Barnabas

Introduction

Good morning. It’s good to be here this morning and to look out and see so many people with us this morning that are dressed very fancy. And this morning, my eight-year-old daughter Rebecca said, Dad, you look like an Easter egg. I didn’t know exactly how to take that, but she likes Easter, so that’s good. But then I got to services and there was Frank Dempsey. I love you, Frank. I love your spirit, but he says, When you die, please will that suit and tie to me. Sometimes we don’t know exactly what to say, but we like words of encouragement. And we like words that lift us up and things that make us feel good and make us encouraged one through another. And I must echo the words of our speaker for our first half of our service this morning.

I must echo the words of Andrew Fix very much. We come here every first day of the week to remember the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Every first day of the week we remember what Christ did for us when he died, when he gave his life on Calvary’s tree, and then the third day arose from the grave. Every first day of the week we remember that. And that is very special to us. That is treasured time. And so I’m not going to give a typical lesson on the resurrection. I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about 1 Corinthians 15, 50 through 58, which we could talk about. I have many lessons on the resurrection, and through the years, I have happily preached about the things that Jesus did and the people that were amazed by his resurrection, such as Mary and the men on the road to Emmaus.

I have sermons about that. But I wanted to do something a little bit different this morning. I want to talk about something that I think is of great importance. In Psalm 122 1, you don’t have to turn there now. It says, I was glad when they said, Let us go to the house of the Lord. An idea of encouragement, an idea of importance, an idea of wanting to be with the saints. This sermon is going to be a character study about an individual in the Bible by the name of Barnabas. We’re going to look at a man by the name of Barnabas, who is a very special encourager. We need more than anything, in the world in which we live in, to be the type of people that are the salt of the earth, that when they see us, they get thirsty for Jesus.

And we need to be the type of people that encourage one another. And so we want to recognize that there was a man in the Bible by the name of Barnabas who was dubbed the title son of encouragement. You know, Barnabas was not his given name. His name was Joseph. And that word Joseph means may God help. And so he basically from the beginning of his life told people, I will be a helper. I will be one that helps other people. And his apostle friends said, because he was so helpful, because he lived up to his natural name, they gave him a new name, the son of encouragement. The idea that he was encouraging to others. And so we recognize that while Barnabas was not his given name, but it was Joseph, and while he was dubbed this name for his characteristics, we realize that his name also means son of encouragement.

How would you like to be the person that somebody says, oh, their brother or sister expert in consoling? The type of person that when you’re with them, you just you feel consolation from. Frank, he’s an excellent consoler. I’m not exactly sure about this tie, Frank. I might keep this one. But he basically is an encourager. And so, how would you like to be called brother or sister helper or kind one or brother or sister that lifts everyone’s disposition that when you’re around them, you just want to smile. You’re just encouraged by them. That’s so much better than being dubbed the idea brother or sister critic or brother or sister fault finder or saint pessimist. We don’t want to be called those types of things, or even if we’re not literally called those types of things, we don’t want to be ones that people associate that terminology with.

We want to be an encourager. So I’ve got three things for this morning’s sermon about the life of Barnabas, and they’ll cover about five to six scriptures, and they’re all in chronological order. So if you’re new to the Bible and you go to the Bible and you turn in your first scripture to Acts chapter 4, we’ll be giving the scriptures in order so they’re easy to follow. We’ll talk about three things. Barnabas was an encourager with his generosity. Second, Barnabas was encouraged, and he was the type of one that encouraged all growing saints. When we look at different people at different levels, there was nobody that Barnabas did not lift up and encourage that was a saint doing what’s right. He encouraged the growing saints, not just some of them, but even the ones that others were not encouraging.

1. Barnabas Was an Encourager With His Generosity

He found ways to look towards the saints that some people had skepticism about and look towards those skeptical saints and still affirm them and their validity and their importance and their value to others. And then third, we’ll look at how he encouraged those grappling with challenges. And then the lesson will be yours. This first portion of the lesson we want to talk about is his giving. And so we turn in our Bibles to the book of Acts to the beginning of the church, towards the beginning when it first began. It says, Joseph’s Suzus’ name was Barnabas by the Apostles. This is Acts chapter 4 and verse 36. So if you’re there, he says they laid money at the apostles’ feet, distributed as anyone had need. And Joseph, who is 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.

Okay, so here’s a guy from Cyprus. It doesn’t say he went to his house in Cyprus and then deeded that house to the church. Maybe he kept his house in Cyprus. It says he had land.

You can, but you don’t have to do that. But it’s what he decided to do. He said, I’m gonna help in this way of generosity. Here’s a guy who had multiple lands, and it doesn’t say Barnabas sold his house, it says he sold a field, a piece of property that belonged to him, and he sold that and materially took that material that whatever it was worth and gave it to the church. This book, chapter, and verse is just showing what kind of guy he is. That’s just his nature. He’s generous. And we need to be the type of people that when we are generous, we’re a cheerful giver, not begrudgingly, but realizing that we have a grace that we’re able to give. And it is really a grace to give, in so much as when we give, it makes us feel good to know we’re giving to a good cause.

A lot of times we think about things in the world and we give to various charitable causes, to different organizations, and you we think to ourselves, will this be worth it? Is this a good cause that I’m going to this charity or that charity? And will this money really be used in the right way? When you’re giving to the Lord, you’re giving to the cause of Christ in such a way that helps the most noble calling ever. It helps the spiritual growth and development, not only of the local church but abroad, and helping the work of the Lord be spread. There is no greater cause than that. And so that is something we need to remember that that’s something to cheerfully give about. And it doesn’t have to be a specific amount.

2. Barnabas Encouraged All Growing Saints

Barnabas gave something like land. You don’t have to do that. You can give what you’re able to give. God loves a cheerful giver. Even the widow’s two mights. No one could give more than that. She gave up her livelihood, it took effort, but she gave. And so we remember that. Now the next section. Barnabas was one who was an encourager of different people that were growing in the faith. There’s a lot of illustrations of people in the Bible that are dwelling in this condition of I’m saved. I know I’m right, and the Lord is happy that I’m saved, but I’m not sure about this guy over here. He’s scary. He used to be a bad person. He did evil things. How do I know that he is really a Christian?

It says, when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the work there in Jerusalem. He wanted to be part of the disciples. And it says in Acts, if you’ll turn along in your scriptures to uh chapter 9, verse 26. It says here in Acts 9 26, when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they’re all afraid of him. They didn’t believe he was a disciple. Now, who is going to solve that? God’s going to solve that. God’s going to solve for Jerusalem the fact that Paul is a real apostle and Saul is a real disciple. But who’s going to convey that message of God to the people, an encourager? Someone who could be like you and I. Someone who could say, I know this person is a child of God.

They have immense value. They have immense worth. And I am going to try to convince you of what God already knows. Because it was God who helped dub Saul to do what he needed to do. But Barnabas, that’s the man, he took him and brought him to the apostles, and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly in Damascus in the name of Jesus. He’s talking about Saul. So he went out with him at Jerusalem, coming and going out. Somewhere between verse 27 and 28, they accept him. Doesn’t give a whole lot of explanation how, but we just learn of one guy named Barnabas that had the skill of encouragement.

He could uplift, he could do that. Barnabas saw ability in others that not everyone in the whole group observed easily. Paul was the other guy, the guy who had not demonstrated sufficient capability to other in Jerusalem. He just wasn’t accepted right away.

You know what cosigning is when you co-sign a loan? I remember uh years ago of the idea of one that got an apartment and they didn’t have a lot of credit, they didn’t have cars and credit cards, and they were a young person, didn’t have a lot of credit, and so the parent co-signed the loan. Well, the person paid for their apartment, took care of the bills, and never defaulted on the loan. And that’s good. The person has a good credit score today. It’s not a bad credit score, it’s an excellent credit score. But there’s a point to that. The Proverb writer says over and over that if you make surety for a pledge, such as in Proverbs 6, 1 through 7, or Proverbs 22, 26 through 27, or Proverbs 11 15, that that’s really dangerous.

That the surety of a pledge is the idea of cosigning alone. If you are going to co-sign alone with someone, you better be really sure that that person is able to make good on their part. Here in this instance, Barnabas saw the ability, and Barnabas was the one that says, Well, what he lacks in experience, he makes up for in sincerity. This is a real bona fide Christian. And he then says here, he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord. Look at verse 29, and disputed against the Greek-speaking Jews, but they attempted to kill him. So he goes from one extreme to the other. He goes from one that used to do bad things to Christians, because that’s what Saul used to do, to now defending the faith and risking his own life for the cause of Christ.

It says when the brethren found out they brought him down to Caesarea to send him out to Tarsus, then the churches throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. Here we recognize that He’s an encourager. That he sees someone who maybe we don’t know much about. We’re not so sure about Saul of Tarsus. Don’t know if he’s of the faith. And Barnabas saw his ability that he had. We need to be the type of people today that when we recognize an ability in someone, we encourage them to develop that ability. From small to greater to great. You know, there’s a lot of people in this audience right now who really love football.

I mean, they love football. So I’ll give a football analogy. Joe Namath and Joe Montana have won a national championship in college and have gone on to quarterback a Super Bowl winning team. Neither of them won a Heisman trophy. Only Roger Stahlbeck and Jim Plunkett won a Heisman and a Super Bowl ring. And only four Super Bowl MVPs have ever been a Super Bowl and Heisman winner.

That’s it. And you take all the other good, good quarterbacks out there, like Brady or Aikman or Manning, respectively. They’ve had multiple Super Bowl rings, amazing leadership skills, recruited to their potential franchises because of the encouragement of certain coaches in ballparks. And they knew they had potential, even though they weren’t the ones that had been the forecasted favorite. And now people call those guys the goats or the greatest of all time. Paul, by many first century Christians, was considered the goat to the Gentiles, the greatest of all time. Peter was considered the goat to the Jews. Paul had to even plead with those in Corinth to not do that. He didn’t want that to happen. He wanted there to be peace and harmony, and to know you weren’t baptized in the name of Paul.

You weren’t baptized in the name of Cephas, but in the name of Christ. And he says, Was Christ divided? Certainly not. And so we recognize that he had to get away that carnal mindset from their minds, and he makes that plain in 1 Corinthians 1. He wants people to know all Christians are important, and there’s no big apostles and little apostles. There’s no super Christian and little minuscule Christian. They’re all, every single one important. Nevertheless, it was Barnabas, this encourager, who got people to get to the level of understanding that Saul of Tarsus is important to God, and thus should be important to you, and we should encourage one another to see his good works and to see his ability that wasn’t fully grasped in the first place.

Well, what of other saints? What are the other individuals that we might mention? Let’s look in Acts chapter 11 and look at verse 22 through 26. News of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. Barnabas, I take it, was a Christian, obviously before Saul of Tarsus. So his name is mentioned first in this context. And so they sent him out to go as far as Antioch, and when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all that with 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 were added to the Lord.

Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. There’s going to be some journeying going on. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people, and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. There in that context, you learn of Barnabas, and you learn of Paul working together. They co-preached, they were co-preachers. They worked in such a way in Antioch under what we call a two-preacher arrangement. I’ve worked that way before. It’s been very helpful. There’s a lot of times I’ve worked with a fellow preacher, and it’s helped build up the faith in a congregation. We’re getting ready here to make that decision as well. The elders are looking and are considering different ones for that co-preaching with me, working alongside me to work alongside the congregation as well, so that we can work together and build one another up in the most holy faith.

I would say very carefully here, encourage your elders, pray for your elders, and be grateful for their leadership and guidance in this decision making process. It’s very important. When you see the church at Antioch in this work together with Barnabas and Saul, they work together in that context and they helped grow the church. And because of that, in that location, for the very first time, we get the designation of the term Christian. It becomes that there. That phrase is first used there to say, I am a child of Christ. And it doesn’t say something like, I became first a Paul Christian or a Barnabas Christian. They named the name of Christ, and they were first called Christians there. Let’s be this type of individuals that work together and encourage one another in the most holy faith.

3. An Encourager in Seeking the Lost

And when we get another preacher to work alongside us here at South Bumbi, let’s lift them up and encourage them and lead them along in love and good work. Next point. An encourager in seeking the lost and willing those lost and willing to go to Jesus. When you look at the idea here of work, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart from me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. The work. Then after fasting and praying and by laying on of hands, they led them and sent them off. So being sent by the Holy Spirit, they went on to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to an island called Cyprus. When they arrived in Salamis, they proclaimed the word of the God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had a fellow to assist them by the name of John Mark.

So here is the pattern. They’re learning, they’re studying, they’re growing, they’re developing, and there’s a work, and we got to let them do the work. They’ve got to go forth to proclaim the word of the Lord, verse 5. We as well have to get our souls ready to proclaim the work of the Lord. We have our Sauls, we have our Barnabases, and we have our John Marks. And here in this congregation local, we have a lot of good people that work behind the scenes and out in the front and in all corners of the congregation to help spread the gospel message. We’ve got to keep that momentum going. That’s essential. We have to recognize there are preachers with us, but there are also elders and deacons and members and everybody working together to encourage the growth, the development of the gospel being spread in the community in which we live and also at large to the world.

We must recognize that we must encourage the lost to become saved. And they need to be one to Jesus. They need to be souls that are transformed by the renewing of their minds that they might prove what is that good and acceptable will of the Lord. And we have to work towards that cause. We don’t need to shift our focus to some sort of carnal thing or something that’s just physical or some type of extra activity that’s not focused on the spirit. We can do lots of good things as individuals, and we should do those things. We should meet our individual needs, but we must recognize the preeminent, most important focus of our life must be the promalgamation and exposition and delivering and giving of the gospel message to lost souls so that the kingdom grows and that the church grows within from the premise of spirituality being built up in the hearts of men and women round about us in the community and the world in which we live, because we want people to shine and see Jesus Christ.

4. Barnabas Encouraged Those Grappling With Challenges

We’ve got to do that. Everything else, peripheral, that’s the main thing. And they did that. And it happened rather well that they did that, up until the point that they came to a challenge. And I want to express my important realize with this challenge is that when a challenge arises, there’s a lot of different ways one can deal with the challenge. Barnabas and Paul dealt with this challenge and found a way to solve the challenge. And Barnabas was one that encouraged those grappling with challenges. It says, after some days, in Acts 15, 36 through 41, they’d had a really big challenge at the Church of Jerusalem, where they had basically said, Why did you go to the Gentiles? Why would you do that? But here in Acts 15, 36 through 41, he talks about the idea of going back and visiting those places they’d gone before.

And it says in verse 36 that after set some days, Paul said unto Barnabas, let us return and go to those places where we’ve been and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the will of the Lord. And let’s see how they are. But Barnabas, who was with them, said, Okay, that’s a great idea. But then he said in verse 37, let us take John Mark. Paul doesn’t like that idea. Paul thought not best.

Paul thought not best to take with them one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. He’d gone on part of the missionary journey. He’d gone to the main island, but then once he was on the main island of the journey, he didn’t go to uh Lystra, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derby. He went back to Jerusalem. And so Paul says, We won’t take him. He only went on half of the journey. Or to be real technical, he only went with them on one third, one portion of the journey. And Barnabas says, He can still go. He’s not a bad guy. We have faith in John Mark. He’s a good Christian. I want to take him. Paul says, I don’t want to take him.

Barnabas says, I do. Paul says I don’t. And so in this little phrase, it says, he thought best not to. And so there arose amid them a sharp disagreement, so they separated from each other. Here’s an interesting point. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas, departing, having been commended by the brothers by the grace of the Lord, verse 41, and he went through Cilicia, strengthening the churches. You find something here that’s really significant. You find something here in verse 37 that’s also repeated again in verse 39, and it’s called the concept of elusiveness. Doesn’t say anywhere in the context what happened with John Mark. Doesn’t say he got sick, doesn’t say he was scared, doesn’t say any indication of what actually happened with John Mark.

It doesn’t say he had an emergency in Jerusalem and really need to attend to that emergency, which very well may have been the case. There’s a lot of passages of Scripture in the Bible that are given elusiveness, and it’s for our own good. One, the thorn in the flesh of Paul in 2 Corinthians. We don’t know what it was. Maybe he had blindness. Maybe. We all might think that’s what it was, but we don’t have the context to say exactly what it was. And here’s another passage of scripture where we have elusiveness, the idea of not knowing exactly what it was that was the cause of that. Yet, even with its indescribability, it is relatable to us today. Many people in churches, the world over today, are within the walls of church buildings.

Some here, some other places. And we could do one of two things. We could scold people for being here, which is kind of always a puzzle to me why people would do that. Or we could encourage those who are here and thank them for their presence and thank them for their choice to be serving the Lord. Maybe they’ve turned back a little. Maybe they’ve turned back a lot. Maybe they’ve turned back only momentarily. Maybe they’ve turned back not yet all the way, and maybe we like Barnabas need to be an encourager and invite them to share in the spreading of the gospel more. Kind of interesting when you look at John Mark exactly who he was. Sharing in the gospel more. Would Paul have benefited from going on a missionary journey with someone he had tension with?

No. That’s why he took Silas. Maybe they just got along real well. And he thought that would have been a better situation. But Barnabas saw a lot of value in John Mark and took him and went on a missionary journey. We don’t even have the recorded account of. We have the recorded account of Saul’s missionary journeys with Silas and the others. But here’s the catch with all that. Paul didn’t write that information. Luke did. The book of Acts was written by Luke. It wasn’t Paul’s travel log, it was Luke’s travel log. And then we look at John Mark and we say, well, wait a minute. Mark must not have been totally opposed to the gospel or the spreading of it, because we have John Mark who wrote Mark, who wrote the passage of scripture that says, of course, he who believes in his baptized shall be saved.

But what’s the context before that when you look at it in Mark 16 15? Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. That’s John Mark who wrote that. Certainly he wasn’t a bad person or lacking in faith. He wrote the Great Commission, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Mark wrote that, John, Mark. And so when you look at that context, he’s a good guy. And Barnabas is encouraged to go in such a way to work alongside someone that he finds value in. Paul, of course, went with Silas and went on the second missionary journey. And Barnabas went on a journey with John Mark that we don’t know of, but we do know that he departed and he went to an island of Cyprus, strengthening the Christians.

And that’s part of the reason, listen to this little nugget before we conclude. That’s part of the reason why when you go to different passages of scripture in the Bible, you say, Well, where’d the Christians come from over here? And then Paul and Silas were over here, there’s people all over the world doing the work. There’s people all over the world trying to spread the gospel message and work together. And so I’d say that we need to be the brethren that recognize that sometimes brethren do turn back for a moment, yet to this day, many have not returned for feeling their own brethren would either not receive them or not forgive them. Let’s all be like Barnabas and be strengtheners to those who have fallen away or who are drifting, or maybe like perhaps John Mark, just need uplifting.

Conclusion

If we are the ones that are sometimes hypercritical, we need to stop that. If we’re complaining more than comforting, that’s sinfulness that needs to be repented of. But if contrawise, on the other hand, if you’re like Barnabas and know with immense assurance that your zeal and faith is there for others, use that to encourage others. Because if you are an encourager and if you’re zealous, that encouragement and zeal is contagious. And that’s what we want. And so when we look at these concepts together, we look at an important message for us. Not a terribly long message, but a character study this morning. To encourage is a command. When we look at the passages of scripture that were read in the scripture reading, I’m very appreciative for those.

Brother Folk did an excellent job reading those scriptures. And in Luke 22, 32, it says, I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to me, here’s the command, strengthen the brethren. Or Romans 14, 19 through 21, where it says, chase. Chase. Yeah, be in pursuit of. Ever seen a car chase? Chasing after the guy, get the guy. Be in pursuit of the things that make for peace. And the things by which one may edify or build up one another. Romans 14, 19 through 21. Or how about Romans 15, verse 1? We who are strong ought to bear with the scruples or the infirmities of the weak. If we’re strong, and there are many strong Christians here, brethren, in this congregation, there are some of the strongest, most well versed men and women of the scriptures.

I know that. Many of you have been my Bible class teachers through the years. Many of you. Many of you have been instrumental in helping me understand passages about the Bible, some of which I’m speaking of now. And so when we look at this, we’ve got to recognize that we need to bear with the infirmities and the scruples of those that are weak, helping people grow and develop and be built up in the most holy faith. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 12 and 26 is important as well. Since you’re zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that ye seek to excel and comfort. 1 Thessalonians 5, 11 through 14, comfort. He doesn’t just say, Oh, you guys need a comfort. You guys aren’t comforting very much.

No, he says, comfort as you’re doing. He recognizes their faith. He recognizes what they’re doing. And he says, keep it up. He says, comfort as you are doing. But then he says, comfort the faint-hearted, be patient with the weak and encourage them all. And of course, Hebrews 10 and 24, a comforting verse to us where we recognize that we are to encourage one another. Yes, to encourage is a command, but to encourage is also something that feels so good. When you say something nice to someone and you lift somebody up, and you know that you’re part and parcel of them seeing Christ Jesus in you, and then the one that you may have encouraged chooses to develop their most holy faith in such a way that they also see the Christ King, who is royal, who is to be honored, who is to be revered, and who we give our glory.

Thank you for your kind attention this morning. You’ve listened very well. If you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, we want you to become a child of God. You don’t become a child of God simply by believing alone. Even the demons believe and tremble at God. You become a child of God by having a deep abiding faith in the Lord, believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, confessing the sweet name of Jesus by saying, I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. Repenting of sins by saying, Get out, sin and get in Jesus, and then being baptized for the forgiveness of sins. For 1 Peter 3 21 says, baptism, which corresponds to this, is not a removal of dirt from the body, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Talk about resurrections. Talk about uh things that a lot of people are talking about this morning, a lot of churches, a lot of places focusing on that. You can be new. You can come up out of a watery grave of baptism. You ever heard that phrase and really just mold it over in your mind as to what it’s saying? The idea of leaving the old form and then being reunited in a new form with Jesus to be resurrected with him, to be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection. When Christ rose from the grave, nobody understood right away who he was. They didn’t see him in the way they had seen him before. Mary thought he was the gardener, the men on the road to Emmaus had no idea who he was until he revealed him.

Same way the guys in the in the upper room until he said, This is me. And they saw him. He had a new form. And you can have a new you, a new form, a new way about you than the old man of sin. You can crucify the old man of sin and bury the old one down in the water and be raised to walk in newness of life, to be united in the likeness of his resurrection. Baptism, which corresponds to the idea of a washing of water, like Noah and the flood and having the ark totally covered in water. It covers, it saves you. It’s not a bath, it’s not a removal of dirt from the body, but it’s saying to God, I want my good conscience to be united with the best conscience of Jesus Christ.

We can help you do that. If we can help you become a Christian, please come forward and sit on a front row as we stand and sing our invitation song.