Joel Brooks: If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Acts chapter 11 as we continue our study in Acts. We're gonna pick up where we left off. Acts 11. We'll begin reading in verse 19. It's there in your worship guide.
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad.
And he exhorted them to all remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people.
And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. This is the word of the Lord. It is to be done. Would you pray with me? Our father, we ask that through your spirit you would indeed write these words on our heart.
That we would hear from you and find the anchor for our souls. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
So I was thinking about Kim Kardashian the other day. Hear me out. Now, I've I've never actually intentionally read anything about her, or clicked on anything from her, or about her, or, I've never watched any show about her. Yet somehow, I know a lot of things about her. Alright?
I know that she does have a TV show, for instance. By the way, I've fact checked none of this, and the previous service laughed on me. It laughed at me. So I think I have some of these details wrong. But, she does have a TV show called Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Is that right? Yes. Come on. I know. Like, never heard of it, Joel.
And she has 3 sisters, 2 sisters. I even know their names. It's, Kendall and Chloe. And I think Kendall's the youngest. Her dad is Bruce Jenner.
She is somehow a celebrity, and I don't know how she got all of her money. I could tell you a few other facts that maybe they're facts about her. Here's the deal though. I hate myself for knowing these things. I didn't go looking for those things.
They just somehow, it's literally in the cultural air we breathe. And, and the reason some of you are laughing at me is because I got some things right or something's wrong. And you know. You know about Kim Kardashian. And you probably hate yourself for knowing as much as you do about her.
So why did I have this thought about her? Because I was thinking of Barnabas and I was thinking, I think I actually know more about Kim Kardashian than I do about Barnabas. A guy who is presented to us he's in the bible and he seems to over and over be presented to us as one we should know, As one we should emulate our lives after. He has put forward to us as an example. And so I'm going to do something that I've never done in 20 years of preaching.
And that's we're going to have a little character study on the life of Barnabas. And the reason I want to do so is I believe Luke wants us to do this. Luke tells us six stories about Barnabas. Does that kind of surprise you? He's in Acts that much.
He's presented to us 6 times. And the way Luke writes about him, it's apparent that we're supposed to be noticing the way that he lives. I mean, look at how he describes them here in the the chapter we just read in verse 24. He says, Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. I don't know anybody else that scripture takes the time to say, look at this person.
He's a good person. Full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And so we're going to look at 5 things. Five things about Barnabas and really what it means, what it looks like to live life as a good person, full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. And so, the first of these things, we're gonna find in Acts chapter 4, when we are introduced to Barnabas.
And so, if you would look there and it's there in your worship guide, Acts chapter 4. I'll begin reading in verse 34. There was not a needy person among them. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet. And it was distributed to each as any had need.
Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, A Levite, a native of Cyprus, he sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet. Now, Barnabas here is the 1st non apostle that we have introduced to us in the book of Acts. And not only is he not an apostle, he is he's also not, he's not a pastor at this point. He's not a deacon at this point. He is an average Christian.
This is Luke's way of introducing to us what an average typical Christian looks like. What somebody who has met Jesus and had their heart transformed by the gospel looks like. Looks like this person, Barnabas. And the first thing that we notice about him is his radical generosity. Barnabas had a radical generosity.
Luke tells us that many people sold their properties and laid the proceeds at the apostles' feet. Many were doing this, but he highlighted only 1, Barnabas. Look how Barnabas did this, because Barnabas is the model of generosity. And what we are going to see is Barnabas was always laying down his money, while at the same time lifting others up. He would sacrificially give and then he would around him, he would he would empty himself, but he would always try to fill up the people around him.
A matter of fact, he did this so much, he got a nickname, The son of encouragement. I mean, what a nickname. Think think about that. Think of the nickname here. We we all know people who are a son of something.
Alright? I was gonna say gun. I don't know what y'all are thinking of. But, normally, when we say a son of a something, it's negative. I've never actually heard somebody described as son of whatever you fill out there.
And it'd be a positive term. But they would look at Barnabas, the people around him and they would say this, it's as if encouragement itself had a child and that's you. That's how encouraging you are. The son of encouragement. Second thing we see about the life of Barnabas, besides his radical generosity.
The second thing we see about what it means to be a good person full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, is this. You become an advocate for others. You become an advocate for others. Let's look at Acts 9. It is also there in your worship guide.
We'll read in verse 26. And when he, and the he there is Paul, Alright? Saul, Paul. And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples And they were afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him.
And how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. Now here Paul is coming off one of the low points of his life. We looked at it a few weeks ago. It was it's when he was let down in a basket outside of the city walls of Damascus and he's running for his life.
And so that was one of his low points, when he was scared and he ran from persecution. And what he thinks is as he's running away, he's like, where can I go? And he goes, I'll go to the apostles. I'll go to Jerusalem. But far from welcoming in Paul with open arms, they actually held him off and they were scared of him.
They didn't believe the stories about him. They didn't believe somebody like Paul could have met Jesus and been changed by Him. And so they wouldn't welcome Him in. And so Barnabas comes alongside him. You know, you really you can't blame the apostles for this, because think of the the last image they have of Paul.
It was at the stoning of their friend, Stephen. That is the last time they saw Paul. They are grinning, nodding in approval, as stones were hitting the head of their friend. Even if they had believed. No.
Even if they had believed. Okay. So Paul became a Christian. You just don't erase that memory of that person killing your friend. And so they they didn't want to have any part of him, but Barnabas came and was an advocate.
Barnabas, full of the Holy Spirit here, full of faith, believes Paul and advocates advocates for him. And he understands that although Paul might have been a terrible sinner in the past, God has changed him. And you know what? Paul's not any different than the apostles who also have a sinful past. And we're also saved by the blood of Jesus.
You know, Luke writes this from the perspective of the apostles being scared of Paul here, but you got to think of it the other way around too. Here is Paul, who's killed their friend, persecuted the church and now saved. And now he's going to the mighty apostles, the saintly apostles. He is going to meet Peter, the rock of the church. Do you not think he would have been just a little intimidated because of his past?
I know I've talked to a number of you who walk into this place and you think you're a fish out of water. You walk in and you look around and it seems like everybody has their life together except for you. And you feel your sin deeply when you walk into this place, because you feel like everybody around you is perfect. That's not true. The apostles, just like Paul, needed the grace of God.
Barnabas knew that. He'd been like, Peter? Oh, you mean the Peter who denied Jesus three times? Oh, Thomas, mighty oh, you mean Thomas who doubted the resurrection of Jesus said, unless I see it and touch his hands. He could have gone through all the apostles and been like, all of us need Jesus.
We're all saved by grace. Nobody stands on a pedestal before the cross. To be full of faith means he understands the gospel and that we're all on equal footing before Jesus in need of forgiveness. And so Barnabas comes alongside Paul and brings him to them. And this is the only time that you will find Paul not speaking.
Barnabas tells Paul's story on behalf of him. It's like Paul wouldn't even speak. Barnabas says, hey. This man met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Hey.
This man has been boldly preaching. He advocates for Paul. Now, what you see here is a beautiful picture of the gospel. It is a beautiful picture of the gospel. Because, catch this.
Paul was accepted by the apostles. Not because of his righteousness, but because of the righteousness borrowed from Barnabas. Barnabas literally puts his arm around him and says, I know you doubt him. I know all you could think of is a sin, but you know me. I'm putting my name on the line.
You know my faithfulness, my truthfulness. You know my character. And I am right now saying this guy is with me. And it's because of Barnabas that Paul has accepted. It's also a beautiful picture of the Holy Spirit When Jesus is teaching us about the Holy Spirit who will come in John 16, he he calls the Holy Spirit the Paraclete or the one who comes alongside you.
That's what paraclete means. The one who comes alongside you. We translate that in number of ways. It could be the helper, the counselor, the comforter, or it can be translated the advocate. The advocate.
The one who comes alongside you. What a beautiful picture we see here. When I was in, at Beeson Divinity School and I was taking a preaching class, It is the worst class you can possibly have because you have to preach in that class to critical seminarian preachers. And it it's just a horrible environment. You know, the only way I could describe it is, if you're a defense attorney, imagine giving a defense full of a room of other defense attorneys.
You know? Or if you're a teacher and you have to teach, but you're being observed by a 100 other teachers. Alright. It's just it's a really intimidating thing. And so you have to get up there and you have to preach.
And so one of my friends, he got up there to preach and it was it was ugly. I mean, it was bad. The content was bad. And the presentation was even worse. And that's not even subjective.
It was objectively terrible. And he finishes and this is the way the class works. You finish preaching and you just stand there by yourself and you let the people do constructive criticism of your preaching. And and we're all thinking, Oh my gosh. I mean, this poor guy.
And and when he finishes, I remember doctor Robert Smith, who was my preaching professor, he got up there. He never does this. He went up there and he put his arm around him and he stood next to him and he goes, okay. Let's talk about his message. That's an advocate.
That was my professor going, he's with me. And you know what? We're gonna gently go at this together. And we respected that not because of what we heard or what we saw, but because we knew Doctor Smith and nobody was going to go against him. Alright?
That's what Barnabas does with Paul. That's what we do to one another. Alright. Let's look at the third thing that we see in the life of Barnabas. The third thing we see about what it means to be a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
We see this. When you look at another person, you see their potential. When you look at another person, you see their potential. We read about this earlier when when we opened up with, Acts 11. What was being described in Acts 11 was there was a full blown revival happening in Antioch And because revival was hitting there, they sent their most trusted person, Barnabas, to go and essentially pastor this new church there.
Now they would have only sent their most faithful and trusted person here because Antioch was an extremely important strategic city, had a half 1000000 people who lived there. 3rd largest in the Roman Empire. It would become the launching pad for missions for the church. So you don't just send anybody, you send your best and they sent Barnabas. And so, when Barnabas was commissioned there and he began pastoring this new church, he knocked it out of the park.
He was an amazing pastor. We read that the church, after he arrived, a great many people were added to the Lord. So now Barnabas is pastoring the fastest growing church in the world. Think of that. Fastest growing church in the world and he is the pastor there.
And as this is all going on, he thinks, I should go get Saul. I should get Saul and bring him up here to help me. Now, I don't even know how he remembered Saul. Saul has disappeared for the last 13 years. Saul has, after he fled Damascus and went to Jerusalem, he then went back to his hometown in Tarsus, living in obscurity for 13 years.
We know nothing about his life. He likely just had a normal job as a tent maker and told people about Jesus when he wasn't working. And for some reason though, Barnabas thought, I met a guy 13 years ago. He'd be perfect for this. And it wasn't like, Tarsus was next door to Antioch.
He was a 100 miles away. It took a lot of time for Barnabas to leave, go there, find Saul, bring him back and put him in this position. But he saw something that other people didn't see. He saw Paul's potential. And then, Luke includes this one little detail, the start of the story that I love.
Because it just gives us a little sneak peek into the life of Barnabas and what kind of made him tick. And that's in, chapter 11 verse 23. We read this as when he comes to Antioch for the first time. It says, when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. Love that detail.
Seeing God's work at of grace in people's lives made Barnabas smile. Now, certainly, he saw all the flaws at the Church of Antioch. There is no way you can have a church spring up so quickly in the midst of a pagan culture who knows nothing about Christian morality, and there not be flaws all over the place. But, when Barnabas arrives, he doesn't say, you need to fix this, you need to fix that, we need to shore up this over here. He doesn't do that.
Instead, God's at work. He sees the grace not fixates on the problems. Grace made him smile. And hear me, to be a man that is full of faith, it doesn't mean that you have faith in other people. That's that's not what Barnabas is doing here.
He's like, wow. I'm just I see other people and I believe in them. No. That's gonna get you burned. It's faith and the power of the gospel to transform people.
That was what made him full of faith. He saw just the kernel of the gospel. Just the slightest embers of grace. He's like, God is at work. And I know that the good work that God began in these people, he will complete.
And he was glad. Grace made him smile. Hear me. When we choose to rejoice, and the grace at work in another person, instead of fixating on their problems, instead choose to rejoice in their grace, it is like it's just coming alongside a little ember and just blowing it, blowing it into a flame. Where criticism is like smothering it.
When I preached my first sermon, it was terrible. Alright? Actually, I cannot even go back and look at the notes to it. It was it was just horrendous. And yet my mentor came up to me, who of course knew how terrible it all was.
But you know what he did? He looked me in the eye and he focused on the one little teeny nugget of goodness in there. He goes, man, I loved it when he said this. Blew that ember. He recognized the grace, and I'm forever thankful for that.
Let's look at the 4th. The The 4th thing we see in the life of Barnabas and what it looks like to be a person filled with the Holy Spirit and a faith is humility. When Barnabas go Barnabas goes and gets Paul and brings him up to Antioch to help him out, this shows that Barnabas did not have to be the man. And here he is in the in the most strategic important position in any church right now, But he didn't have to be the man. He gladly would hand things off and try to raise up other leaders who could possibly do it better than him.
Incredible humility. We actually see this more clearly in, in Acts 13, when the Holy Spirit, at a worship service, tells the church, I want you to set aside Barnabas and Paul for missions. I love we're actually gonna look at that text end of January and I'm so excited about what the Lord's gonna do. Maybe he's gonna call some of us to go out to missions. But but here, the Holy Spirit, he just he says, I want you to set aside Barnabas and Saul.
So that's the order that the Holy Spirit calls them. Barnabas first. Saul second. Within just a few verses, you read, Paul and his companions set sail. Barnabas isn't even mentioned.
And then a few verses later after that, what you get is it flips. It's always Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas will never be mentioned first again. That was a conscious decision on Barnabas'.
He, when it says Paul and his companions set sail, it is the first time we have the word Paul and not Saul. Paul didn't change his name at conversion. He changed it when it seems Barnabas began to give him the reins to take leadership in reaching the Gentiles and so he takes a Gentile name of Paul. Now I say Barnabas let him become a leader and make no mistake, he let Paul become a leader. Paul didn't grab it by the horns.
It wasn't the most natural thing in the world. We actually find at one point in Acts 14 that Barnabas and Paul, or Paul and Barnabas at this point, they're going through a town. And, they do some miracles. So the people there in Lystra think that they're gods. And they want to worship them as gods.
And they see Barnabas and they're like, well you're obviously Zeus. And they see Paul and they're like, and you're Hermes, the person who speaks for him. And so, even when they were going forward, when people looked at who was the chief of them, they they deferred to Barnabas. Barnabas was the chief and Barnabas would just step back and he would keep putting up Paul, keep putting up Paul. He saw his potential and he was humble about it letting another person who is more gifted than him serve.
He didn't have to be the man. He recognized that God can work outside of the sphere of just His control. 5th thing we see about what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit and full of faith. We see that Barnabas was patient with the failure of others. Patient with the failure of others.
And we look, we see this in Acts 15. I don't have it there in your worship, guys, so if you would turn there to Acts 15 verse 36. And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, 'Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord, and see how they are. Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John, called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who was withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas and departed. I've got a confession for you. I hate quitters. I hate quitters.
My personality is geared in such a way like, I don't care how tired you are, emotionally spent you are, I don't care of the excuses you make. You don't quit. Especially, if other people are depending upon you. It's it's not the most noble trait I have. Alright?
It's really a false righteousness because I pride myself on never quitting. But but I I hate quitters. It's my natural inclination. John Mark is a quitter. That's what he is.
You actually find back in Acts 13 when it says Paul and his companions set sail to go off in this direction, you will find. But John Mark decided not to go with them. He withdrew and he went back home to Jerusalem. So John Mark was with him at the very first part of the journey, but all you have to do is rub shoulders with Paul just for a little bit and you're like, things are going to get rough ahead. You just know like, there's going to be a lot of beatings, stonings ahead.
And he bailed on them. Just didn't sit well with Paul. I'm sure it didn't sit well with Barnabas either. He didn't just leave Paul, he left Barnabas. And so now we have the same situation, you know, years later, And this time, they're about to set sail, Paul and Barnabas.
And, John Mark wants to go with them. It's like, hey guys, I'm back. Can I go with you? And Paul's like, I'm not taking deadweight with me. And that's what he would see him as, deadweight.
You're just gonna slow me down before you abandon me. I mean, you've left me before. Go ahead. Go back home to Jerusalem. I'm not making the same mistake again.
And it's kind of hard to blame Paul at that, but Barnabas who also felt the failure felt the failure of John Mark earlier, said we're giving him another chance. We're going to give him another chance. I want you to notice here that Barnabas doesn't shrink back from things. Just because he's a humble encourager, doesn't mean he won't go toe to toe with you. And he goes toe to toe with Paul.
And and basically, he's he's fighting at this point. I I know that Luke says a sharp disagreement. I mean, we remember the disagreements our parents had growing up. Alright. It's a fight.
Alright. They're having a fight here. So much so that they split. But, look at what Barnabas is fighting for of all the things he could fight for. He fights for a failure.
Let that sink in. He fights for somebody who has let them down in the past. Here's what I love about Barnabas, a son of encourager. He sees a person's failure, a person's sin, and he says, I won't let that one moment define you. Yes, I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I'm not gonna say that your worst moment defines who you are.
God's grace defines who you are. Well, we could use some more Barnabuses. I mean, how many times do we think of a person and we define them by their failure? We define them by their sexual sin. We define them by the outburst they had at us that one time.
The email that they sent. And they didn't know they had copied us on it. How many times do we define people by their worst moment and that's all we see them is through that lens? Barnabas says, well you don't deny that that happened, but that's not who they are. God's grace determines who they are.
They are a child of God and Barnabas wanted to give John Mark a second chance. Well you gotta ask the question, so who was right? I mean, was it Barnabas? Was he right or was Paul right? I love how Luke writes this.
He's like, I'm not getting involved. He doesn't tell us. He just simply describes it. He doesn't tell us who was right, who was wrong. But we do know this, that the end of Paul's life, we read in 2nd Timothy, which is the last letter he wrote.
We read these words. He says, Go get John Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry. Don't you love that? Now, how did he get useful to Paul for ministry? It wasn't because of Paul.
It was because of Barnabas. You know, if Barnabas had not advocated for John Mark and seen his potential and overlooked his failure and given him another chance, you know what we would not have, is the gospel of Mark. The very first gospel written. If Paul or if Barnabas had not been an advocate for Paul, you know what else we probably would not have? It's a third of the New Testament, Because Barnabas is the one who identified Paul when he was just sitting down in Tarsus doing who knows what and says, nope, you belong in full time ministry.
Come on up here. And then they launch on a missionary journey together in which all of his letters come out of. We owe over a third of our New Testament to Barnabas, a person who lives in relative obscurity. And so I'm thankful for Barnabas and the people like him. Now hear me, he wasn't perfect.
He wasn't perfect. We find out in Galatians 2, that he actually chose the wrong person to be an advocate for. He picked the wrong side. And he sinned. And Paul rebuked him rightly for it.
He was not perfect. But let me tell you, the works of grace in his life did clearly point us to Jesus. They point us to the one who is perfect. Jesus who is our encourager. Jesus is who is the one who sees our potential because he's the one who's given us that potential.
Jesus, who is our advocate and says, God, Father, you accept this person not because of them, but because of me. This person is with me, and he is our advocate and our encourager. And he is the one who doesn't define us. Jesus doesn't define us by our worst mistakes. He defines us by his grace and his blood, He is not ashamed to call us His own.
Jesus was Barnabas' only hope, and He is our only hope as well, and if Barnabas was here, he'd be very happy for us to never think another thing about him, if he could do merely just this, point to the Jesus who saved him. If you would, pray with me. Lord Jesus, I thank You for the Barnabuses in this world, and for Barnabas in particular, Your work of grace in his life. Lord, and I pray for a spirit of encouragement to fall in our midst, that we would stir one another up, to have a passionate faith, stir one another up to good works. We would constantly encourage and exhort one another to follow you, Jesus.
I pray we would be a people full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. We pray this in your name. Amen.