quit. He immediately goes another way.
The picture came from a hike to Roman Nose last summer with two sons, Gabe and Ezekiel. Music on, jokes going, and then a chain across the road and a sign: road closed, keep out — turn around and take Snow Pass. Thirty seconds from fun to frustration, no cell service, no idea what to do. They eventually found Snow Pass and made the hike. The lesson: the trail isn't closed because someone wants to ruin your day. It's closed because they can see something that you can't.
The redirection took Paul to Philippi. He had seen a man of Macedonia in the vision — and the first heart the Lord opened belonged to Lydia, a seller of purple goods from Thyatira. Sometimes God gives us enough direction to obey without giving us every detail. Paul didn't know about Lydia, or the slave girl, or the jailer's household, or the church he'd plant, or the letter we'd still be reading 2,000 years later. He knew the next step.
So does anyone reading this in a closed-door season. Sometimes his no is protection. Sometimes it's preparation. Sometimes it's simple redirection. And the only certain sign that God is finished using you is your last breath. Until then: take the next step with Jesus.