Be an Encourager

Well, I don't fear, but I'll say thank you very much, Mrs. Royster. I always enjoy hearing you play and sing. I'll remind you, the feast in Cincinnati this year, we're still going to have that jam session night. We just moved it to Wednesdays. And good afternoon to everyone. I guess I shouldn't ignore all of you. I'll answer the first question that I know everybody has is, where is Sue and Connor?

And I apologize, but there was a special Sabbath school class scheduled today, and the children's choir rehearsal. And it's something Connor wanted to go to, and Sue wanted him to go to even more. I was telling some of the fellows downstairs, I debated asserting my authority and saying, no, you're coming with me. But decided I'd save that for a time when it was worth getting in trouble for. And the other question people have, I feel much better than I sound. I came down with a little case of the sniffles earlier this week, and really it didn't affect me very much at all. But as it left, so did my voice.

So I'll croak it out. Actually, I've been teaching about four hours a day since ABC started. Just the first four weeks, I have the module time, so it's a little additional time in the classroom, which I've really been enjoying. I forgot, I guess it was right before the school year started, last time I was here. And we've got a bit younger class than last year, and they're much more energetic. And so that's really keeping us on our toes. We enjoy the energy level.

I think I'm going to find every year's class has a different personality, and you appreciate each one for what it is. I'm hesitating because it seemed there was something else I was going to say. Well, I've got several pages of other things I was going to say. Maybe I'll go to that. I was inspired in this message today, partly thinking about nicknames. You know, nicknames are an interesting phenomenon. When you have a good one, that can be really cool. Looking back in history, you have like Charles Lindbergh was called the Lone Eagle. Teddy Roosevelt was the Bull Moose. More recently, I couldn't think of that many, but I thought, well, Dale, Dale Weihnhardt was called the King.

Boy, how could you do better than that? The thing about nicknames, though, is you can't give one to yourself. How many young boys have been known as Stinky or Shorty wish they had a little more say in the matter? You know, what it comes down to is a nickname always reflects what other people think about you or want to say about you. It's not uncommon for a nickname to reflect a person's physical traits, sometimes in an ironic way, like calling a bald man curly.

Or, you know, it might reflect someone's personality. A cheerful girl might be someone everyone just starts calling Sunny. Not Sunny as an S-O, but S-U. You guys are with me on that, okay. Often it's based on your actions or how other people perceive your character. Have you ever had someone walk in the room and usually it's joking, but you say, well, here comes trouble. People have been called that or light fingers or things like that. And from the other side of the perspective, you can guess, and maybe you've done this too, where you decide to do something or not do something because of a concern what other people might perceive about your actions, what they might say.

You know, even if you're not thinking of a nickname, you might be thinking of that general reputation. I'm thinking now sometimes a person might decide to not say something, not do something, because he doesn't want to be known as that guy. Whenever you say that guy in our common speeches sort of implies an ellipsis, which I put in my notes to say that means those three dots after something where you fill it in, which I'm sure most of you knew, but or all of you did.

But that guy implies something else. It could be that guy who always says out loud whatever one else was thinking but had sense enough to not say. Or that guy who's always a half hour late for anything. You know, if in our society that guy has the negative connotation, we've developed a phrase that's the other way. If you call someone the man, that's pretty positive. Now, that's the slang. If I wanted to use formal English, it would be something like, you, sir, are the man.

And then you can fill in the blank for after that, like you would for that guy. He's the man, the one who's willing to pick up a check after dinner with his friends. Maybe the man who always has a compliment or good word instead of a put down. The reason I'm talking about all this today is I want to explore the example of a man in the Bible who we know from his nickname.

And his nickname was not the man, but in a way he was the man. He was the man who always had a good word for others. Interestingly, one of the things he's known for is he helped another person change his reputation. That other person went from being that guy, as in that guy who persecuted the church, and to becoming someone who was the man. The man who preached the gospel, who wrote parts of the Bible. I'm going to throw you off by telling you who I'm going to talk about, and you might not recognize his name because his name was Joseph.

But in the vernacular of the time in the New Testament, he was more commonly called by the Aramaic version of Joseph. He became the man who encouraged others. His nickname was the Encourager when it's rendered into English. We first meet this fellow in Acts 4, so if you'll join me there.

I can tell I'm going to have the same situation. Last time I spoke in Cincinnati, I brought this new Bible I brought because the pages aren't falling out of it. But it takes me twice as long to get to a scripture now as it used to. It's near the end of the chapter, and let me set the stage because this is the time shortly after that famous Pentecost when God had poured out the Holy Spirit. And of course, that great miracle happened where people could understand all different sorts of languages as though it were their own. And so they heard these people preaching the Gospel.

Peter gave this great sermon, and 3,000 people were baptized in one day. And the Church continued growing. But one of the reasons God made that special miracle of understanding the different languages is that people had come from all around the Roman Empire, from various different countries.

They had come to Jerusalem to worship, of course, to keep that feast, and then go home. But now that they knew the truth, they had God's Spirit, they didn't want to go home. They wanted to stay in Jerusalem because they realized Christ had promised he was going to come again. Now, there was a little misunderstanding though. Christ didn't say when he was going to come again. A lot of them were sticking around thinking, it's going to be any day now. Little did they know it would be a couple thousand years. And so before they had external pressure that would push them to go home, they were trying to figure out ways that they could stay.

Now, a lot of them, probably most of them, weren't independently wealthy. They needed help. But others who did have a little more than they needed started giving. Let's pick up the story in Acts 4 in verse 32. It says, 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.

Skipping to verse 34, it says, Nor was there anyone among them who laughed, for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold. I should note, they didn't suddenly turn communist, but they did want to share. They were concerned with each other. We don't know how many people actually did this. It implies quite a few. Luke, in writing the book of Acts, only describes two of those, though.

One is a bad example that fills up a good part of the next chapter, and he chose one person to give a good example. Now, we could wonder, did he choose that particular person because it was the largest donation?

Some people say that. But another thought is, the reason Luke chose to emphasize him or use his example was that it provided a good way to introduce him to the story, because then he was going to write a lot more about him later. So let's meet him in verse 36. Joseph, as I said, that was the Aramaic or Greek way of saying Joseph, but he was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement.

He was a Levite of the country of Cyprus. Having sold land, he brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. And I'm not going to go on to read the story in the next chapter, because I want to focus on Barnabas, but I'll just mention there, it's the story of that guy, a guy named Ananias, who sold land and brought part of the money, but wanted to get the credit as though he'd given it all. And he was criticized. It was in your power. You didn't have to claim that you were giving it all to us.

So like I said, Ananias was that guy.

But Joseph, who was also known as Barnabas, was not that guy.

He was the man. He was generous.

He was honest. He was the man who donated all of his proceeds.

And he didn't do it to be noticed. He did it to fill a real need.

But here's where I wanted to pause. It's interesting. I've gotten to have a look at scriptures again to see what more we can learn from them. It struck me. And remember, the apostles did not nickname him the Son of Generosity. And I'll note here, in that culture, calling someone the Son of something was a way of pointing out their major attributes.

Like Jesus nicknamed James and John the Sons of Thunder. Which I've always thought, if you could choose a nickname, that one would be pretty cool.

Why did he name them that? Perhaps they were strong and loud and boisterous.

Well, Barnabas basically comes from not Greek, which was one of the most popular things in the world.

The New Testament is mostly written in, or entirely written in, but from Hebrew, or perhaps some Chaldean.

Bar is the Hebrew for Son of, and then Nabos means to prophesy, or also to exhort.

To exhort. And that's the meaning we're looking at.

It's a word that means motivation, exhortation.

And that's a lot of times what we do when we're trying to encourage someone. We're giving exhortation. Have you ever shouted out to someone something like, Come on, you can do it! Keep going! Don't give up! Hang in there! Be strong! Good job! Way to go!

I better stop shouting.

We do that a lot of times at sporting events.

The times I've run marathons.

I appreciate how much it means to hear people on the sidelines, who I don't even know, shouting things like that.

Those are ways of encouraging people. We do this at summer camp a lot, you hear those phrases. They're words of exhortation.

But then again, we might stop and say, Well, how does this relate back to the story we were in? How did we get from, you know, how did I get to all the shouting and encouragement when we were talking about Barnabas being generous?

And when he sold that property, giving all the money to the church.

Well, what I think is really interesting and significant is, although Barnabas was generous, he was honest.

That's not what he was known for.

He was known for something else.

Now, he had this money.

And Luke mentioned that Barnabas was from Cyprus.

I did a little looking at his family.

Must have been, of course, part of the nation of Judah that was scattered, you know, after they were taken captive. And they settled in various places. And Cyprus was a trading center. A lot of commerce came in and out of Cyprus. So evidently, his family over the years became fairly wealthy.

We don't know where this piece of land was that he sold.

Perhaps, since he was in Jerusalem, he owned some land in Jerusalem, sold that, and gave the money.

If that's the case, it's quite likely, or possible at least, that he owned quite a bit of land back in Cyprus.

So maybe he was a rich guy.

But his nickname wasn't son of wealth.

Nobody called him the rich guy.

Barnabas was the encourager.

He was the encourager. He wasn't known for the stuff that he owned.

He wasn't known for how he supported the church with money.

He was known for how he supported people with his words.

And that's where I want to say stop and think of that. Even though he had money, and he used it for the general good, the thing that people noticed most about him was a character that had nothing to do with his money.

And for that matter, it didn't matter if he was especially educated or talented, if he could sing or play an instrument, play sports or anything like that.

Barnabas was known for using words to help people, to encourage them.

And that's something pretty much any of us could do.

That's one of the reasons I wanted to stop and focus on it. As I was studying this, I said, Frank, you could be doing that more than you do. You don't have to have a whole bunch of money. You don't have to be especially talented. You have to be encouraging.

Do we do what Barnabas did?

There's where I said I wish I could hold myself up as a great example and say, yes, I do that, but I've got a ways to go.

Luckily, I've got time to get there, but I do want to learn more.

Let's look more at the example of Barnabas. Let's also look and remind ourselves of what our words can do. We're going to come back to Acts.

But if you turn with me back to Proverbs, let's note some Proverbs that tell us how important these words can be. Starting with Proverbs 12 and verse 25.

I've got to remind myself, I've got a habit of saying the book. I know some people want to write it down before they put down their pen and start turning.

So Proverbs 12 and verse 25.

We believe this is one of Solomon's Proverbs. He says, Anxiety in the heart of a man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.

By the heart, of course, he's not talking about the muscle pumping blood. He talks about our mind, our spirit, our attitude. Any of you can get weighed down by anxiety, worry, but it's amazing how much it can be countered. That can be countered with a good word. A good word can make us glad.

There's a similar saying over in chapter 15 verse 23.

Proverbs 15, 23.

A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is. A word spoken in due season, finding the right time to say the right thing, oh, how good it is.

Funny, when I first wrote, I said that out loud, and I was asking somebody, didn't some famous actor used to say that? And I couldn't place it. Somebody pointed out, no, it was Jackie Gleason who said how sweet it is.

And some of you who are older probably remember that. But think of him saying, because didn't he say how sweet it is? It was just vibrant.

When you get the right word, it's just like that.

Like over in Proverbs 25 verse 11.

Proverbs 25, 11.

A word fitly spoken as like apples of gold and settings of silver.

Apples of, you know, it's just something beautiful. It's amazing if you go to an art museum, you see a lot of these fruit bowls that people paint. I think it's partly a way to practice, but they're also things of beauty, especially an apple made out of gold in a silver setting. It's saying a word fitly spoken is like a great work of art, something beautiful and wonderful.

But let's consider, how do you know what word is to be fitly spoken?

I didn't phrase that, bro. I should have, you know, for it to be fitly spoken, you have to have some knowledge of the situation.

To be an encourager of people, you sort of have to get to know people.

You have to know them enough to know what will be effective.

Perceive what words will be helpful.

And I sort of translate that to saying, an encourager needs to be able to see the good in other people, to see the potential in a person.

Be willing and able to help that person, to point out to them good things, and maybe point those things out to others. And you might have guessed, I'm emphasizing that, because there's an example, I think, of Barnabas doing exactly that.

We see Barnabas doing that the next place that he appears in Scripture, which is in Acts 9.

So I'm going to go back to Acts 9.

Now, if we'd still been in Acts 5, you'd be turning past the intervening chapters. I guess we still have to, since we came all the way from here.

Proverbs.

And notably, we would pass the account of a man named Saul, who persecuted the church.

Was there a consenting to Stephen the martyr's death? And he's going around, says, raising havoc. And then he gets a letter so he can go to Damascus, and prison, and throw into jail Christians there.

But he doesn't quite get to Damascus in the same attitude. On the way, he's struck blind, and he hears a voice talking to him. That turns out to be Jesus Christ. He says, Saul, where are you persecuting me?

Sir, who are you?

I'm Jesus.

You know, it's hard for you to kick against the pricks. So Saul's shaken up.

Someone leads him into the city. He spends the next three days blind and lost, fasting. And a Christian shows up. One who was a bit nervous about going to him because of his reputation.

But Christ had spoken to him, told him, Go lay hands on Saul. Later he'll be called Paul.

And let him know he's a chosen person. God wants to use him to preach the gospel.

I summarize that story because we know Christ turned Saul's life around.

He would become the apostle to the Gentiles.

Paul was a man who changed dramatically from trying to stamp out Christianity into becoming one of his greatest teachers.

People are going to have trouble accepting that kind of a change in a person. It's hard to believe that it really changed that much.

I would propose that you have to be looking for the good in someone to be able to see that and accept it.

When Saul came to Jerusalem, he wanted to meet with the church, and they didn't want to. Look in Acts 9 and verse 26. Acts 9 and 26. When Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him. They didn't believe he was a disciple. This is just some ruse so we can find out where we are and throw us in jail.

But we'll see, someone was different.

But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and he had spoken to him, and how he had preached back.

He was boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus, and so he, that's Paul, was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out.

All the disciples were afraid of Paul.

What made Barnabas so different?

Barnabas went and took him.

The Bible doesn't tell us for sure why he was so different.

But he was the encourager, the exhorter.

And if my premise is correct that to be a good encourager, you have to be able to size up people and look for the good in them, then perhaps that was what happened here. He was willing to look for the good in Paul. Perhaps he listened to him.

Now, to do that, he had to take quite a risk, didn't he?

You know, he put himself out there. If the other disciples were correct that the Saul was just trying to fool them so he could round him up and throw him in jail, Barnabas was putting his life on the line, perhaps.

And but he reached out and took a chance.

And Barnabas saw the good in Paul, and he saw the truth.

Now, I made a note to myself here to remind us that it's good to look for the good in people. Maybe I shouldn't have said good twice in the same sentence, but we still want to remember, though, that there are bad people in the world.

You know, and Jesus said you'll know them by their fruits.

So when someone's fruits show them, obviously, to be a bad person, we don't want to spend too much time examining their lives and looking into their words and their actions.

But it's worth giving someone a chance to see.

You know, know their fruits before you decide they're bad.

Okay. It's been a while since I've gone through two glasses of water in a sermon. I'm reverting back to my roots. Okay. So far, we've seen Barnabas as a man of generosity, of encouragement, someone who helped other people get along with each other.

The next part of his story reminds us that there's more to being a leader and a teacher to God's people than just upbeat words and lots of smiles.

There's a need for instruction in God's way of life, for living by God's law. And we're going to see that in Barnabas. Barnabas was capable in those areas. He was able to show leadership. So much so that the leaders of the church in Jerusalem trusted him to go out on his own and do what could have been a formidable task teaching new converts. That's over in Genesis... Genesis Acts chapter 11. Sorry, I spent a lot of time in Genesis in class this week.

I'll mention this interestingly. Again, I'm skipping over a very important chapter.

Acts chapter 10 is when Jesus sent the apostle Peter to Cornelius, the Roman soldier who was not a Jew. He gave Peter this vision of a sheep with various animals that were unclean lowering. He wasn't telling him, Oh, it's okay to eat unclean meat and order pepperoni on your pizza. He was showing that we shouldn't call any people common or unclean. Opening the way for membership to the church for not only a human being, but non-Jewish people.

And then we're going to see what happens. Non-Jewish people start coming into the church in chapter 11 verse 19.

Chapter 11 verse 19.

Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.

Now it doesn't say it here, but we could say, at first, only to the Jews. And they were probably doing what we see described of Paul later, coming into a new town and, on the Sabbath, go to the synagogue. And if you get a chance, then start teaching.

But we'll see some people did something different.

In verse 20, some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene. When they had come to Antioch, they spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. Hellenists is another way of saying Greek. And the Greeks didn't call themselves Greek, which I don't know why it would have made it easier for us now.

But they called themselves the Hellenes.

Now, Hellenists in this scripture might have meant Greeks, or it could have meant Jews who were living according to Greek culture.

And either way, they weren't coming to the synagogue, probably.

So these Christians were starting to teach the truth outside of the synagogue. People were obviously not part of the descendants of Israel.

Okay, so here we're going to see that the book of Acts is making a dramatic turn. As I said, this is right after God personally showed the apostle Peter that he was doing this.

Whereas the first, you know, pretty much nine chapters focus on God building the church. Jesus Christ said, I'll build my church. And it shows the Holy Spirit being poured out and developing this church and some trials and tests there in Jerusalem.

Now we're going to look outward and further abroad. Stretch out the horizons.

It's going to take some special people to be able to do that. That's one of the reasons Jesus went to so much trouble to convert Paul. So Paul had some traits that he wanted.

Perhaps he'd taken special care to build those into him in advance.

And much of the story and the rest of the book of Acts is going to be the apostle Paul traveling, preaching, spreading the gospel in many ways.

Before he does all that, though, it's interesting. We'll see that in the same way Barnabas had played a vital role in introducing Paul to the church in Jerusalem, it turns out that Barnabas will play a vital role in now introducing Paul to what will become his great life's work.

But before we get to that, I want to discuss what Barnabas was doing on his own before that happened.

Let's look at Barnabas' role as a teacher and an evangelist. Here in chapter 11 verse 22, I'm sorry, I left off after 20 in verse 20 when they spoke to Hellenas preaching the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Well, news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.

I'm... sometimes I wonder, they're looking around and saying, who's going to go all the way to Antioch? Which it wasn't that far, but if you imagine Jerusalem's right about here, Antioch's up here in sort of what's now Syria. So it's not the other end of the world, but it was a ways out there. So they sent Barnabas and... oh, I wanted to keep reading. That's what I wanted to do next. Verse 23, when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad. Guess what he did? He encouraged them. It makes sense for somebody named Barnabas. He encouraged them that with all purpose of heart, 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. This is telling us a bit more about Barnabas, but it matches with what we've already seen. One thing it says, he was a good man, not saying that he was perfect. You know, Jesus Christ, remember, said there's none good but one, that is God. This doesn't mean that, but it means in the way we use the term colloquially, he was a person of upright character. It also says that Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit.

Now, there are a few things that we see necessary to be full of the Holy Spirit. One, of course, is repentance and baptism and having the laying on of hands. Barnabas might well have been one of those people there, that first Pentecost, it seems likely that he was, but I'm going to quote Acts 5 in verse 32, where it says, the Spirit is given to them that obey God.

The Spirit is given to them that obey. So that's something we have to be living God's way of life, and we do that by his Spirit in us. It seems obvious that if Barnabas was full of the Spirit, he was living God's way. And I want to make this clear because it's easy to say, well, Barnabas wasn't an encourager, and we could get the wrong impression. We might get the idea that he just went around complimenting people, making them feel good about themselves. But I don't think it was just that. He wasn't somebody who just talked about sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns all the time, but he also lived by God's law. Maybe I delivered that line wrong. I thought I'd get some chuckles.

Or maybe I don't want to put down sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. I'm for those things, except for the unicorns thing. But he wasn't just talking about nice puffy cotton candy type stuff. He taught God's law. He lived by it. But I imagine he also did it in a way that was still encouraging and uplifting. And we've been around enough different speakers. There are some who make you feel pretty low, and you feel like you're getting yelled at all the time, and others who can tell you the same exact message, but you come out feeling a lot better, and some who go back and forth between that. It reminds me of, you know, I get fired up about things when I'm teaching class sometimes, and I'll realize I'm speaking with my mean teacher voice. And I'll stop and say, I'm not meaning to yell at you guys. I'm just fired up about this material. So I try to keep the right tone of voice in that. So he was teaching God's way. It also tells us that he was full of faith. And I want to reference that to Romans chapter 10 in verse 17, which is another one I won't turn to. It's one that's commonly a memory scripture. Romans 10, 17 tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

If faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, then to be full of faith, you need to know the Word of God. And I believe Barnabas knew God's Word. That's part of why he was able to live by it and able to teach it. It might be worth recalling that he was a Levite. It's even possible that he had a fair bit of formal training in the scriptures.

So all of this should underlie and inform our understanding of what this good man who is full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit, what he did in Antioch, he encouraged them. If you had the older King James Version, it would say he exhorted them to continue with the Lord. Barnabas, of course, means encourage or exhort. And that's exactly what he did. He did both those things. Exhortation can come in a variety of forms, but one of them can be what I'm trying to do now. Getting up and talking about things and talking about the Word of God and encouraging people to live by it. That's what all ministers try to do on the Sabbath, sometimes more successfully than others. But we talk about God's Word, encourage and exhort people to live by it. And there's another way I'm trying to be like Barnabas. But I should also mention you don't have to be a minister to do that. Far from it. Again, part of my purpose today is to encourage us all to be like Barnabas. And encourage us to have the good words to say, to be living by God's way and thus be ready to teach about it or encourage people to stay in it. The best thing in the world would be for the whole church to be full of Barnabas. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get that word out. It's hard to say a plural of a word that ends in an S. A church full of Barnabas, but now I can't say it. I'm going to move on.

This story isn't finished, though, because I'm kind of amazed at what Barnabas did do next.

It's an amazing example of humility, of a person doing his best to help someone else do their best. We're back in Acts 11 in verse 25. As we just saw, as a matter of fact, back up to verse 24. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and a faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. So God is calling people. The church is getting bigger. And although it doesn't say it here, Barnabas must have stopped and said, this job's getting too big for me. I think I need some help. So he went to... yeah, he departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. As I said, if Jerusalem is here and Antioch is up here, then Tarsus is over here. And actually, it's a little closer to Antioch than Jerusalem is, because I've sometimes wondered, well, why didn't you go back to Jerusalem and get some help from there? But he must have remembered Saul, who is named Paul. And remember, he introduced him to the church, spent some time with him. He must have realized, this guy is sharp. He knows his stuff. Let's go get... I'm gonna go get him to help me. And Barnabas didn't let his ego or his vanity prevent him from asking for help. You know, he wanted to benefit the congregation, and he did so in a way that was going to also help another person to fulfill more of his own potential. You know, we know now that Paul would go on to become one of the most influential teachers in the history of God's church. But he wasn't in that position yet.

You know, we will say, I said, Barnabas went to Tarsus to seek Saul. It's funny. So he knew he was in that town. That's where they'd sent him. And I don't think I read the scriptures earlier, where after Paul, you know, did join the church in Jerusalem, he started preaching, he drew a lot of criticism and attack, and he was in danger. People wanted to kill him. So the disciples brought him to the shore, put him on a boat, and sent him home.

You know, and then it says they had peace. Now I'm wishing I had read that there.

Now Paul did have a way of stirring things up.

And Barnabas knew he was there and said, I'm going to go get that guy. But all he knew was that he sent him to Tarsus. So he had to go and start searching, asking around. What was Paul doing in Tarsus? This is the kind of question I like to ask in class. And a lot of times I'll say, well, we'll turn to description, and he'll tell us. There's nowhere we can turn to tell us. We have no idea what Paul was doing. And some Bible scholars say, well, he must have been preaching the gospel, and he was probably being persecuted. And, yeah, that's possible. But for some reason, I tend to think if he was doing that, that would be in the book of Acts. My own personal guess, and it's only a guess, is that he was making tents. You know, in his epistles, or later on in Acts, it says that he was by trade a tentmaker. And studying the culture of the time tells us that most people that studied to be rabbis were also taught a trade. That way, in case the scholarship thing didn't work out, they could go or in a living and not have to, you know, move into mom and dad's basement with them or something.

I say that as a scholarly type. There's time. I've taught a lot of people. I wish I'd gone to HVAC school. That way, if this, you know, teaching thing didn't work out, I could go get a job fixing people with air conditioners. Well, Paul had that training, and so he was skilled at making tents and sails. Maybe he was in Tarsus, you know, one of the smartest guys around, stitching cloth.

If so, it wouldn't be the first time someone's talents were underutilized. Probably wouldn't, well, I know it wouldn't be the last time. But just think, Barnabas knew the traits and the quality that he had. Barnabas knew how educated he was, how skilled. He could have been thinking, yeah, I know I could go get that Paul guy, but he's so smart and talented, pretty soon I'll be playing second fiddle to him. I don't want to do that.

And if he did think that, he was pretty smart, because we know the story. That's exactly what was going to happen. But even if, you know, whatever Barnabas had in mind, it seems he was not worried about protecting his turf. I admire that in him. What he was concerned with, making sure that God's people in Antioch were served the best way possible. And he might have crossed his mind that if he figured Paul was making tents, he might have been thinking, I got to help this guy get to something, I don't want to say more important than that, because if you need a tent, a tentmaker is very important. You know, it's not that manual labor is less worthwhile, but, you know, not every, you know, there weren't many people who could preach the way Paul could. And so, Barnabas goes out of his way to help Paul move into that career.

Dares McNeely likes to call Barnabas the mentor of an apostle. And I like that. The mentor of an apostle. What an example for us. As we mature, and many of us in this room are mature, some of you more mature than some of us. Of course, I don't know, as my beard grows out, and I see it's almost all gray this time, I'm going to be careful who I say is you and us, but we can look for opportunities to help others who have less experience and encourage them in that, give them opportunities.

And even if we expect them, perhaps, to outshine us later on, you know, to say, hey, I want to help this person knowing that they might take over my job. It turns out that Barnabas and Saul, who became known as Paul, worked well as a team. You know, they came back.

Yeah, in verse 26, when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And so it was for a whole year, they assembled with the church. They taught a great many people. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. We'll see down at the end of the chapter, there is a bit of a drought. The problem is going on in Jerusalem. So the congregation up there decides they're going to, it says, send relief in verse 29. And they sent it by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

So Barnabas and Saul were so well trusted by the members of the congregation, they loaded up what? Well, not a pickup truck, but they might have loaded several camels with a lot of food supplies, perhaps a lot of money. They said, you guys take this down to Jerusalem and make sure it gets to the people who need it. And they did that successfully. And when they came back, actually we see it at the end of the next chapter in chapter 12 verse 25. When Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they fulfilled their ministry, they also took with them John, whose surname was Mark. They brought back a younger man. Now, it's not stated here, but in Colossians chapter 4 in verse 10, it shows us that this John Mark was related to Barnabas. And the vagaries of Greek make it not clear if he was his nephew or his cousin, but he was a younger man that was related, and Barnabas wanted to bring him back. And John Mark would later play an important role in the history of the church. Particularly, he would play an important role in the working relationship between Barnabas and Paul. So we're going to move on in Barnabas' story, and we're going to see one of his most admirable traits in my mind. We'll see that Barnabas had the ability to gracefully move from the role of leading a group into the role of being a strong supporter of someone else leading that same group, and yet still maintaining his principles, his character, and apparently not getting down about himself. Chapter 13 of Acts describes what is often called, at least the first part of Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey. If you've got a map in the back of your Bible, one is probably labeled. Although, a lot of times, because of what happened later, it's just called Paul's first missionary journey. Let's pick up in chapter 13 in verse 2. As they ministered 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. So again, this team effort is something that God originated, or at least endorsed. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit, well I just read that. I wanted verse 3. Having fasted and prayed, they laid hands on them and sent them away. So they're going to begin traveling, preaching the Gospel in various towns, which looks back in Scripture in some ways. While Christ was doing his ministry on earth, there were a couple of different times where he sent out his disciples by twos.

Once just the twelve, another time seventy of them by twos. Go out and preach the Gospel.

And some of you might remember, I've heard stories because I was too young, but in the earlier days of the modern-day Church, before we had congregations all over, sometimes pairs of men would be sent out on baptizing tours to people who were listening to the program on the radio and getting the magazine and writing in saying, I want to learn more. I want to be baptized. And so they traveled through and meet them. Now, there was an older woman up in Columbus, so I remember telling me, she lived down in the middle of West Virginia and drove all the way to Pittsburgh to meet one of those baptizing tours. So this was carrying on a long tradition. Now, we might think of just the two of them, but if we look in verse 5, we'll see there's at least one other person. In the verse 5, it says, when they arrived in Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant. This is John Mark. Now, what did he do as their assistant?

It doesn't say for sure. He might have just carried their luggage, went out to get him a Coke when they needed one, things like that. But it's also possible that he was sort of in training, or perhaps doing this kind of work in the future himself.

We know that for many years Joshua was Moses's assistant, and then when Moses was gone, Joshua led the nation. Similarly, Elijah had Elisha as his servant. There's one place where it refers to Elisha as the guy who poured water on Elijah's hand, but then he moved on to perform even more miracles than Elijah. So we don't know for sure, but I suspect that John Mark is there assisting in helping, but also training for his own role in preaching the Gospel. If that was the case, he wasn't up to the job. Not yet. Verse 13 of chapter 13, we'll see something. And actually, what happens is going to be a little overshadowed. When Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga and Pamphylia, and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. Now, the significance of him leaving is going to be something we'll look at a little later. But for right now, for a lot of people studying it, here in chapter 13, John Mark leaving is a little overshadowed by the statement, Paul and his party.

And I like better the old King James, where it says Paul and his company. Paul and his party makes me think like, you know, invited a bunch of friends over and, you know, had a party. So I'm glad, at least Joe is smiling for me. My humor is way off today, isn't it?

That's okay. Anyways, but when did it become Paul's party? You know, we can't be certain what happened. You know, in that chapter, it describes Paul working a miracle. They were preaching the gospel. This government leader was real interested, and he had this person hanging out with him who was called a sorcerer, trying to keep him away. And Paul finally got fed up and struck him blind.

Maybe it was that, maybe it was by their preaching, but this is a turning point.

Before, Barnabas had been the mentor. Barnabas had been the leader. You know, he and the Saul, who later becomes Paul, embarked on this missionary trip, either with Barnabas in the lead or both of them as equals. But by this point, it becomes Paul and his company, or his party.

And by the way, I'm not implying that Paul used some kind of subterfuge, like I'm going to figure out a way to push this guy out of the way, and I'll take over. From what we read in the Bible about Paul's calling and then his ministry later, it seems evident that this was God's will and desire.

And we also would surmise that Barnabas was able to quite happily serve God's purpose.

You know, even when that meant Paul was going to go from being someone that was a mentor, you know, under Barnabas' mentorship, to leading the party.

There's no mention of Barnabas sulking, or getting fed up, or you know, anything like that. Now, we will read of a disagreement in a moment, but it doesn't seem to be related to this at all.

Bible scholars unanimously tend to say that they maintained a good relationship, regardless of who was in charge.

If we look in chapter 13, verse 46, we see Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said it's necessary that the work of God should be spoken to you first. So they're both bold preaching the gospel.

A couple chapters later, chapter 15, verse 12, 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.

They're still doing the work together, cooperating well, even though, as we've seen, it's evident that some kind of change has happened. It's Paul and his company, and Barnabas is a part of that company. And as I said, I admire him.

He was able to make that shift gracefully and effectively.

I want to turn back to John chapter 3 to read something that John the Baptist said when he was in not exactly the same situation, but might be similar.

John the Baptist was like a superstar. People coming from all over to be baptized by him, and he was this great leader. But even then, he knew someone mightier was coming. He said, there's one coming after me. I'm not even worthy to untie his shoe.

But when that happened, some of his followers were taken aback.

Matter of fact, if we read beginning John chapter 3 in verse 26, they came to John and said, Rabbi, he was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you testified.

Behold, he's baptizing, and all are coming to him. What did John say?

A man can receive nothing unless it's been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear with me witness. I said, I'm not Christ, but I've been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.

I don't know if Barnabas had a chance to read this account because we believe John was written later than the other Gospel accounts. But whether or not he heard John the Baptist say this or knew it, I think Barnabas personifies this brilliantly. He saw Paul becoming more powerful and effective doing God's work. And Barnabas seemed to say, well, he must increase and I must decrease.

And he carried on and did the work and was powerful in it.

There was that one time when Barnabas is going to disagree with Paul's leadership.

But I believe it still seems to be tied to Barnabas' ability and desire to see the best in people. If you'll go with me back to Acts 15, we'll begin reading in verse 36. Acts 15, 36. Now, this is after they finished their first missionary journey. And then actually they'd gone to Jerusalem for the great Jerusalem conference to discuss and make a decision about whether or not Gentiles have to be circumcised in order to become Christians. And of course, the answer to that was, no, they don't. A Gentile doesn't have to become Jewish or an Israelite to become a Christian. But I would say later on, we see from Paul's writings, that later Israelites have to become Christians to be part of God's family. That's a different issue. But they came back from Jerusalem and they brought with them another powerful teacher, Silas, a couple of teachers, actually, who were assigned to come and explain this decision to the people. And when that's all said and done, they'd been back in Antioch for a while. Here in verse 36, after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, well, let's go back and visit our brethren in every city where we've preached the word of the Lord and see how they're doing. Let's go back and revisit, you know, those churches we started. Now, Barnabas was determined to take with them, John called Mark. But Paul insisted they should not take with them the one who departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. Ah, remember I said that was kind of overshadowed earlier. I was focusing on Paul and his party. But yeah, John, Mark, we don't know why he left. But now it seems that Paul says, you know, I'm not willing to trust that guy. Maybe he thinks he doesn't have that good of a work ethic. Or is he going to get homesick and leave us again?

The contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. So Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Paul took Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God.

Now, to some people, this is a disaster. There's a split in the church.

But if we back up and look at the whole context of the New Testament, it doesn't seem quite so dire. It's not some major split. Barnabas and Paul had no doctrinal disputes.

They didn't disagree on what they wanted to do. They only disagreed on a personnel decision.

Barnabas wanted to give John Mark another chance. It might not have been insignificant that he was a member of his family. But I also tend to think, you know, Barnabas was the guy that gave Paul a chance when all the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of him. Barnabas looked for the good in people. He wanted to bring that out. But Paul, you know, I like to you know the phrase, once bitten twice shy. I think that's the way he looked at John Mark. He's like, I don't want to take a chance. So they went their own ways. Almost all Bible commentaries and scholars say that this ended up being a really good thing. Instead of one pair of ministers traveling in the church, now there were two. They could get twice as much done.

Interestingly, although I'm not going to read in it, soon after this, almost immediately after this, Paul meets a young man who's going to be very important in his life, Timothy. Timothy was the young man that Paul felt comfortable working with. Perhaps John Mark rubbed him the wrong way. I mean, I'm just guessing here. But Paul would take on a younger person that he would mentor. We can even speculate. Did he watch Barnabas and John Mark sailing away and think, wow, maybe I didn't do the right thing. Maybe I should be trying to see the good in these young men and encourage it and train them up. I don't know. I'm really speculating here. But we know Timothy was a young man whose mother and grandmother were in the church, but his father wasn't. And so Paul took him and circumcised him, had him travel. He taught him later. He said, Timothy is like my own son.

But what about John Mark? Well, we can look a little bit in Scripture and then look to tradition, but it seems that he made the most of that second opportunity. I'll look over in 2 Timothy chapter 4, 2 Timothy 4 verse 11. Of course, this is one of the epistles that Paul wrote to his young protege once he was off on his own. 2 Timothy 4, 11, near the end of Paul's life. He's writing to Timothy, and he says, only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you. He's useful to me for the ministry. It is possible that this refers to another person, but pretty much every Bible commentary and book I've looked at says we believe it's the same John Mark who had left Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. The same one that Paul didn't want to bring, you know, for whatever reason, but now he's useful to the work. John Mark's come a long way, and if that's correct, and I believe it is, this is subtle proof that in that sharp disagreement that Paul and Barnabas had, guess who was wrong and who was right? Now, I don't see Barnabas crowing and saying, ah, you know, that's something I don't see from him, and of course, we're not going to hear from him, but Paul was willing to say, hey, I do want to work with this guy now.

And later on, there'd be another apostle who was happy to work with John Mark. The Bible doesn't say it, but tradition says that after this, and probably could have been shortly after Paul was martyred, John Mark went and worked with Peter and was very close to him, and that's why we have a gospel of Mark. That's the same John Mark that he wrote it from Peter's accounts, and some scholars have said it should be called the gospel of Peter, but John Mark's the one that put pen to paper.

But again, here's an example we can strive to follow in God's church. You know, if you are older and more experienced, it's a good thing to look for talent, to look for potential ability in our younger, less experienced brethren. And I'll say, you know, not that I go to all of congregations all over, but I see that happen here in Portsmouth more than in some others, that you're very good at motivating our young people and using them and training them, and that's a great thing. Hopefully we won't get into arguments or lose friends in the process, but we should note again, it doesn't say that Paul and Barnabas stopped being friends.

It doesn't say they lost respect or affection for one another. Part of the reason might have been because of that rare personality and the traits that Barnabas had. You know, he was a rare person. He was willing to be a leader, but he was willing to step aside and be a follower and to support whoever was the leader. If the need existed, he could step up and take the lead again, you know, which he did once Paul went a different way, and he could do it, I think, gracefully.

And so could we when we have the right motivation. Barnabas, as we've seen, didn't seek praise or admiration. He wasn't out for personal agro-indisement. Boy, now I wish I hadn't written that. That's hard to say. You know, we know he had a bunch of money and he was willing to give it away. He was seeking to serve God and to serve the people of God. When we make that our motivation, we will likewise be able to move gracefully from serving in one capacity to another or another, however God wants to use us. Now, the reason I have to speculate about Barnabas and Paul's relationship after they separated in Acts 15 is, Barnabas doesn't show up again in the story. Now, his name does appear here and there in Paul's epistles, but it seems from the chronology we can put together that those mentions were before they went on the second missionary journey. Legend and tradition says that Barnabas ended up being martyred, that he was stoned to death for preaching the gospel, which was true of almost all the apostles. And if that's true, and we have no reason to doubt it, we could say that Barnabas ended his life the way he lived in, and devoted service to the people of God. And that can bring us back to where we started. Barnabas was the man. He was the man who encouraged, the man who exhorted, the man who taught people to live God's way of life, and the man who helped bring out the best in others. He was the man who was willing to sacrifice his own comfort and prestige to help other people, and who went out of his way to lift people up to accomplish their potential.

And that's great. Good for Barnabas. But he's been long done doing those things. He's in his grave waiting for Christ's return in the resurrection. The church still needs someone today to be the man. Actually, I would say it doesn't need someone. It needs many someones to be the man or the woman. Can we be like Barnabas? I want to encourage us to try. I want to exhort us to be men and women like Barnabas. I'm trying to make a play on words there that I'm not good at. But we can be like that. Let's be people who help, who serve, and who encourage each other, just like Barnabas.