Life of Paul Part 7 - How to be an Encourager

Let's take a Bible together and open it to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 11, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Acts chapter 11, and we're going to continue in our study of the life of the great man, the apostle Paul. Now I want to begin this morning with a quote, and I'm not going to tell you to start off who it's by, but you may recognize it by the time we're done, and then we'll tell you.

Here we go. And I quote, My life all changed when at age 38 I passed a woman lying in the street half eaten up by rats and ants. I took her to the hospital, but they could do nothing for her. They only took her because I refused to go home until they did. From there I went straight to the town hall and asked for a place where I could take such people.

They gave me an old empty building. Within 24 hours we began bringing in the sick and the suffering. Since then more than 40,000 women and children have come to our home. We wash them, dress them, and put them into a bed with proper medical care. Some children we pick up from the streets. Others are brought to us by hospitals where they've been left behind by their parents. No matter how they come, we have never refused a child.

More than half of them die here, but in their last hours they find human and divine love. We are not social workers. We want to bring God to these people.

There are a lot of institutions caring for the sick. We don't want to be among them. We are not another organization offering social services. We have to be more. To give more, we have to bring God's love to people's lives." Now, the woman who said this, her name was Agnes, but you may recognize her better by her other name, and that is Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, the winner of the 1971 Kennedy Prize, the 1973 Templeton Prize, the 1975 Albert Schweitzer Prize, the 1979 Pulitzer Peace Prize, and in 1996 only the fourth person in history to ever be named an honorary citizen of the United States of America. You know, folks, sometimes in our world there's just a good person that comes along, like Mother Teresa, or like Billy Graham, or like ex-president Jimmy Carter.

Just a good person. And you know, we're going to talk today about another good person from the Bible, a fellow named Barnabas. And my hope is that by the time we're done, you will not only understand about Barnabas, but really Barnabas will become an example that you are jazzed about following, about copying, about aspiring for God to build into your life as a 21st century follower of Christ, to build into your life the qualities that we see in this man's life.

So come along. Let's let Barnabas' example change our lives. What do we know about this man to start with? Well, we learned last week from Acts chapter 4 that Barnabas was not the man's real name. His real name was Joseph.

He was born and raised as a Jew on the island of Cyprus. He converted to a personal faith in Jesus, and he moved to Jerusalem to ally with the Christian community there. As the apostles got to know him better, they nicknamed him Barnabas. Barnabas literally means the son of encouragement. And they nicknamed him this because they could see this trait in him.

This guy was an encourager. Barnabas was like a big old shaggy dog, a big old golden retriever we said last week that just wants to lick everybody all over. That was Barnabas. And we saw him exhibit and display this trait in his treatment of the apostle Paul, Acts chapter 9. You know, Paul came to town and wanted to connect up with the followers of Christ there.

Nobody wanted anything to do with him. So it says in verse 27 that Barnabas came alongside Paul, put his arm around him, and then he escorted him, brought him to the apostles, told them how Paul on his journey had seen the Lord, how the Lord had spoken to Paul, how Paul had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus in Damascus. Barnabas embraced Paul. Barnabas reached out to Paul.

He encouraged the man's life. And of course, as a result, Paul became accepted there in the community in Jerusalem, but it didn't last long. Verse 29, he talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, but they tried to kill him. So the brothers took him and sent him back to his home city of Tarsus. Now that's where we left Paul last week.

So let's pick up, see what happens this week. Chapter 11, verse 19. Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen, that's a persecution by the way that Paul in his earlier years had championed and led, those people, they traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to the Gentiles there also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus, and the Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Antioch was the third most prominent city in the Roman Empire, behind only Rome itself and Alexandria, Egypt. And this is where some of the followers of Christ that were spread throughout the Middle East because of this persecution went, but they did something very unique there. They started telling Gentiles about Jesus.

Scandalous, unbelievable what they did. And lo and behold, Gentiles started coming to Christ. And they started building there a church that mixed Jewish believers with Gentile believers, all in the same church, loving one another, worshiping together, caring for one another.

Folks, this is the first time this has ever happened. This is the first kind of church like this ever to exist. We're going to talk more about this in the weeks to come, but it happened first at Antioch, verse 22. And news of this reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch to check it out.

They said, huh, I wonder what's really going on up there. Barnabas, go up there and make sure everything's kosher. So they sent him up there to check this out, and verse 23, when he arrived, he saw the evidence of the grace of God, and he was glad. Man, Barnabas got there, and he was jazzed when he saw what was going on.

Jewish people coming to Christ, Gentile people coming to Christ, together worshiping the Lord, being in church together. Man, he was excited. And the Bible says, and he encouraged them. Well, of course he did. His name's Barnabas. Of course he did. And he encouraged them with all of their hearts to remain true to the Lord.

For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord there in that city. You say, well, Lon, this is great, right? I mean, look at this church growing. Look at it making an impact on its community. This is good, right?

Oh, it is. But there was a problem. The problem is the church was growing so fast that old Barnabas couldn't keep up with it all by himself.

He was really the only spiritual leader they had, and the demands became more than he could meet. So he went to the Lord and he prayed, and he said, hey, Lord, I need some help. And God said, Barnabas, I've got some good news for you. I'm going to put money in the church budget for you to hire an assistant. Barnabas said, thank you so much, God.

And he went off looking for an assistant, and look where he went. Verse 25. Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Paul. Now, how far away is Antioch from Tarsus?

Well, let me show you our map. And if you look, here's Jerusalem. Going north up the Mediterranean is Damascus. And all the way north here, here is Antioch right here in southern Turkey today. And Tarsus is over here almost 100 miles on foot that Barnabas had to go to find Paul in the city of Tarsus.

They say, well, how long has it been since they've seen each other? It has been somewhere between six and ten years since Barnabas and Paul last saw each other in Jerusalem. Paul went on to stay in Tarsus, and he's been there six to ten years. And Barnabas goes looking for him. And he finds him, and as a one-man pulpit committee, he convinces him to come to Antioch.

Verse 26. When he found Paul, he took him to Antioch. So for a whole year, Barnabas and Paul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. If you want to know where the name came from, it came from the Gentile population in Antioch. The word Christian, which literally means a Christ person, Christians are Christ people. Literally, it was a derogatory name.

It wasn't meant to be a compliment at the beginning. Oh, there go those Christians again. But we've adopted the name and made it into a badge of honor, but it was first given to us in Antioch. The next time you play Trivial Pursuit, you know. All right, good. Now, we're going to stop there because we have a question to ask, and it is the important question of the day.

You know what it is, don't you? Okay. Well, not yet. Not yet. Okay. Everybody ready? Deep breath.

One, two, three. So what? Okay, now we got it. Good. You say, Lon, this is great. I appreciate you telling me all of this.

Barnabas was a great guy. But you know what? It's not going to change my life one whoop tomorrow morning to know we were first called Christians in Antioch.

What difference does this make? Well, let's see if we can't bring it home to your life and my life today. Friends, if we were to take a survey here this morning of the most famous Bible quote of all time, there was a lot of verses that would probably get a vote, but I'll bet you one verse that would get an awful lot of votes is John 3.16, don't you think? For God so loved the world.

That's right. And you know, the Bible teaches without equivocation that God loves every person in the world. He loves everybody the same. He loves everybody equally. He loves everybody without regard for race or color or creed or nationality or economic standing. But even though God loves everybody the same, you've heard me say it before, I believe that God likes certain people more than He likes other people. And I believe God really liked Barnabas.

You say, well, now how do you know that? Well, look at verse 24. It says in verse 24 that Barnabas was a good man. And what's interesting is that Barnabas is the only person in the entire New Testament about whom God ever uses this phrase. He's the only man or woman anywhere in the New Testament about whom God ever says that they are a good man.

They are a good woman. And I was thinking this week, what is it that caused the Lord to single this man out and speak of him in such a complimentary way? What is it that God likes so much about Barnabas?

Well, we've already answered it. Barnabas was an encourager. Barnabas was a guy who he was a cup is half full sort of guy. He was a can-do guy. He was a guy who always looked on the bright side. He was a guy who was always a good cheer. He was a true optimist.

This is Barnabas. Now, you know the definition of an optimist, don't you? An optimist. Here you go.

Here's the definition. An optimist is a 90-year-old man who marries a 25-year-old woman and buys a seven-bedroom house right next to an elementary school. That is an optimist. Yeah.

Okay. And that was Barnabas. He was a true optimist and God liked him.

Now, here's the point. If God really liked this guy and God goes on record in the Bible as saying that he does, then it would seem logical to me that the qualities in this man's life, the character traits in this man's life are things you and I ought to copy and see if we could aspire to have God build into our lives. Doesn't that make sense to you?

It makes sense to me. So how do we...what was it about this man that made him an encourager? How do we become better encouragers?

Well, I've got four suggestions to give you. So write them down. I hope you will.

And I hope you'll use these and really pray that God will build them into your life. Number one, an encourager, Barnabas, number one, an encourager puts people first. You say, did Barnabas do this?

Well, of course he did. Remember what we saw in Acts chapter 9? Paul comes to town knowing nobody, feeling completely alone. He wants to connect up with the rest of the Christians in town. They don't want anything to do with him. Even John the apostle of love doesn't want anything to do with him. And it was Barnabas who reaches out to him. Barnabas doesn't say to him, hey pal, here's their phone number, here's their fax number, here's their email address, God bless you.

No, no. He puts his arm around Paul, goes out of his way for Paul, puts himself out for Paul. And what does it say in Acts 9? He personally escorted Paul and brought him to meet with the apostles. And then what he does is he stands with Paul, he sticks with Paul, he vouches for Paul. He's communicated to Paul, you know what, you matter to me Paul, you have value, you're important. Now friends, nothing will encourage another human being more than to deliver that message to them. To go out of our way, to put ourselves out and communicate to them, you matter to us. You are important to us and that as a church is what we want to do.

We want to be the kind of church that is an encouraging church. That's why core value number one at McLean Bible Church is people matter to God and they matter to us. We want people whenever they come across us, rub shoulders with us in any way, shape or form to come away saying, you know what, I feel encouraged, I matter to those people. They went out of their way for me. They bent over backwards for me. They put themselves out for me. I have value in their sight. The thing they care about most is not their building program, not how much land they own, not how many people are on the staff, but me.

I matter to them. That's what encouraging churches do. That's what encouraging people do.

That's what Barnabas did. Number two, an encourager, number two, inspires people to rise to their full potential. An encourager doesn't look at people the way they are right now. An encourager tries to look past the present and to see people the way they can become for Jesus Christ. And then they come alongside those people and try to inspire them.

They come alongside them and try to champion them to really achieve their full potential for God. Did Barnabas do this? You bet he did. Right here in Acts chapter 11, what did he do? We saw that he went off and personally recruited Paul to come to Antioch and be his assistant. Now, could I remind you that Barnabas could have recruited any number of people, one of a thousands of people in the early church, and people would have fallen all over themselves considering it a privilege to go to Antioch and work with Barnabas. But he went after Paul. Could I also remind you that at the time that Barnabas went after Paul, Paul was a nobody. You know, he'd been in Tarsus, salted away for six to ten years, and as we know in Washington, out of sight, out of mind.

You got it. This man, Paul, hadn't written any books. He didn't have a radio program. He didn't have a TV show.

He hadn't written 1 and 2 Corinthians or anything else yet. He was really a nobody. But Barnabas went after him specifically.

You know why? Because in that little bit of time they spent together in Jerusalem, just brush shoulders, Barnabas saw something in Paul. He saw greatness in Paul. Now, was Paul great at this moment? No. Was Paul anything special at this moment?

No. But Barnabas said, you know what, this man could really be something for Jesus Christ. And he went after him and he didn't just bring him back, but look what he did. Verse 26 said they spent a year together working in that church and Barnabas mentored this man. Barnabas embraced this man. Barnabas taught this man, Paul, to believe in himself and to seek his destiny as a servant of Jesus Christ. And, you know, Paul rose to be the wonderful man he did, at least in large part, because Barnabas believed in him.

Who knows what would have happened if he'd been left in Tarsus the rest of his life. This wasn't the only man Barnabas ever did this for. Remember the fellow named John Mark?

We're going to get to the story in Acts 15 a little bit later. But just to review the story, they were on their first missionary journey, Barnabas and Paul, and they took John Mark along, a young man, and John Mark deserted him, ran away, left him, went AWOL. When it got time to go on the second missionary journey in Acts 15, Barnabas said, Hey, Paul, I want to take John Mark. And Paul said, What are you, nuts? We're not taking John Mark.

John Mark ran away and deserted us the first time. Oh, Barnabas said, Yeah, Paul, but you know what? I see something in this kid.

This kid's got something. And if we work with him, we can make him into a real man of God. And Paul said, Not on my missionary journey you don't. I'm not taking this guy.

I need people I can count on. And they had such a disagreement, the Bible says, over John Mark that they parted ways, Paul and Barnabas. And Barnabas, the Bible says, took John Mark with him and went off to Cyprus.

Now, can we roll the clock forward about 15 years? Paul's in jail in Rome, about ready to be martyred for his faith. And he writes Timothy, and listen to what he says, 2 Timothy 4, verse 11. Paul says, Get John Mark.

Whoa, that's interesting. And bring him with you, Timothy, to see me, because he is profitable for me in ministry. Hey, did John Mark turn his life around? Yes. Did he become a great servant of Jesus Christ?

Yes. And it was because of Barnabas who took him and believed in him. Hey, John Mark felt like a total failure.

If they'd have left him there, he never would have amounted to anything. It was Barnabas who believed in that kid and taught that kid to believe in himself. And he became a great man of God. You know, folks, there's none of us who ever achieve our potential for Jesus Christ, but that somebody doesn't come alongside of us and help us learn to believe in ourselves.

I had somebody like that in my life. When I came to Washington in 1971, I was hitchhiking around the country with my dog, had a big old afro and a backpack. Then I'd been born again probably about six months or less.

And it was October and it was getting cold and I didn't have any place to stay. And God brought across my path a wonderful man named Bill Simmer. Bill Simmer was running the Good News Mission over in Arlington at the time, a prison ministry. He took me in and gave me a place to live and a little bit of salary and made me the environmental engineer for the Good News Mission.

Yeah, he did. Well, back then we called it the janitor, but that's what I did. Hey, I cleaned toilets, I raked leaves, I took out trash, I cut the grass, I mopped the floors. And you know, this man asked me what my dream was. And I said, my dream is to go into full-time Christian service. He said, well, what are you going to do about it?

And I said, I don't know. This was the first man to encourage me to start taking seminary classes and preparing myself. He let me off half a day even though and paid me my full salary so I could go over and take classes part-time. He encouraged me to quit and go to seminary full-time and really prepare myself. And when I was scared to death, he sat me down and he said, don't you dare be scared. God has got something for you. Now you believe in what God has for you and you go for it, Lon.

And I'll tell you 30 years later, there was no way I'd be here today if it wasn't for Bill Zimmer who did exactly for me what Barnabas did for John Mark and what he did for Paul. And folks, every one of us needs somebody like that, a mother or a father who believes in us, a Christian brother or sister or friend who believes in us. And what God is telling us here is that we just don't need that for ourself. But more than that, God's telling us He wants us to be those kind of people for others.

May I stop and say for just a moment, if you're here and you've never trusted Christ as your real and personal Savior, that there's a message here for you. Because if you're feeling down inside of you that there's some kind of destiny in there, if you're feeling down inside of you a sense that you could really be something, you're right. You could. God has built you to do something for Him. But my friend, you will never be able to achieve that until Jesus Christ takes over your life. I was never able to achieve it until He took over my life.

So if you want to reach that sense of destiny, nobody wants you to reach it more than God. But you can't do it as long as you're driving the automobile. You've got to get over in the passenger seat and let Jesus drive if you want to get there.

And if you let Him drive, He'll get you there. Something to think about. Let's go on, number three, and encourage a third is happy to let other people eclipse them. Let me show you something very interesting.

Watch and see if you see anything change here. Acts 11, 26, so for a whole year, Barnabas and Paul, Acts 11, 30, sending their gift by Barnabas and Paul, Acts 12, 25, when Barnabas and Paul had finished, Acts 13, 2, set apart for me Barnabas and Paul, Acts 13, 42, as Paul and Barnabas were leaving. Acts 13, 43, many of the Jews followed Paul and Barnabas. Acts 13, 46, then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly. Acts 14, 1, at Iconium, Paul and Barnabas.

Acts 15, 2, so they appointed Paul and Barnabas. Do you think that shift is accidental? I don't. Do you think it's coincidence?

Absolutely not. I think the Bible is telling us very clearly that when Paul and Barnabas began their partnership, Barnabas was the one who had the notoriety. Barnabas was the one who had the fame and the attention, but it wasn't too long before, in the plan of God, the apostle Paul began rising and eclipsing Barnabas.

He began having the fame. He began having the notoriety, and the point that I want you to see is that Barnabas was okay with this. He didn't get defensive. He didn't get threatened.

He didn't get territorial. He was happy about this, and I'll tell you why. Because encouragers are happy when other people eclipse them in the plan of God.

They're fine with that. You and I will never be able to be an encourager until we can genuinely rejoice when somebody goes past us in the work of God and eclipses us, but we're excited because it isn't about us. It's about the work of God. Number four and finally, encouragers, and I think this is the most important one, an encourager is always directing people's focus onto the Lord. No matter where an encourager finds people, their goal is to always leave people more focused on Jesus, more focused on God's power, more focused on God's promises, more focused on God's faithfulness and God's strength than where they found people. It encourages life versus Philippians 4 verse 13. We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Now did Barnabas do this?

You bet he did. Acts chapter 11 verse 23, it says, And Barnabas encouraged them, look, what did he encourage them to do? He encouraged them to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He didn't encourage them to remain true to the church or true to the denomination or true to the building program because churches and denominations and building programs don't strengthen anybody. They don't encourage anybody. It's the Lord, His power, His presence, His promises, focusing on that, that encourages and motivates people and strengthens people and that's where Barnabas told these people to keep their focus on the Lord.

And you know what? When you meet a true encourager, you know what they'll do for you? They'll take your eyes, offer your problems, offer your obstacles, offer every reason why your life is a wreck and they'll turn your eyes to the promises of God and the power of God and the presence of God in your life and when you walk away from them, you will feel wonderful because your focus is where it belongs and that's on Jesus, not your problems. This is what encouragers do. These are the kind of people when you see them walking down the street, you cross to walk on the side they're on because you want to meet these people.

Every time you meet them and walk away from them, they've helped you feel better because they've turned your eyes onto God. I was reading the story not long ago about a young African-American man who grew up in a fatherless home, came from the slums of Detroit and yet he had an encourager like this in his life. I want you to hear his story, quoting from him. He said, our growing up without a father put a heavy burden on my mother. She didn't complain. She was a young woman with very little education, yet she pulled off a miracle. Mother's strength came from a deep-seated faith in God.

I can still hear her voice saying, Benny, we're going to be fine and because she believed those words, I believed them too. At church one Sunday when I was eight, I heard a story about medical missionaries traveling through the primitive villages in Africa and as we walked home, I said to my mother, that's what I want to do. I want to be a doctor.

Can I be a doctor, Mother? Benny, she said, listen to me, and we stopped walking and she stared into my eyes. Now, think about this for a second.

Here they are walking home through the slums of Detroit. Here's a little boy without a dad and with very little money, but I want you to see what this mother tells you. Does she put his eyes on the obstacles, the fact he doesn't have a dad, that she doesn't have much education, that they're living in the slums, that she doesn't have much money? Oh, no, no, no, look at this woman. Benny, she said, if you ask the Lord for something and you believe he's going to do it for you, it'll happen. Well then, I believe I'll be a doctor, I said, and after Mother's words of assurance, I never again doubted what I wanted to do with my life, end of quote. This man, his name, Ben Carson, Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson today is chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. In fact, some of my family had the wonderful privilege to meet this man when my little girl was in a room, and next door to her in the room was one of his patients, and he came in the room. Just the most wonderful follower of Christ you'd ever want to meet.

What are the odds that the chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Hopkins would come from the slums of Detroit from a fatherless home with no money and no dad? But you see, Ben Carson had something very important in his life. He had an encourager in his life. He had a mother who taught him not only to believe in himself, but who taught him about the power of God, not the obstacles, but the power of God in his life.

And that's why he is where he is today. What a wonderful thing to have somebody like that in your life. And friends, this is the way God wants us to be in other people's lives, to make it our goal that when they walk away from us, no matter what their focus was on when they met us, their focus is on God when they walk away from us. That's what encouragers do. So you want to be an encourager? Let's conclude.

Let's sum. What do you have to do? What are the qualities that made this man such a wonderful man? Number one, he put people first. Number two, he inspired people to achieve their full potential for God.

Barnabas didn't look at people where they were. He looked at them for what they could be and said, I'm going to help them get there. Number three, here was a man who was happy. To have people eclipse him, if that was the plan of God, he didn't care. And number four and finally and most important, here was a man who every time you met Barnabas, by the time you walked away, your eyes were not on yourself, your problems and your obstacles.

They were on God and the power of God. This is what an encourager is. And I want to challenge each of us, including me, to aspire to be these kind of people. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a whole church full of Barnabases? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be Barnabas to the city of Washington as a church? And it all starts with you and me just simply asking God to make us this kind of person.

And in closing, let me say I've got some good news. If you and I can become these kind of people, two wonderful things will happen. Number one, everybody you meet will call you a blessing. And number two, God will like you.

And I think that's pretty cool. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thanks for an opportunity to study the Word of God today and thanks for this wonderful example of this man Barnabas. Lord, use his example to challenge us, I pray. Use his example to motivate us to aspire to be this kind of person. May we pray and ask you to build these qualities into our life. May we become Barnabases for the people in our family, the people around us. Lord Jesus, change the way we live Monday to Saturday. Change the way we do life because we were here today and we learned about this man and you challenged our hearts. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.