If I missed the prayer of illumination, and they said, you are the prayer of illumination. So, didn't know that. Well, what a privilege to pray with my brothers and sisters. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we rejoice in this opportunity to get together. It's the end of the day. Our bodies are beginning to show the fatigue of living in a fallen world with remaining sin in our lives and a whole onslaught of issues to deal with as we always move forward. But we thank you that your grace is greater than our sins, that your grace is greater than all the sinfulness of the world, all the schemes of the devil, all the plans of the world, that you are helping us to make it to glory. And we're going to be there, not because we were the brightest bulbs in your pack, not because we were the best Christians, the smartest, the most humble, the most sensitive. We are recipients of great grace. Lord, would you give us your Holy Spirit now? Not that the person next to us who we think really needs it or the person across the room who we think really needs it, but would you give it to each one of us that we might hear the Word of God spoken to us? We'll be very quick to give you all the honor and glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning we looked at encouragement and we looked at why we need it and what is it exactly and then We said, well, how might one begin to practice giving encouragement to others? Now, I didn't quiz the pastors, nor the mothers, if you went immediately to the mothers of the church and you kids encouraged your mothers or your grandparents. And I didn't ask the elders, now, did people come up to you in encouraging? But if you might want to say something this week or send them an email or a tweet or a text or write them a letter. You know, they used to put these things called stamps on envelopes, and they would go through snail mail, and people would get letters. And most people don't save emails, but people sometimes will save letters of encouragement. In fact, my wife used to encourage me, you need to have a circular file for these kind of letters. Okay, and then you need to have another file over here for the letters that you want to keep that remind you that you're not the worst person in the world and you should still keep going on. And so I encourage you to send notes to your pastors and thank them for their service. Please turn now in your Bibles to the book of Acts. We're going to do a case study of encouragement. Now, the phrase case study may not be something you're used to. If we're going to look at examples in a living embodiment of what we talked about this morning, does the Bible give us examples of that? Well, certainly you have the Lord Jesus Christ as a great encourager. There's none greater in the world. He's encouraged every one of us. But how about flesh and blood human beings like us who aren't part divine, so to speak. That's imprecise, but you know what I mean. Anyway, well, the New Testament gives us a classic illustration, a classic case study, Barnabas. And in fact, I was a Christian many years before it began to dawn on me. See, I don't have much hair up here because all the times it went like that and my hair follicles have fallen out. And that's why I'm just a slow learner and I'm going bald. But encouragement is something that's seen if we just look carefully at this one man's life and the impact of a life of encouragement. You go, well, I don't know. I'm still not convinced. I'm not much of a cheerleader. I'm not asking anybody here to be a cheerleader. I'm just saying that everybody needs encouragement and people will thank you if you're a parent. Your children will thank you because they have to go through the onslaught of going through a fallen world in school and get out the other side with their sanity and hopefully a spirituality and your encouragement will make wonders to them. One of the warnings I can give parents is you never want to say to your child, now you've done it, you've ruined your life. Because probably they haven't ruined their whole life, even if they were going to jail for five years, they haven't ruined their whole life. They've made a major mistake, they've made a major error, they've done a major thing wrong. Give granted, but be careful what you say to your children because it tends to impact what they think about themselves. I had a handout this morning about a tsunami of encouragement, a tidal wave of encouragement. There's a good quote in there, and the quote was something to this effect. A word of encouragement can build up a person and make them want to go on for a couple of days, but a harsh word spoken to a person A downer word spoken to a person can burden their souls for a week or more. And particularly as parents, you have a particularly huge role in your children's self-perception. Am I a loser? Or am I a person that's going to live a meaningful, significant life? Do I have hope for my future, or am I just a loser who's destined for nothing? And so I want to encourage you to tell your kids true things, but tell them encouraging things. They get enough negative feedback from the world. You know, I have a friend of mine who was converted his freshman year in high school to Sunday night service. He was so excited. He knew God. Christ was his savior. All of his sins were forgiven. Yes. And he got on the school bus Monday morning, said hi to the driver, turned and said, guess what everybody, I became a Christian last night. How many people do you think applauded him? Zero. How many people were probably stunned into silence? A bunch. How many people chided him, derided him, jeered him? A bunch. He learned very quickly the world wasn't really excited about him becoming a Christian. So, please be encouragers to your kids. Now kids, you can come up after the service and thank me for saying this, but I worked with students for 10 years before I went into the pastoral ministry. Students need your encouragement. Just like I said this morning, that wives and mothers of small children need encouragement, because probably the only place they'll get it is from their spouse, because the world isn't going to give it to them. You stay home and take care of rug rats when you could go out and be breaking the glass ceiling, making all kinds of money? What kind of a loser are you? I thought you went to college. You're taking care of kids and raising kids? What a foolish person. That's what the world says. And as husbands and fathers, we can encourage our wives, even if our kids know you're doing a supremely important work. Eternal destiny of these kids is being impacted by how much of a faithful mother you are. I'm not putting it all on the mothers, but I am saying that she's home during the early, early years, especially to help them and to nurture them and to, you know, dads can't nurse, dads can't do a lot of things that only the mom can do. So please, Be thankful for the mothers. Encourage the mothers. It's a hugely important role. You'd be surprised how many famous men in church history thank their mothers for investing in them growing up. Okay, I'll put that commercial announcement aside. Let's read from God's word. Let's read the book of Acts, chapter 4, beginning in verse 32, and we're going to read down to chapter 5, verse 11. Two competing case studies. Here's how to do it right, and here's how to do it wrong. Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul. Neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. Imagine there's a convention in the Quad Cities, and there's 30,000 people in town for all these big conventions. And a revival comes, and 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people are saved, and they all want to come to this church. That's a lot of dirty diapers to change. 3,000 baby Christians come to this church. Every one of you instantly becomes a mature believer compared to them. You've been a Christian how long? You must know everything. And so you have all these people to take care of, and they want to come to your all church suppers. We don't have enough people to feed 3,000 people. So you're really being stretched. And so the believers pooled their monies, all that they had, in order to get by. And with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked, for all who were possessors of lands, or houses, sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and they distributed to each as anyone had need." I know it sounds astounding, but in a huge time of change, the Spirit of God was poured out at Pentecost, the New Covenant was ratified, things were moving forward, and you had these tremendous needs and people were saying, I'm willing to sell my land if it's going to help. I'm willing to sell my house. We have this huge need and I can help. Verse 36, And Joseph, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet, which is another way of saying they were in charge of distributing it. Chapter 5, verse 1. But, contrast, a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You've not lied to men, but to God. He was saying, in other words, it was your land to do with what you wanted to. Nobody was twisting your arm. And when you sold it, you didn't have to give any of it to the church to meet these needs. But the fact that you're pretending like you're giving everything and you're big hearted and generous when you're holding money back, that's just terrible. Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. He died on the spot. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. And the young man arose, wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him. Now it was about three hours later when his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Now your husband's already in the ground. And Peter answered her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much? She said, yes, for so much. Then Peter said to her, How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out. Then immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last, and the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her out, buried her by her husband. So, great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. Now, for you cynics, this is not a message on tithing, okay? You better give or you're going to be struck dead in the pew. It's not anything about that, obviously. But it is a case study early on in the Christian life here of two contrasting things that happened. Great sacrificial giving and great hypocrisy. And God doesn't like great hypocrisy. And so he struck these people dead as a warning to all who would be part of the Christian church. Don't play games with God. It was yours to do with what you wanted to. Don't pretend to be big hearted when you're not that big hearted and you're lying to the Holy Spirit and you're quenching what God is doing here. Don't do it. I just had these two people killed to get your attention. Now the first person, the first example was Barnabas. It said he gave piece of land and sold it and gave the money to the apostles and he's held up as an illustration of a big hearted giver. But then you've got Ananias and his wife Sapphira who are counterfeits who are hypocrites. We're going to look at Barnabas and look at what made him a special person. And as we'll see just in the Book of Acts, he was a tremendous person. If I ask you, who are your favorites in the Bible, you go, well, Moses, David, maybe some Old Testament women that you like, Ruth, Esther. How about in the New Testament? Well, let's see, Peter, Paul, John, James, you know, the apostle guys. Those are the people that you think are really to be emulated and look up to. Barnabas rarely makes it into the front rank, but I think you'll see by the end of the study, Barnabas had a huge ministry. A huge ministry. So let's jump in and look at four aspects of the life and legacy of Barnabas. First of all, his background. We just read his background. And then we're going to look at his character. What made him who he was? What kind of a character was he like? Now some of us are characters, but Barnabas had character, okay? Then we're going to look at his ministry to people. What did he actually do to encourage people? And then finally, we're going to come to the conclusion, what legacy is left behind? Now, Dr. Howard Hendricks used to use a story to discourage people from being puffed up. He said, if you think you're somebody, take your finger, put it in a glass of water, pull it out, and the mark that's left is how important you are. Wow, not very important. There's no mark left. Well, you know, Baruch, Jeremiah's assistant, was rebuked by God, saying, Do you desire great things for yourself? Do not desire them. If you want to do something great, ask that God would do something great to glorify himself. Okay, let's look at Barnabas' background and what made him who he was. Okay, let's look back at verse 36 and 37. And Joseph, or Joseph as it says in the New King James, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus. So, what does it tell us here? The apostles nicknamed him Barnabas, son of encouragement. His real name was Joseph the Levite. He was from Cyprus, but he acquired the name Barnabas because he was such a great encourager. In the second half of the 20th century, there was no greater New Testament scholar among evangelicals than F.F. Bruce, and this is what he had to say about Barnabas. He said, if encouragement could become a person and have a son, Barnabas was his name. He said, whenever Barnabas found people in situations requiring encouragement, he gave all the encouragement of which he was capable. And we'll see, he always went to the full extent to help people, to encourage people. He was called Barnabas, the son of encouragement. It says that he was a Levite. Now, what's a Levite? Well, in the Old Testament, there was Moses and his brother Aaron. What was Aaron's other name? Levi. And all the priests of future Israel came from the tribe of Levi, Aaron's descendants. Now, all priests were Levites, but not all Levites got to serve as priests because there was more Levites than they had need in the tabernacle or the temple. So sometimes it was on a rotation basis. Sometimes they got picked. But because you are a Levite didn't mean you necessarily got to work as a priest in the temple. But he was in a sense, you'd say, he was already committed to Christian work. It wasn't that he surrendered to full-time Christian work like in the South Baptist talk about surrendering to the ministry. But because of his birth, this is, you know, this is who you are. You're a Levite. And the interesting thing about the Levites is when the nation of Israel came in the promised land and Joshua said, okay, here's how we're going to divide up the land. God's told me who's going to get what. The Levites didn't get anything. Well, that's a bummer. Well, except for this. He said, I will be your inheritance. You will have me as your inheritance. I will be your great and glorious reward. And so they were not allotted any land. They couldn't own land because I'm your inheritance. They could have a burial plot. Sounds fine. And if your burial plot, let's say you're a real estate salesman. I've got such a deal this week on burial plots. And a couple of them are attached to fields, so you have to buy the whole shebang. You can't just buy the plot. You've got to buy the whole deal. And you can maybe sell off the land later, but you had to buy the whole thing. So it's not saying that Barnabas was not a faithful Levite in having a burial spot attached to a field. It wasn't that he was a money grubber necessarily. It could have been just as easily that he was a normal person buying a piece of land for a burial plot, and there was land attached to it, and that came with the package. Anyway, this is all he had, and he sold it and gave it to the common kitty. He was a native of Cyprus. In the back of your Bible, there's these things called maps, and once in a blue moon, you look at them, and in the maps, at the Mediterranean Sea, the big sea, out from Israel, there's an island at the eastern end, the right-hand side of your page, called Cyprus. It's the biggest island. in that part of the Mediterranean. And that's where he was from. There was a large Jewish settlement. There was several synagogues there. And that's where he grew up. And that's where he began to grow as a believer in the Old Testament. He sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet. So right from the beginning, we're told that this is a generous man. He's already serving as a Levite. Maybe he had been a priest at one time. We don't know. But he had been a Levite. He was sacrificial in his giving. All that he had was this one place to be buried in, which he wasn't going to have anymore, and a piece of land attached to it. And he gave the sale of that to the apostles to be used to help with the distribution of all these people who come to Christ and were now stuck attached to this local church. That's his background. Okay, well, that's a good beginning. What's his character? Well, let's keep reading. So have your finger in the book of Acts because I'm going to take you different places. Look at Chapter 11. Fast forward to Chapter 11. You know, if you have a concordance, you can look up Barnabas and you say, hey, Pastor, you just got this out of the Bible. You didn't make it up. Well, no. And you can do a lot of word studies and help yourself. Acts chapter 11, let's pick up the narrative at chapter, excuse me, verse 19 through 24. Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen, what timeout, what's that? Well, Stephen stood up and told the Pharisees and the Sadducees they're a bunch of hypocrites and they're all going to hell, kind of, sort of. And guess what? They got really mad. And guess what? They stoned him. And persecution broke out against all the believers. And Stephen was a Greek Jew. as were all the deacons that were chosen at that time. And a great persecution arose against the professing Christians who had been raised up after Pentecost. And so everybody fled. And they traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. So Christians moved out from Jerusalem. They were being persecuted. You know, the law of thermodynamics, the greater the heat, the greater expansion. Had a lot of heat put on them. and they were pushed out from Jerusalem, and God used persecution to spread the gospel. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who when they had come to Antioch, now Antioch is north of Israel, it's in what's now Syria, they spoke to the Hellenes, they spoke to the Greek speakers, preaching the Lord Jesus. and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." So you have all these believers around Jerusalem, thousands after Pentecost, and now because of persecution up here in Antioch, which is a much bigger city than Jerusalem, a whole bunch of people came to Christ. What are we going to do with that? You know, this is East Moline. What if you hear that a nearby city has something of a spiritual awakening and they need someone to go over there and teach them? What are we going to do? The news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all with purpose of heart that they should continue with the Lord For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. I'll stop right there for the time being. He must have been a very much respected and trusted man, because when you hear of a new ministry, you don't send a new believer over to the other town to check out the new believers over there, because how do you know this guy has enough discernment to know whether these people are really kosher, whether they're really believers. So you send one of your best men, one of your most trusted men, and you send him over there to see if this thing you've heard about is true. And it is. It's blessedly true. A whole bunch of people have come to Christ in this other town. But it shows you that he must have been a respected and trusted man because you send your best men in those situations. In verse 23, it also says something subtle about Barnabas's character. He could rejoice in other people's ministries. If you talk to your pastors, they'll tell you they've met other men over the years who there are some men who can only rejoice in their ministry. Look what I did. Look what's happening in my church. What's happening down the road? I don't know, and I don't care. All I care about is what's going on in my church. But I think if you have the interest of the Lord at heart and the kingdom of God, then you're concerned about what happens in other places. Years ago, when I was still working with students and living in Indianapolis, one pastor on the other side of town was heard to say, well, nothing's going on in my church. But praise the Lord, nothing's going on in any of the other churches around here, so I don't feel bad. That's not a kingdom mentality. That's a very self-serving blind mentality. He had a gift of encouragement and he was able to share in the joy of other people's ministry. Other people had preached in Antioch. Other people had led these people to Christ. It wasn't his ministry, but he was sent there as an envoy to see, is this really good stuff? And it is. And he was glad. He encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. He is a son of encouragement. He could be excited about other people coming to Christ. He could encourage, he could exhort, he could teach, he could admonish, and he could even speak boldly. But always he spoke with the sense that he was with you and he was for you. I want you all to make it. I want to see you all in heaven. Why did Luke report this about Barnabas? How could he say that these things were true about Barnabas? Look at verse 24. For, what does the word for mean? Because, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. Now, what are those three things tell us? First of all, he was a good man, a good man who loved the good, who knew the good God, and who wanted to see the best happen in the lives of these people. Now you think, being a good man, that's, would you put that on a resume you're going to apply for a job? My friends say I'm a good person. It seems kind of a lame reference on a, you know, on an application for a job. Would you put down that, well my friends say that I'm a very meek man. Would you put that down as a reference? That's a biblical characteristic that's to be emulated. I have a friend who's been a missionary in China for 20 some years. He's not currently. He was expelled. He was exposed as being a missionary on the sly. He's now ministering in another Southeast Asian country. His wife had a huge ministry. She wasn't a preacher, wasn't a teacher. He did all the teaching. He would meet with pastors in a room the size of a large closet, and they would meet in there for hours, and he would teach them. They'd go outside and get some fresh air, and they'd go back, and he'd teach them for hours. He never went to any of the Chinese churches, because he didn't want a Westerner to be seen attending the Chinese church. But he was discipling and training these pastors who had no training. But his wife had a huge ministry, but what did she do? She was known as the kind lady. The good lady, what do you mean? Well, in a nation of one point now probably two billion people, over three times the size of the United States, imagine if the United States was three times as crowded. So Chicago had a lot more people, and New York had a lot more people. Every city was huge. And she was known because, why are you such a kind and good person? She was there waiting to go into town, and there's 80 million people going by on bicycles and trams going into town. And there's a lady in a wheelchair hustling as fast as she can to keep up with the bicycles. And her bicycle wheel, or her, excuse me, her wheelchair wheel gets stuck in a trolley car track, and she's flipped over on her side. And nobody goes to help her. Nobody. Tens of thousands of people going by on their bicycles, but nobody stops to help her. And my friend said, my wife rushed out to help, I grabbed her, I pulled her back, I said, you'll be killed if you go out there because it's so crazy. She says, but I have to help. He said, that was the last time I ever held her back. She would do things to help people that the Chinese would say, why are you being nice? Why are you being good? Do you know what a large thing is in China because you're only allowed one legal child and after one, You can't count that child, and he's unknown to the authorities. And so you have a large family, and you can't really support them all. So you teach your children to be beggars. And you know what make the best beggars? Mame's children. So you cut one or two of their fingers off, maybe even a hand off, and they make better beggars. Parents do that to their own children. They'll burn them with cigarettes and make them look pitiful, so they make better beggars. You know, what a hardened, insane, foolish place this is. You have 1.1 or 2 billion people and not much Christianity and there's not much common grace and what do you do? You just try to get by and you don't care about people. I don't have time to worry about the rest of the 1 point something billion people here. I just worry about myself. So she goes and takes care of people. She found some boys who were robbing people. They robbed her. She was wearing her track shoes and chased them down and caught them. Got her purse back. Why aren't you in school? Well, we're not registered children. We can't go to school. Do you want to go to school? We'd love to go to school. Come back with me to my apartment. We'll see what we can do. So my friend comes home from ministry that day and comes in his house, and his wife's here, and one boy's in this corner, and one boy's in this corner, and she has a story to tell. So what goes on? Well, she told him what happened. She caught the boys. They wanted to be in school. They asked the boys if they'd like to live with them. Yeah, we'd love to have a place to live. He said the first six weeks, what we did every day is teach them not to steal everything in the house, because that was their background. They stole everything in the house. They finally broke them of that, and then they began to just, you know, love on them, be kind to them, be gracious, be good people. It had a huge impact. And pretty soon people start coming to them and say, I have a child that's unregistered. I don't want bad things to happen to them. Would you take my child? Pretty soon she's got 20, 40, 60, 120 kids that parents have given up for her to take care of. The local churches rally around and help her with an orphanage functionally of 120 children. One day, there's a knock at the door, you open up, and there's a man dressed in a very ornate oriental outfit. So, who are you? I'm an ambassador from the Dalai Lama in Tibet. He's heard of your ministry. He has 36 orphans. He'll meet you, he'll have someone meet you at the border, and would you take 36 more children? Whoa, and she did. She went to the border, and she took the children, and they added to the orphanage. And what does her ministry be? Is she a great preacher? No. Is she known for being a great prayer warrior? Well, I'm sure she does on her own when people don't watch. She's just being good and nice to people, and it feels so good. Have you ever been in a terrible situation, and someone was just good to you, and it felt so good for someone to be good to you? What else was it about Barnabas? He was full of the Holy Spirit. You know, you can't be used of God. You can't live out the Christian life apart from the Holy Spirit. You can't be a Christian without the Holy Spirit. He comes to live inside your life. He supernaturally changes you from the inside out. He applies the work of Christ to your life. You're born again. You're a new person. But then on an ongoing basis, he's the one who manifests Christian graces in your life, what are called the fruit of the Spirit. And Barnabas was a man who was called full of the Spirit. In the Book of Acts, that's a big deal. Throughout the Book of Acts, being filled with the Spirit is a prelude to significant happenings, to significant ministry. There's times when the apostles are told, shut up, you're not supposed to preach to this guy anymore. We can't help preaching. They went on preaching full of the Spirit. They were, they had prayer meetings and they asked for Holy Spirit boldness to speak despite threats on their life. And they prayed and the Holy Spirit filled them and they preached despite the threats on their life. The theme of the fullness of the Holy Spirit is very big in the Book of Acts. Normally we think of it for works of ministry, but also here it's also because being filled with the Spirit, he manifested such overriding Christian graces that people couldn't help but notice. Some of you have grown up working in plants, working in large corporate facilities, and someone whose character is really different stands out. You might be the subject of gossip around the water cooler or in the men's lounge or something. Why is this person different? Why is this guy a nice guy? He never badmouths other people. He doesn't trash people. He doesn't steal. He doesn't do sabotage. What's the deal with this guy? And it would be because you're full of faith and you're full of the Holy Spirit. You're a good man. And I just overlapped with the next thing. It says not only was he full of the Holy Spirit, but he was full of faith. And why is that important? Well, let me tell you why. A person who has faith believes promises that other people have stopped believing or forgotten about and sees potential things that can happen that other people aren't seeing right now. And so being full of faith, he can see situations that he was, wow, this is great, I'll move into it. The other people are saying, oh, it's hopeless, they told us we can't preach. The sky is falling. And Barnabas and men like him said, well, these are opportunities. Yes, they can be scary, but they're opportunities. Full of faith. Faith often sees what others don't see and believes promises that others have just flat out forgotten. So here he was. He was doing what he was doing because he was a good man, he was full of the Holy Spirit, and he was full of faith. Look at verse 27 to 30. And in those days, prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Okay? Then one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout the world, throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did, and they sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and this guy named Saul. Here's a famine coming. Jerusalem and Judea is in a very water-restricted, easily impoverished nation. And if a famine's coming, they're going to be hit very hard. And they're up in Antioch in Syria, which is materially more blessed. And these people have money. And these people take up a collection, and they're going to send it to the believers down in Judea. And who do they send? Who can we trust? Who is a person who's above reproach, who will do with this money what he's supposed to? Barnabas. Good men are honest men. They're careful men. You can trust them. Turn over to chapter 13. There's more about him. Now in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers. Okay, who's listed first? Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, he was an African from North Africa, Lucius of Cyrene, that's what's now Libya, Menaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, this guy had a more significant background, and last of all named Saul. In the Bible, when you have lists, the first person who's listed is always the most significant person, and then it kind of goes down from there. As they minister to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed, laid hands on them and sent them away. It's an interesting thing that as you go on from here, it doesn't take long before Barnabas and Saul becomes Paul and Barnabas. This one man has striking gifts, incredible speaking gifts. Not that he's a great orator, but the Holy Spirit accompanies his preaching with great power. Barnabas was not a slacker, but he wasn't quite as gifted in these same ways as Paul or Saul. So pretty soon, the Barnabas and Saul team became the Paul and Barnabas team. And you know how many people can take it from going from being top banana to second banana to being the associate? Not a lot. And so here's a humble man who can see a man with greater gifts and more usefulness in the connection of what they're doing, planning churches and doing evangelism. So Barnabas becomes the second guy on the team. You have to have humility to be willing to do that. You have to have humility. Here's a worker who's more gifted than I am. Well, the Lord's raised him up and I'll let him be the front man and I'll be the second banana. Turn over to chapter 15. There's more about his character. Chapter 15, verses one to three, and then verse 12. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. They're saying, unless you become a Jew, first, you can't become a Christian, second. Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas, again you were in the Paul and Barnabas ministry mode, when Paul and Barnabas had no small discussion and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. Let's get this settled once and for all. Do you need to become a Jew first, like all the first believers, after Pentecost down in Jerusalem, or can you go right from being a clueless pagan Gentile, I see the Lord Jesus Christ is what I need and believe on him, and you don't have to jump through all the Jewish hoops. So being sent on their way by the church, they pass through and it mentions all the things they did, but down to verse 12. After a big discussion among the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem, Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they became silent, James answered and said, and then he goes on to explain, men, we need to listen to what God's doing here in conformity with the scriptures, and we're not going to require these people to become Jews first, so to speak, to become Christians. Do you cherish justification by faith? Do you lay in bed at night saying, I'm so glad that my standing before God is based entirely on the work of Christ. His sins, excuse me, my sins were credited to him, and his righteousness is credited to me. I have no sins clamoring for my condemnation. All the righteousness of Christ is given to me as a gift. I am of all people most blessed. Justification by faith is what I just explained to you. Two halves, my sins upon Christ, His righteousness upon me. My unrighteousness, my filthy rags are gone. I'm wearing the righteousness of Christ for eternity. As long as Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, and He is our Christianity, then we're safe. If you're trusting in anything other than Christ to get you to heaven, that's a fool's errand. It's Jesus Christ alone is your salvation. He died for all of your sins and his perfect righteousness is given to you to wear for all of eternity. As I like to say, this isn't a fairy tale, folks. This is the gospel. Barnabas was a man who was a champion of the truths that we should never take for granted. We cherish these truths today. It's the foundation of our faith. Does Barnabas have any weakness? Well, actually we do see a weakness. If you want to turn over to Galatians chapter 2 or just listen to me tell it. But later there was a situation came up where some people came from Jerusalem up to Antioch and Peter was rejoicing with the Gentile believers in Antioch. And this is great. You can be a Gentile believer. And then Judaizers came and said, you know, These guys aren't keeping kosher kitchens. These guys aren't doing this and that. And Peter got afraid and buckled and stopped associating with the Gentile believers because they weren't sufficiently Judaized. And Paul in writing to the Galatians says in chapter 2, verse 13, even Barnabas was carried away. I mean, my mentor, the guy who's helped me, the guy who set me up in ministry in Antioch, the guy who we went around with, He even got carried away and temporarily caved and Paul had to rebuke Peter and by inference Barnabas got rebuked too. No, your strength is working with people. Your weakness is you care too much sometimes what people think of you, not what the truth is. And so Barnabas had to be rebuked for caring too much about people liking him. and not enough about holding to the truth. So, I don't want you to think he's a plastic saint that you put up on the dashboard of your car. Next to your St. Christopher's statue, you have a St. Barnabas statue. Not at all. He was a man who could have weaknesses like us. But he was a man who largely, overwhelmingly, the New Testament says he did a great job. Now I want to take you back to some of these earlier passages and let's look specifically at how he ministered to certain people. How did Barnabas encourage different people? Well, we saw in Acts chapter 4 that he gave his money. In Acts chapter 11, he went to Antioch and he heard about the ministry that was going on there and he rejoiced that Gentiles were coming to Christ at Antioch. God not only saves Jews, he saves Gentiles. Well, when Barnabas saw spiritual potential in people, he recruited them. And he finds Saul and brings Saul back to Antioch because this ministry is booming. I can't handle it. I need other mature believers. Paul went off in another place ministering, kind of in a lonely place. And he brings, he finds him, brings him back and the ministry flourishes. You know that in chapter nine, when Paul was converted, nobody would associate with him. And the thinking was this is very logical. Let's say in walks a guy who looks just like Osama Bin Laden. And he says, I've just moved to the area and I want to become a Christian and go to your church. And you go, we're not stupid. You're trying to spy out who we are and what we're doing and then you're going to send in your shock troops and we're all going to be dead. I don't trust you. That'd be a logical thing. I mean, here's public enemy number one, the guy who was persecuting Christians, supervising the stoning of Stephen, and he professes faith in Christ. And what do the rest of the believers say? We're not stupid. We can see through this. Good luck with your Christian ministry, Saul. Barnabas goes and checks him out, sees that he is the real deal, goes to the elders in Jerusalem and the apostles and says, he is the real deal. We need to take him in. And so use his credibility and put it on the line to vouch for Paul. He used his, again, his credibility, his standing. You believe me, don't you? You think I have some discernment, don't you? Paul's the real deal. We need to take him in, and that's chapter 9. In chapter 11, we just read before, look back at verse 25 and 26 of Acts 11 for two things that it says about him. Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they, Saul and Barnabas, assembled with the church and taught a great many people, and the disciples were first called Christians. in Antioch. Paul is a great boom to the ministry in Antioch because Barnabas was willing to go get somebody else to share in the ministry. It doesn't all have to be about me. I'm not in this giant ego trip. I'm not using Christianity to exalt my brain or exalt my ego. I want to see the kingdom of God advanced. This is a gifted man, a very gifted man. He came from a dark place, but he's a great star and we need him here and the ministry flourishes. Turn to chapter 15, and this will be the last thing I think I'll have you turn to. Acts chapter 15. I can remember as a baby Christian, I can remember the chair I was sitting in in my apartment in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where I was in college. And I'm reading through what seemed like a travelogue. You know, as a baby Christian, you don't know what you're doing, so you're kind of reading. Well, they went here and they went there and their summer vacation, they did that. I mean, then anyway, you're reading through Acts, and you're trying to get a feel for what's going on. And then when you get to chapter 15, verses 36 through 41, it's kind of stunning. I'll back up to verse 36, verse 35, excuse me. Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. Then after some days, it seems like the beginning of a fairy tale, once upon a time Paul said to Barnabas, let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they're doing. Let's retrace our steps, visit the churches that we planted, and see how we can help them. How are they doing? What weaknesses do they have that we can bolster? Are there any heresies that are being foisted upon them that we can deal with. How can we encourage these people? Let's go back. It's a normal, great plan. Now Barnabas was determined to take with him John called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take him with them, the one who had departed from the work in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. In other words, John Mark had bailed on an earlier trip. The scripture doesn't say exactly why. Here's a young man. This is kind of a scary ministry. You don't know how people are going to react. There's robbers, all kinds of pressures. Every river you get to, you get to wait across the river or wait for somebody, for a ferryman to take you across if you can find one. And so life was just hard. And if you looked at their travels, sometimes they traveled 1,500 miles on a journey. And for whatever reason, John Mark just said, no go. I can't do this. No mas. Okay. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus, which was his home area. But Paul chose Silas and departed, being committed by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Can you imagine one of the churches of the first century getting the Book of Acts sent to them, the second half of the Gospel of Luke? And two of your heroes just had a big knockdown drag out, and they parted. Billy Graham and Martin Lloyd Jones went toe to toe, and they couldn't agree, so they split. Or whoever people you want to elevate to be heroes in your pantheon of great people. Two of the real heroes had a great falling out. Barnabas wanted to take John Mark and give him another chance. Yep, I know he failed. Yep, I know he backed out on this. Yes, I know exactly what he did. But he deserves a second chance. I think I see good in him. Let's try him. Paul said, I don't have time to put up with people like this. I want to move on and have a successful ministry. And they just couldn't agree, and so they split. Now, we don't read in the rest of the New Testament that there lobbing grenades at each other and calling each other names and writing ugly prayer letters about each other. But we do know that they split and that must have been a horrible discouragement to the people who got this first letter. But as you read your New Testament carefully, it's interesting what happens after this. In Paul's later epistles, he talks about John Mark and he talks about Barnabas. He doesn't have anything that's bad to say about Barnabas. He mentions John Mark in a positive way in Colossians 4.10 and again in Philemon verse 24. But in 2 Timothy chapter 4, the last thing that Paul wrote before he was beheaded, verse 11, he says this at the very end of his life. Please send John Mark to me. He is very useful to me for ministry. The young man who might have become a spiritual casualty for failing earlier in ministry grows up and becomes a man of God and is useful to Paul at the end of his life. He had mentioned John Mark twice as a good man who had been with him. Now he says he's not with me and I need him. He's very useful to me. Please send him to me. So Barnabas apparently had a successful ministry in John Mark's life. Silas was successful in working with Paul. What's the legacy? What's all this effort? And again, I'm not spending the time to talk about, you know, walking from town to town. We'd like you to minister in Omaha. It's only across the state of Iowa. If you leave today, you can get there in a couple months. Start walking. I don't really want to walk to Omaha. And everything was just harder. You had to expend a lot of energy to get anything basic done. You had no electronic equipment, nothing to mimeograph material, nothing to duplicate materials. Everything had to be done in person and on foot practically. But the ministry he had is so significant. In the early 20th century, there was a professor of New Testament at Southern Seminary called A.T. Robertson. I'm sure your pastor has at least his big fat grammar of the Greek New Testament on his shelf. And he wrote a bunch of other books. He wrote a book entitled, Types of preachers, types of ministers in the New Testament. And he has a whole chapter on Barnabas. He calls him the preacher's friend. I'd say because that's Southern Baptist lingo for the pastor's friend. Barnabas, the pastor's friend. He said Barnabas is so significant. Here's seven things he accomplished in his lifetime. First of all, he gave a liberal contribution to the poor saints of Jerusalem. We knew that. He was a sponsor for Paul when Paul was under suspicion and got Paul out from under suspicion and put into ministry as a trusted man. Number two, he was a champion of the Greek Gentile Christians in Antioch. You can be a Gentile and be a Christian. I don't know if there's anybody here in this room from Jewish extraction. Is there anybody here from Jewish extraction? There you go. One. The rest of us are all Gentiles. The goyim. And that was shocking. Gentiles can become believers. He found a place for Saul to minister in Antioch. A small ministry just beginning to take off, really took off when you had two gifted workers working there and not just one. He's able to take the second place for the good of the cause. I'm not as great a preacher. I'm not as great a teacher as Saul is. I'm not chopped liver, as they say in New York, but I'm not that great. And so this man should have the first place. And he backs up and lets a man that he initially helped and stood up for to take the first place. He preaches or he goes to the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 as a champion for justification by faith alone and Christ alone and you don't have to become a Jew to become a Christian. And finally, he became the big defender of John Mark's right to have a second chance. Wouldn't everyone in this room, aren't you glad that the Lord's given you more than one chance? I've had 862 chances just this month of the Lord being gracious to me. And here is him risking his relationship, risking his reputation one more time. I'm going to take this kid under my wing. I think he'll make it and I think he'll be useful. So A.T. Robertson lists these seven things that the church owes to Barnabas. But let's look at his ministry from another perspective. Over 40% of your New Testament was written by men who Barnabas encouraged, strengthened, not exactly discipled, but functionally, men who he supported and helped and got in the ministry. Mark is generally believed by New Testament scholars to have been Peter's secretary, so to speak, and Peter tells him what happened and Mark writes it down. Paul wrote Romans, and you go through all the way down to Philemon, and many scholars believe he even wrote the book of Hebrews. So you have all those books were written by people that Barnabas went on a limb to help. And even though Barnabas' name is not in lights like the apostles was, look what good was accomplished by being an encourager of men. Imagine how much poorer the churches would be or our faith would be if Barnabas hadn't helped these men. Encouragement is not a small thing. Helping one another is not a small thing. We're here today because Barnabas was a great encourager of men, and the men he encouraged proved to be faithful. He was able to spot good men, encourage them, and these men remained faithful. May the Lord give us grace to be faithful in our lifetime. And I think in light of what I said this morning, the first thing we should do if we want to be better encouragers is to pray that God, the Holy Spirit would work in our heart and make us a better encourager. Pray, pray for your elders, pray for your deacons, pray for yourselves, that God would help you to see how you can encourage people. And who knows, some of these people may end up to have their name in lights, maybe even in church history books. Do you know the name of the man who led Dwight Moody to Christ, who was the greatest preacher of the late 19th century? A shoe salesman in Boston led the shoe clerk who worked in the back, an eighth grader named Dwight Moody. He led him to Christ. Do you know the name of the man who led Billy Graham to Christ? No. Do you know, I mean, if you think of most of the great Christians in history, you don't know the name of the people who ministered to them. And they later became men who God used. You just don't know from this person that you help who seems to be struggling or seems to have potential but isn't quite there yet. They could be significantly used of the Lord. They need more encouragement. May God give us grace to do that. Let's pray. Father, I don't know that there's any great Christians in this room. None of us feel like great Christians, certainly, but we are Christians by the grace of God, by your grace. I pray that you'd make us mutual encouragers of one another, and that I don't know if there's any Barnabases in this room, but we can each be small case b, lowercase b Barnabases, encouragers of one another. May it be said of the people at this church that they encourage one another. They're not quick to condemn each other. They're not quick to discourage one another. They're quick to encourage one another. Brother and I, I see what you're going through, and I believe you're going to make it. Keep plugging away. Brother, sister, I know what you're going through. I think that if you persevere, you're on the right track and you'll make it. Lord, I don't know what things are in store for this church, but I pray that you'd make the brothers and sisters here men and women who can encourage one another such that we advance far more than we would have without that encouragement. To your honor and glory in the building of Christ's kingdom we pray, amen.