Now, take a look at Paul for a minute.

Paul comes into an area and he’s constantly got his antenna up. He’s looking for good guys to train.  And he gets down to an area and he’s wide open. He’s got some time available.

Now, the deal is: being discipled by Paul is fairly difficult.  The hotel accommodations were poor. He spent a lot of time in jail. Very little golf.  And the meals were often a little bit sparse. It wasn’t easy to be discipled by the Apostle Paul, is what I’m trying to tell you.

And you couldn’t do it on your terms.  You had to travel with him on his terms, which in his case were God’s terms.

And he finds Timothy this way. He didn’t lead Timothy to Christ.  Others had had the privilege of doing that, namely Lois and Eunice. But he discovers that Timothy is a man of good report among the brethren, which means the fellow believers, in Iconium.

So he says, I’ll chance this young man.  ‘ll give him the most important thing I’ve got. Now, let’s make a note of this…

The most valuable thing in your life and mine that we have is called T-I-M-E.

Because when you run out of it, you run out of L-I-F-E. All right?

The most valuable thing you can give somebody is not money. They might think that that’s true, but it isn’t.

It’s time.

And so Paul says, I’ll invest my time in the life of this fine young man, Timothy. Timothy responds, travels with Paul, as did Titus, whom Paul called my son in the common faith.

Peter did the same thing with young John Mark after he’d blown it trying to travel with Paul and it was too tough. He went back to mother in Jerusalem. So Peter picks up John Mark.  

Now, why would John Mark be a good person for Peter to disciple?  Did Peter know what it was to blow it? I mean, had he had tasted failure, whew, he could write the book about it.

Why did John Mark have the privilege probably of writing our first gospel? Most theologians feel that Mark was written first. Why? Because it was the memoirs of Peter and Peter, of course, was the apostle who was giving leadership to the Jewish church, he and James.

Now, Peter pours his life into John Mark. Did John Mark turn out good? I’m telling you he did.

And let me tell you, there’s no “gospel according to Timothy.”  Y’all think about it. Timothy was straight arrow. He never had a problem.  A little bit of fear, that’s it.

John Mark really blew it. But God is a God of second chances.  Peter picks him up and he becomes the great writer of the gospel of Mark and a mighty man of God. And Paul tells us that he had great confidence in him at the end. Paul even wanted Mark to come and be with him years later.

I’m glad for that. How many of you are glad that God is a God of redemption and love and second chances?

Amen.

Now, you think John Mark would have become the man that he did if he hadn’t had the influence of Peter? I don’t think there’s a chance he would have.  He needed Peter.

Iron sharpens iron and we sharpen each other.

Parenthetically, I’ve never met a mature Christian.  Have you? All I know is maturing Christians. I’ve run around with a lot of godly guys but I want to tell you something. They’re all beginners.  We’re all babes. We’re all growing together and we all stumble and we all need each other.

When I’m 80, I hope to have somebody 90 discipling me.  You say, “Billie, you mean you still have people doing that in your life?”

Absolutely.

As you freely receive, freely do what? Freely give.

(continued in part 8 of the series)