We have a wedding today, so we want to move things along. Kenny said it should be a fifteen-minute homily.
Fontaine already said I have bigger ears than Jeffrey, so I have a few verses I would like to read from the New Testament—all of them from the New Testament.
Starting in the letter to Philemon. Philemon—that is right before Hebrews.
We will look at Philemon 23-24.
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you,
as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers.
Then, going backwards to Colossians 4, beginning with verse 10:
Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you,
with Mark the cousin of Barnabas,
about whom you received instructions:
if he comes to you, welcome him.
And Jesus who is called Justus.
These are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God
who are of the circumcision.
They have proved to be a comfort to me.
Then, down to Colossians 4:14:
Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you.
One more Scripture: 2 Timothy 4, beginning with verse 9.
Be diligent to come to me quickly;
for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world,
and has departed for Thessalonica—
Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.
Only Luke is with me.
Get Mark and bring him with you,
for he is useful to me for ministry.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You again for letting us share the table of Your Son this morning. We tell You, Lord, that we love Him. We love Jesus Christ, and we thank You for all He has done for us.
Now we come to this time of the Word. We pray, Lord, that the Word would be light to our path—just light to us and encouragement. Lord, let it show us the things that can be. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This morning, I want to talk about these two fellows here, Demas and Mark. In a way, we have a living epitaph for both of them.
Now, do you guys know what an epitaph is? An epitaph is usually what is written on a gravestone. I think about that more since I am getting older.
You do not write what goes on your epitaph; someone else does. We embellish ourselves about things, but you have things such as “beloved father,” “loving mother,” and things like that.
In Hymn 46, they have John Newton’s epitaph. John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace,” and this is what people wrote about him:
John Newton, Clerk,
once an infidel and libertine,
a servant of slaves in Africa,
was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
preserved, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith
he had long labored to destroy.
That is quite an epitaph. I do not know what my epitaph would be. I hope it is not something like, “We were hoping for more.” Now, you are laughing, but that is something to think about, is it not? “He started off so bright…” Things like that.
When you are talking about epitaphs, that is the very end. Mark and Demas are not dead, but in a sense Paul is writing a spiritual epitaph for both of these men. One seems favorable, and one does not seem favorable.
As we are going on toward the Lord’s coming back, it is time to consider things like that. How does the Lord see us? Not in a guilty way, but in a way that says, “If the Lord were writing right now, what would it be?”
Now, in looking at these two young men—and when I say young men, I think of you guys here—some of you are not even twenty. None of you here are thirty, right?
Scott, you are close to forty, right? Brothers and sisters, that is a young man. When we are talking about Mark and Demas, we are not talking about teenagers.
When we talk about young people, especially in our assembly and at our conference about passing the torch, we are not talking only about twenty-year-olds. We are talking about people in their thirties and beginning their forties. Those are the young people. Those are the ones in line when the older ones pass on.
Mark and Demas were probably in their thirties, if not close to their forties. They had been with Paul for a while. Paul had about thirty years of experience as a gospel preacher and apostle, and 2 Timothy is his last letter. This is what he has to say about them.
They start out with some things in common. They are both servants. They are both, as Paul calls them, fellow workers with him in the gospel.
Yet both of them deserted Paul. We see it with Demas in 2 Timothy, but if we go back to Acts 13, we find that Mark deserted Paul too. They both have these things in common, but their ends are different.
That is really what counts: the end. How does the book end? It is not the first quarter that matters. You can start off all on fire, but it is how you end up in the fourth quarter.
Even with athletes, it is that fourth-quarter effort that wins or loses the game. The question is: How do you end?
Demas forsook Paul, but he was not alone in that. If you read all of 2 Timothy, it says that all Asia deserted Paul. It was a common thing at the end of Paul’s life, in that second imprisonment, for people to be deserting him.
Only Luke was with him. Yet in the end, Mark—though he had been a deserter at one time—was useful for ministry. The question is why these two had such different ends.
I am not going to stop with addressing just these two brothers, or what we would think of as younger people. Younger people are part of the church, but older people are part of the church too. Younger people are among those who are to hold the testimony, but they are to hold the testimony with us who are older.
So there is no saying, “This is a wash for us older folks. We can just sit here and relax.” But let us look at these younger men first. Let us look at Demas.
Philemon and Colossians were written during Paul’s first imprisonment. By that time, Christian churches had already been established throughout the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and even into Spain.
Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome was not as bad as his imprisonment in Philippi. In Acts 16, he was thrown into a dark jail, down at the bottom, after being beaten with rods. His feet were put in stocks, and yet he and Silas were singing hymns.
What was Rome like? It was not terrible in the same way. Paul had his own apartment. Read Acts 27-28. He could receive visitors, write letters, and think through what he was writing. The prison epistles came from that first imprisonment.
He was free to share the gospel. Visitors could come in, report what was happening in the churches, and receive letters from him in return. He could even share the gospel with the guards to whom he was chained.
At that time, Christianity was viewed as an alternative—a welcome alternative—to Roman paganism. Roman paganism had no morality and really no hope for the future. But the gospel taught morality, and it taught a hope that was in the future.
We could compare that to the middle 1960s and 1970s, just before and during the Jesus movement. If you are my age, you remember that Jesus Christ was an alternative.
That was the time when drugs were going on, the counterculture was growing, and all sorts of Eastern religious ideas were being brought in. But Jesus Christ was also an alternative during that time. There was an openness to Jesus and His teachings.
There were even rock-and-roll songs on the radio. Even on FM, because FM was the underground. Do you remember, “Jesus Is Just Alright with Me”? The Doobie Brothers sang that, and they were a San Francisco band.
Think about that—an openness to Christ in San Francisco, which you do not see today. But those things were going on.
The second imprisonment, which 2 Timothy describes, was different. It was harsher than the first, and it would eventually lead to Paul’s martyrdom. After that imprisonment, he was going to be beheaded.
Just a few years after the first imprisonment, Jesus Christ was not popular anymore. Nero blamed the Christians for burning Rome, and that began a series of persecutions of the early church. It continued until the 300s, when Constantine came into power.
That is much like today, where Christianity and Christians are not very highly thought of. This may be part of the reason Demas forsook Paul.
But Paul says in 2 Timothy 4 that Demas loved this present world. What does that mean? When we think of loving the world, we think of going whole hog into what the world is.
Did he covet what the world had? Did he covet the world’s goods? Did he covet the freedom that the world has—“I can go out and sin and do all these things”? I do not think the word here necessarily has to do with that.
Think of Elisha and Naaman in 2 Kings. Naaman was healed of leprosy and wanted to give Elisha clothing and gold. But Elisha said no. He had not done it for gain; the Lord had done it.
But Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, went after Naaman and thought, “We could have gotten at least a couple pairs of Levi’s.” He lied and said that two prophets had come and needed clothing and money. Gehazi received Naaman’s leprosy.
That was one kind of love of the world, but I do not think Demas had that kind of love of the world. I do not think 2 Timothy 4 carries the idea of apostasy, nor the same idea as 1 John 2:15-17—the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.
I think it was more like Lot’s experience. Lot was Abraham’s nephew, and he traveled with Abraham for a long time. Eventually their possessions became too great for them to remain together.
Abraham said, “Which way do you want to go? I will go the opposite way.” Lot chose the way where Sodom was because it looked good.
But the issue with Lot was not simply that he chose Sodom. It was that Lot lived a tolerated righteous life. Sodom was irreligious, worldly, and morally perverse. Yet Lot could live there and be tolerated.
Lot liked it because he was well regarded there. He was even in the gate. He lived there in the status quo, and it was okay with him because he was not a problem to the people. In turn, Lot tolerated the society in which he lived.
If Lot had not tolerated it, he would either have gotten out of there or spoken firmly and called for action: “You need to repent.” But you do not see that in Lot.
In 2 Peter 2:7-8, it says that his righteous soul was vexed. He saw what was happening around him and said, “This is not right,” but he did not make a move. He tolerated it, just as they tolerated him.
Even the Jews in the time of Christ tolerated the Romans, and the Romans tolerated them. The Romans were even involved in choosing who the high priest was. Think about that: toleration.
They tolerated each other even to the point of saying, “We have no king but Caesar.” I think this is what Paul meant by describing Demas as having loved this present world.
Demas was fleeing the persecution that comes when you stand. The first imprisonment was cool. Everything was all right. No one thought you were going to die. But the second imprisonment was not cool. It was not what he thought it would be like.
He was fleeing the consequences of the cross of Christ, which makes Christians enemies of this world. Paul’s stance was, “I will let you crucify me for who I am and Who I stand for in this world.” But that was not Demas’s stance.
A tolerated religion is only tolerated because we compromise. Demas forsook Paul. He deserted. That is a military word: he left his post. He would not stand and be counted.
He went to Thessalonica. In other words, he did what was right in his own eyes. He was serving Christ on his own terms. Is this the kind of Christianity that we live—serving Christ on our own terms, just as we want?
What about Mark? Mark grew up in Jerusalem. We know from Acts that his mother’s house was the place Peter came after the angel let him out of prison. Mark likely came from a family that was somewhat well-to-do.
He lived in Jerusalem at the time Christ lived and when the church was birthed at Pentecost. He saw all these things. It had to be a happening time: healings, bold sermons, miracles. It was exciting.
It was like the beginning of the charismatic movement. Remember when that began? Suddenly, people knew the power of God in a different way. They knew the Holy Spirit in a different way and expected things. That was what Mark lived in.
Yet Mark deserted Paul early in his service. It was during Paul’s first missionary journey in Acts 13. I think I said Acts 15 earlier, but it was Acts 13.
Most commentators think it was because things got too tough. When they went up from the coast into the mountains, there were thieves, dangers, people who wanted to rob them, shipwrecks, and people who wanted to kill them.
Mark had come out of all the excitement—everything going good—and suddenly he got a flat tire. You know what I mean? You do not have a cell phone, you have never used a jack, and the last gas station was thirty miles back. You are stuck.
The excitement was knocked out of him by the reality of what it is to serve the Lord. You think it is all miracles, healings, and exciting things. But there are other things.
Look at Paul’s life. Read Acts and consider all the things he faced. Look at our Lord’s life. Look at Peter’s life. Look at any of the prophets in the Old Testament. Look at Moses. Everybody loves Moses—yeah, right.
Mark got knocked out of the race. Paul would have said, “He forsook us,” just like Demas. He failed in his service.
But Mark was recovered. The question is: How was he recovered? You have to understand that it had nothing to do with what Mark had or who Mark was. He was just like Demas. It all has to do with God.
Mark went back home, probably to Jerusalem or its vicinity. When he got back home, his mother was there, some of the saints were there, and Peter was there.
Peter had been a person who was recovered. At Gethsemane he said, “I will never forsake You,” but he denied the Lord three times and went out and wept bitterly. He knew what it was like to fail, and to fail big time.
Peter ministered to Mark. How do I know this? What did Mark get from Peter? He got the Gospel. Most people believe that the Gospel of Mark is Peter’s account of what happened.
Mark was reintroduced to Jesus Christ in a way he had not seen Him before. He received the Gospel—not merely generic good news, but good news that affects your life.
If the Dodgers won last night, that might be good news. Not for Giants fans, but for some people. What are we having for lunch? That might be good news. But the Gospel is good news that has a great effect on your life.
That is what Mark had. He received good news that affected his life. It was not merely his rendition of who Jesus was or what Jesus did. It was Peter speaking to him and telling him.
The good news had a life-altering effect on Mark. He was given a new vision. We have four Gospels: Matthew presents Christ as King; Luke, as Man; John, as God; and Mark, as Servant.
Is that not where Mark failed? He received a new picture of what it means to be a servant.
How is Jesus described in Isaiah? “Behold, My Servant.” When you get into the later chapters of Isaiah, especially Isaiah 52-53, you see the Servant of the Lord.
What does it mean to be a servant? We see a suffering Servant. We see a Servant who suffers. Peter saw that in his Lord, even though he once said, “May this never happen to You.”
But the Lord said, in effect, “You do not know what you are talking about. Just watch. This is the way.” Christ had to suffer before entering into His glory. It was an idea that everyone seemed to miss.
Mark got it. He got it from Peter, and it was revealed to him in this way: a suffering Servant through whose suffering God is able to redeem humanity for Himself.
A servant does the will of another. Why did Mark leave? “This is too tough. What you are asking me to do is too hard.” But is that not what a servant does? He does the will of another.
Mark was saying, “I cannot do this. I will not do this.” But he came back and discovered the One who does the will of another.
Before his missionary journey, Mark had witnessed almost constant victory. But when he went out to serve God, he found out that we do not win every game. We win the pennant, but we do not win every game.
The 1954 Cleveland Indians won 111 out of 154 games, the highest winning percentage in the regular season. Then they lost the World Series in four games. It is the way you finish, right?
Mark had witnessed almost constant victory until that missionary journey, and now Peter laid out for him the full extent of what being a servant is. Peter did not merely say, “This is what a servant does.” He said, “Look at Jesus.”
“You want to see what service is? This is what I saw. This is Jesus. This is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is the full extent of what it means to be a servant.
If you look through the Gospel of Mark, you see demoniacs, Pharisees opposing Him, hardship, suffering, and all kinds of difficulties. You do not see that everything is victory.
Yet there is grace for hardship. Peter showed Mark the bigger picture. That was the thing Mark did not have sight of. He did not see the bigger picture.
We close ourselves in a little bubble of who we are, and if something touches us or affects us in difficult ways, we quit because we do not see the bigger picture. But there is a much bigger picture.
Peter was able to show Mark that it was for the redemption of humanity and for the building up of the church.
Then there was Barnabas. Barnabas went with Paul and stayed with Paul. Mark went home. Barnabas and Paul did not return to Jerusalem for about five years.
They left in Acts 13, returned to Antioch at the end of Acts 14, and then went to Jerusalem in Acts 15 because of the question: Should Gentile Christians be accepted, or must they keep the law?
Barnabas came back, and we read in Colossians that Mark was Barnabas’s cousin. Do you think Barnabas checked on his cousin when he got to Jerusalem? I do.
What do they call Barnabas? Barnabas was not his real name. His real name was Joseph. Why did they call him Barnabas? Because he encouraged.
Encouragement is not simply, “It is okay. You will get them next time.” Sometimes encouragement is giving you a kick in the backside. “Get up. Get up. Move. Let us go.”
Barnabas had encouraged Paul as well. When the disciples heard that something was happening in Antioch, they sent Barnabas to check it out. He saw the grace of God there, and the first thing he did was go look for Paul.
When Paul came to Jerusalem for the first time, who was the one man who befriended him? Barnabas. Barnabas knew Paul, and he knew that the Lord had something in Paul.
That is why it is so heartbreaking in Galatians when Paul says, “Even Barnabas” was carried away. But Barnabas was an encourager, and I think he went and looked for Mark.
I think he found Mark moping around, and I think Barnabas gave him what for. “Yes, you did desert us. But it is not the end.”
Barnabas took Mark back with him to Antioch. When they wanted to visit the churches again, Barnabas wanted to take Mark. Paul said, “No way he is going with us.”
That caused a split between Barnabas and Paul—not a split over doctrine, but over whether a deserter should be taken on the journey. Barnabas went one way with Mark, and Paul went another way with Silas.
What do you think happened with Mark and Barnabas? It is not written, but I think Barnabas discipled him as a servant.
I think he took him to places and said, “Yes, it is getting rough here. Let us pray. It is getting rough here. Let us read what the Word has to say about this.” I think Barnabas discipled Mark and would not let him go.
Joseph’s name means increaser—Barnabas’s real name. Mark was recovered.
At the very end, when Paul was in prison for the second time, the hardest imprisonment, who was he calling for? Mark. Why? Because he had been recovered by the grace and mercy of God.
God brought people into Mark’s life who did something with him and for him.
Is there any hope for Demas? These are living epitaphs, which means they are not written in stone. Is there hope? Yes. There is always hope with God.
You know Charles Dickens, the writer—not the Dickens who used to live here a long time ago. He wrote A Christmas Carol.
Scrooge was on the wrong path. He was miserly. His heart was small, and all he thought about was himself.
Jacob Marley warned him that providence was sending three spirits: the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Spirit of Christmas Present, and the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.
When the Spirit of Christmas Past took him back, Scrooge had been different. He had been happy, in love, dancing at Fezziwig’s. Then something changed. His love for business and for what he wanted to do made him smaller.
Then the third spirit came—the creepy one with the hood—and showed him his gravestone. It had “Ebenezer Scrooge,” but there was no epitaph.
Scrooge asked, “Do these things have to be?” Then he repented, and it changed his whole life.
It is the same for us, brothers and sisters. Nothing is written in stone. It all depends on our response to what God is doing in our lives.
If Mark had a Peter and a Barnabas, was there somebody for Demas? Nothing is written about Demas, but now I want to talk about us who are older.
Did Lot have a chance while living in Sodom? Did he ever get out? Why? Somebody prayed for him.
Abraham prayed: “If there are fifty righteous, will You destroy the city? What if there are forty? What if there are thirty?” Lot had an Abraham.
Brothers and sisters, this is the whole thing. We talk about a generation that is coming up as though our generation is finished—as though it has already been written about us and we are done.
But I do not think we pass the torch and let it go. I think we keep carrying it until we drop. The younger people see us carrying it, and they carry it with us. We never let it go.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all looking for the same hope. Different generations, but all looking for the same thing.
As older saints who have gone through things, are we ourselves being the helps that God uses to help younger saints take up their place and carry the torch?
Lot had his older uncle, Abraham. It was not merely that Abraham prayed for him. He pressed into God for him. He pressed in to find God’s heart.
Abraham found that this was God’s heart even for Lot, who was living in Sodom. You might think, “He is living in Sodom, and it is going to burn him.” But Abraham kept pressing into God’s heart.
“What about thirty? What about twenty? What about ten?” How far and how deep is God’s heart? Abraham pressed in until he found an answer from God.
I think sometimes we drop the ball. We pray for a couple of weeks after a conference, and then we forget. We figure everything is in tow. Press on until you get an answer.
Do we have that sense? Even ten? How far can we press in until we find the heart of God and then find His amen?
How about Peters? Do we have Peters among us? Who are Peters? They are those who have failed but have been recovered by the grace of God.
Is that not what Jesus said to Peter? “I prayed for you that your faith does not fail. And when you have recovered, strengthen your brethren.”
Young folks, you have such a treasure in older saints who have gone through something, failed, and been recovered.
I know in my own life, Floyd Polles was someone I could come to when I had failed. I did not think he would say, “You really blew it, and that is it. You are written off now.”
No. He would pray with me and help me. You guys have that treasure. But the question for us is: Are we being that? Are we coming alongside?
As older brothers and sisters, when we see others struggling, how much do we reach out? Peter did reach out to Mark. He recovered and strengthened his brother.
Then there is Barnabas. Barnabas knew Mark closely. He was his cousin, certainly a younger cousin. He came alongside him and discipled him.
Our generation has a bad name for discipleship because of the discipleship movement, where too many people took too much power. But brothers and sisters, young brothers—even those in their thirties and close to forty—need to be discipled.
What will happen when we pass on and do not disciple them? Everybody will do what is right in his own eyes. There is such a need for discipleship.
Barnabas was willing to say, “I am taking you out again. Come with me. We are going on a trip. It may not be the same trip, but you are coming with me. We are doing it together.”
Discipleship is not simply teaching a Bible study. Floyd Polles was wonderful in this way. When they began doing things in the Bay Area, he would take some of us young guys, in our mid-twenties, and say, “I want you to come up with me.”
“We can pray. Be with me. Meet these other saints.” We found out what it was like to serve God. It was not merely sitting around a meeting. He took us to different places: “Come to this place with me.”
He got the fellowship to cover the expense because we were young guys and did not have anything. The fellowship would pay for plane tickets. In the 1970s, it cost about thirty dollars to go to San Francisco.
Brothers and sisters, that is the whole question here. We have Marks and Demases, and that is wonderful. But there is an epitaph for us too.
Hopefully, it will be written in stone: “They served the purpose of God in their generation.”
They did not say, “I have gone this far, and now it is up to them.” No. We see it all the way through. Paul saw it all the way through until he died.
What was he doing in prison? “Bring Mark. He is useful for ministry.” Ministry. “Yes, I am still ministering,” even though he could see that he had run the course.
When you run a race, you run through the finish line. If you are a good racer, you do not stop at the finish line; you run through it. That is what Paul did.
Brothers and sisters, our epitaph has not been written yet. We in Richmond have taken some knocks. The question is: How do we respond to those knocks?
Hebrews says to get up and run, and to make straight paths for your feet so that they do not get out of joint. How do you do that? By looking at Jesus.
You have to get back to looking at Jesus. “Let me see my Lord afresh. Let me see Him. Let me see this One of whom it was said, ‘Behold, My Servant.’ Let me carry the torch with Him.”
We have epitaphs. I was fooling around when I said, “I hope mine does not say, ‘We were hoping for something better.’” We do not want that to be.
I hope mine will be, before I die, “He is helpful in ministry.” Helpful in ministry.
May we be the people who are the Abrahams, Peters, and Barnabases—helpful in ministry to these Demases and Marks. Or may we be these Demases and Marks who are ministering to us.
That is the whole matter, because the Lord is looking at us—not in a way that He is going to judge us, but in this way: “He is useful to Me.”
“He is useful to Me.” That should be our prayer: “Lord, You know where I am. But You took a Mark. I feel like I am Demas. My end is not written yet. Lord, I want my end to be written that I am useful to You.”
Lord, we want to thank You today that things are not written in stone. We thank You that there is grace for today and grace for tomorrow.
But Lord, we are those who hear something, get on fire for a day or two, and then go back to the pig trough. Forgive us for that.
Lord, we need the brothers and sisters. We ask for the ministry of the brothers and sisters to each one of us. We pray that we would be more open to You, to be ministers of the life of Jesus Christ—not merely of teachings and things like that, but of the life of Jesus as we know Him and as He wants to be made known.
We ask You for help. We do not want our epitaph to be that we forsook You because we loved the world, or that we forsook You for some other reason. We want it to be that we are useful to You.
We want the very end to be that we served Your purpose in our generation. Lord, in some ways we can say, “This is too high for me.” But we talked about this earlier: all things are possible for God.
Lord, we look to You. You are the One who saves us. You are the Redeemer. You are our salvation.
We look to You, Lord. We want to be the ones who bring You in. We want to be the ones who serve You with our whole hearts and lives.
We see a different thing in our own lives, but Lord, we thank You that this does not have to be the end, that You give grace. Lord, help us find grace in this time of need.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.