Be a Barnabas - Matt Leroy

I'm so excited to introduce you may be a guest speaker to you, but he is definitely not a guest speaker to myself.

He's one of my mentors. He helped me get started in ministry, actually. He helped me start a church, a man, and his name is Pastor Matt Leroy. We're so excited that we get to hear from him today. Passed Matt and Laura. He started Love Chapel Hill Church way back when. I don't know, when it started was about 12 years ago or so, 13 and now he's leading our circuit.

And for those of you who may not know, the circuit is the division of our of our denomination for our district that houses our church planters to push them out, to go and do what God has called you to do. And so today we get to hear from the person who gave me an assisted my wife and I and our team in the first church that we planted, which resembles to what we are actually effective today.

And so if you guys can just give a warm, loud one church welcome for Pastor Matt Leroy, give it up one church, only one church timer. All right. All right. You checking back? Okay, Mike. Okay. All right, great. Good morning. One church. There we are. Great to see you this morning. So honored to be here with you today.

And I'm so honored to be a friend of Pastor Ryan Sims. I believe in him so much. I know you do as well. He's someone that I admire, someone that I love deeply. And I'm honored that he would call me his friend. Thank you for that. Pastor Ryan, Can we show our appreciation to our lead pastor here and I and I am very honored for the invitation to be with you today.

I'm only slightly offended I didn't get the invitation to be at the adult prom. My generation invented the electric slide, man. I should have. I should have been there. All right, Next time, let me know. Okay? All right. Oh, so, so good to be with you. Today. We're going to be in the Book of Acts today, and we're going to be following through several chapters and moving through this trajectory, an arc of a story that goes throughout the book of Acts.

And when we think about significant figures, turning point figures in the Book of Acts, probably the first person that we think of is the Apostle Paul. Right? The apostle Paul who experiences this radical life changing event when he has this encounter with the once dead. Now very much alive, Jesus Christ. He is radically transformed. When we first meet Paul, he's actually the chief opposition of the church, and then he moves into after this life changing experience, after being filled with the Holy Spirit, after being redeemed by the grace of Jesus, he becomes the chief theologian of the church, writing letters that make up almost half of the New Testament, shaping our way of understanding the

reality of who Jesus is. He also becomes the chief missionary of the church, crossing all kinds of cultural boundaries and barriers to advance the gospel into new places. Such a significant person that God uses us to change the history of the world as we know it, and and the world that we experience today and the Christianity that we know today, where there's actually another person that we're going to really be following the story of today who has an impact on the Apostle Paul.

Without the apostle Paul, we we wouldn't have half of our New Testament today. But without the person we're going to be talking about this morning, we might not have the Apostle Paul as we know him today. We're going to be talking about this figure named Barnabas and actually, that's not his name. That's his nickname. His real name is Joseph, but he gets this nickname from the early church, from the early believers in Jesus, the early Christians, this nickname Barnabas, which is a name that means son of encouragement.

And God uses him in powerful ways to become this hinge kind of figure in the life of the Apostle Paul. So we're going to be following that story and the arc of that story today in the way that God uses Barnabas to shape the early church and to go on to shape us today here as well. So that nickname Barnabas, that means son of encouragement.

Encouragement is such a core gift that God uses to cultivate his church. Some of you in this room today, you have that spiritual gift of encouragement and I want to tell you today that you are catalysts of the kingdom of God. If He has given you that gift, if he has planted that gift in you, then we need you.

We need you to spur us on and to push us on in the work that God has given to us in His kingdom. Together, encouragement is a gift of the Holy Spirit, which instills courage in others. It's where we get the name encouragement. All right? It instills courage in others. It cultivates the flourishing of others. It holds the door open for others.

And as we move through this story today, we're going to see the ways in which Barnabas, time and time again, is used to hold open the door. And we're going to look at his model and we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to shape us in to those kinds of people, these people with the gift of encouragement. They are catalysts of the kingdom.

They are the movers and shakers in the upside down and backwards economy of God and in the culture that we live in, a culture of self advancement and of self promotion and of self preservation. A Barnabas stands out as an odd kind of person because of Barnabas recognizes and invests in the God given values of others. And it's easy to overlook a Barnabas type of person because they're usually directing our attention somewhere else.

But they are the visionary women and men who see things in us that we can't even see in ourselves yet. And they prophetically call out gifts in us and open doors of opportunity for us to walk in those gifts. They don't speak with flattery or false, shallow kinds of positivity, but instead they speak with a Holy Spirit accent of empowerment in our lives.

They leverage their own influence. They leverage their own opportunities for the advancement of others for the sake of the kingdom. And always, always for the glory of God. We're going to see this as we move throughout the Book of Acts today. We're going to start in chapter four and verse 32, where we first meet Barnabas for the very first time.

Here's what it says. All of the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had with great power. The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. There were no needy persons among them.

For from time to time, those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet. And it was distributed to anyone as they had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles feet.

The first door that we're going to look at today that Barnabas opens is Barnabas opens doors of generosity. Barnabas opens doors of generosity. That's an incredible statement that gets made about the early church, about these first Christians and the way that they were so transformed by the love of Jesus that this love of Jesus worked its way through all of who they were and worked its way out into generosity to impact the culture around them.

The transformation that gets pointed out here, Yes, there is dynamic worship that is happening in the early church, that marks the early church, and it's beautiful and it's powerful. There's dynamic preaching and spiritual wisdom and insight and prophecy. And it's beautiful and it's powerful. There are people who are coming to faith in Jesus and being baptized in the name of Jesus.

And we celebrate that and we're desperate for that. And the world needs to continue to see us put that as a core priority of who we are as followers of Jesus. And the First Church is marked by that and it's beautiful. But it doesn't just stay. Just like Ryan just challenged us. It doesn't just stay within the walls of the church.

The impact and the transformation begins to work its way outside of the walls and the culture around them is transformed. This spiritual renewal turns into cultural reform and social reform around them. It's incredible. And one of the key marks is that it says there were no needy persons among them. They were so moved by the love of Jesus that love of Jesus could not stay within them or within the walls of the church.

It spilled out and address the needs of the community around them. And they were known for that. It's beautiful. It's powerful. Now let's address something really clearly here right from the start. Like like Pastor Ryan said, I'm I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was given the privilege and honor of being a part of a church plant there right in downtown Chapel Hill.

And so a lot of interaction with college students and it never fails. Whenever we're doing a Bible study through the Book of Acts and we get to this part of the story and we hear how no one among them had need the college students starting to speak up and they're like, This sounds like communism, This sounds like socialism.

The early church was communist. All right. The early church with socialist. No. All right. They were not, because communism and socialism are human forms of government and economy. And human forms of government and economy are as flawed as the humans who created them and as flawed as the humans who pull the levers of power within that system. Amen.

Amen. Here's the flip side of that. That is less comfortable for us. And the truth is that this is also not good ol American capitalism either. That's also a human form of economy. And that's not what we have going on here either. What we have happening here is a Holy Spirit driven and shaped generosity that flows out of the love of Jesus transforming these people.

They have been so transformed that they cannot keep that love trapped within them. What we have here is the miracle of a heart turned outward. Anybody ever heard the name Martin Luther? All right. Martin Luther was a German reformer, often seen as the catalyst of the Protestant Reformation. And the way that Martin Luther defines sin is this. He says sin is the heart curved inward on itself.

Sin is the heart curved inward on itself. A couple of centuries later, another reformer from England, his name was John Wesley. Anybody ever heard of John Wesley? All right. We are in his spirit, spiritual heritage here in this church family. John Wesley On the flip side, if Luther defines sin as the heart curved inward on itself, John Wesley defines holiness as the heart turned outward in love for God and love for neighbor.

Obviously drawing from Jesus, his great commandment where Jesus pulls the entire law together and says It all comes down to this to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. What we're seeing here is that we're seeing holiness in action. We're seeing a life so transformed by the love of Jesus that it is experiencing the miracle of a heart turned outward in love for God and in love for neighbor.

That's what we're called to. That's who were called to be when we first meet him. We see that he is a person whose experience is miracle of having his heart turned outward. He's opening doors of generosity because of the love of Jesus that has transformed him and refuses to stay put within him. It must work its way out of him, and it begins to change the lives and transform the society around him.

The second door that we see Barnabas open is this He opens doors of redemption moving forward in Acts Chapter nine versus 26 through 28. We see this when he came to Jerusalem, Who came to Jerusalem? The Apostle Paul. This is before we he becomes who we know him to be, the apostle Paul. But he's gone through this transformation experience, this encounter with Jesus that has changed him.

And so now he's going to Jerusalem to try to join the church and try to join the disciples there at the heart of the Christian movement. And it's beginning. And so when Paul came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were afraid of him, you know, because of his whole like killing Christians thing. Okay, understandable.

All right. They're like, we need to see a little bit more proof. Then you just telling us you're now a believer in Jesus. We're not going to believe that quickly, that you are one of us now. And so there's this sense of a barrier there, this sense of the door being closed to Paul because he didn't believe that he had experienced this transformation.

They weren't fully trusting that this he had experienced this transformation, not believing that he really was a disciple, it says. But Barnabas took him. But Barnabas, the story of Paul changes with those two words. But Barnabas, the Christianity that we know today, impacted deeply by these two words, but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He's leveraging his influence for the sake of someone who is locked outside of the door.

He took him and he brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul, who becomes Paul on his journey, had seen the Lord and the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul, who becomes Paul, stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord of Barnabas opens doors of redemption.

A Barnabas has a radical view of how radical grace of Jesus really is in the life of a person. Frankly, it's understandable that the early disciples wanted to keep the door closed on Paul until they learned a little bit more about him. We get that. We understand it. But Barnabas goes beyond what is understandable because he has experienced the grace of Jesus, which is beyond our understanding, and he realizes how far and how deep the grace of Jesus can reach and what kind of miraculous transformation the grace of Jesus can bring about in the life of a person.

He has an optimistic view of the grace of Jesus because he's experienced it himself. And he knows that what is happening in Paul is real. And so he opens this door for him. He opens the doors of redemption. Do we have that much faith in the grace of Jesus? Think for just a moment about the person who in your mind is the farthest from God, the person that you know right now that you think is the farthest from God?

Get a picture of that person in your mind. Can Jesus reach that person? Yeah. This is the grace of Jesus. Strong enough, far reaching enough, deep enough to transform even that person, this language of a person who is far from God. I get it. We use it a lot. And if you use it, I don't mean any offense to you at all, but I do want to challenge that language because I believe that there is no such thing as a person who is far from God.

Right? Where is God? Everywhere. There it is. His presence fills up all of creation. There's no such thing as a person who is far from God. How far can the grace of Jesus reach everywhere? There's no such thing in our spiritual heritage. We believe in something called preventive grace, which is me, which means grace that goes before grace, that is already at work in the life of a person.

Grace That is drawing people to Jesus before they're even aware that this is happening. The grace of Jesus can reach absolutely anyone anywhere. There is no such thing as a person who is far from God, because God is pursuing everyone with His heart for their redemption. Is sin stronger than grace? No, no. When sin and grace collide, Grace is the last one standing Every time we believe in the power of the grace of Jesus to reach absolutely in the one.

Will we risk opening the door for people who have experienced that door closed in their face time and time again by church after church? Will we open the door for them? Will we hold open the doors of redemption? In my role with being a pastor at the church we planted in Chapel Hill, as I said before, a lot of college students who were from the University of North Carolina there also a lot of young families, professionals, academics, and then about 10 to 15% of our church population was made up of men and women who were experiencing homelessness.

And one of the things we said over and over again with our church there is we don't have a college ministry, we don't have a homeless ministry. We have a church family where everyone can find a place to belong and to serve and to lead. And as part of that, one of the friends that I made there at the church is a gentleman named Silas.

And Silas had been in and out of homelessness, in and out of addiction, not just using drugs, but also selling drugs. And Jesus was grabbing a hold of Silas his life and bringing about some beautiful transformation in Silas life. And I remember calling Silas one day on his phone and I got his voicemail and here's what his voicemail said.

He said, You've reached Silas, his phone. I'm making some changes in my life. So if I'm not answering your call, you might be one of those changes. Yes, that is good. Also was in the answering my call also. But I'll never forget that now. Never forget that phrase. You might be one of those changes today. The Holy Spirit is tapping you on the shoulder, is whispering to you in your mind and your heart and your soul.

And he is saying to you today, you might be one of those changes. He is bringing about change in this community. His heart is for redemption and restoration, and he wants to see change happen in this community. And you might be one of those changes. He might be inspiring you today, giving you a bird and giving you a vision for what it looks like to begin to hold open doors of redemption for people who have been told they are too far from God.

You might be one of those changes today. You might be sitting in here giving this thing a chance, even though you've been told over and over again that the door is closed for you, that you are too far to be reached, you might be one of those changes. And as you embrace the door that is being opened for you today, as Jesus himself is inviting you into a reconciled relationship with God to experience His grace, to experience his redemption, to experience his salvation, the forgiveness of your sins and the renewal of all that you are.

That door that you are seeing open today, that you are right now in this moment, finding the courage to say to God, Yes, I will step through that door. Here's the thing. You're not the last one to step through that door. And as you step through it now, you hold it open for others who are coming behind you as well.

You might be one of those changes if you're sensing that stirring today and you want to make that decision to step through that open door of redemption, we invite you to do that. Even right now. I was getting ready to tell you to talk to Pastor Ryan, which you should do. All right. Talk to Pastor Ryan today. But let's all pause together and pray for one of our friends who may be making that decision right now.

Jesus, if someone is finding the courage today to trust you, to put their faith in you, I pray that in this moment you would amplify that courage and you would turn that courage actually into peace, knowing that right now, in this moment, they are accepting your embrace and everything changes, that they would experience the forgiveness of their sins, that they would experience and empowering to turn to you and to begin to follow you into new life, and that they would experience the reality of what renewal looks like.

As we're transformed by your love, we celebrate with them today. Give them the courage to share with somebody so that it doesn't stop here. It's your name. We pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. A Barnabas opens doors of redemption as we move further into the story we see in Acts chapter 11. Another interesting thing that is happening, and once again, Barnabas is recognized for his willingness to take risks on people, for his willingness to believe in how far the grace of Jesus can actually reach.

And so Barnabas is sent to this community called Antioch and this church that is in this city of Antioch. Anybody ever heard of Antioch before? Absolutely. I know Ryan speaks of this often and is in the midst right now of digging even deeper into this story. And so part of what is beautiful that is happening in this city of Antioch is the gospel is beginning to break through barriers in this community as we all know, as we read through the scripture story, the covenants and the promises that God makes throughout the Old Testament with his people of Israel, as he chooses the people of Israel to be his representatives in the world.

And as he sends redemption to the world through the people of Israel, we realize that he's making promise after promise to the people of Israel. But we know that it's not only for the people of Israel, it's a promise to them, but it's not just for them. It's actually designed to come through them. And so the believers in Antioch are beginning to realize this.

Their eyes are being opened to this. And the Jewish believers whom at this point in the story Christianity was mostly concentrated within the Jewish community. The headquarters of the whole thing is still in Jerusalem. The main leaders are all Jewish because Jesus himself was Jewish. He's the fulfillment of all of those promises. He's the Jewish Messiah. And so it makes sense that of course it is rooted.

There. But the people in Antioch, their eyes are being opened and they're beginning to see, look, this is to us. But it's not just for us. It's designed to be through us. And so they're sharing the gospel across these cultural barriers and across these cultural lines and the gospel begins to break out and begins to transform. And the church at Antioch becomes the first that we know of, the first on record, truly multi-ethnic and diverse church in the history of Christianity.

Amen. Amen. Beautiful. Thank you for the way that you live into that reality here as a church. And you make that a priority. That is central to the reality of Christianity. It is central to the reality of the kingdom of God. Thank you for the way that you embrace it and champion it and live into it. You are a Barnabas church in that way.

It's beautiful. It's beautiful. There's something that gets said about the people at Antioch that is key and that is core to our story. It tells us that it was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians. The believers were first called Christians at Antioch. We've got if we want to live into that name, if we want to live into that name, then we've got to continue under that challenge that we see happening here in the church of Antioch of Barnabas, opens doors of reconciliation of Barnabas is willing to step across cultural lines and cultural barriers that other people are comfortable leaving in place and living with.

A Barnabas is not comfortable doing that. A Barnabas is spurred by the Holy Spirit to continue to cross those lines because that's what the love of Jesus does. The love of Jesus is willing to cross. Every line drawn by hate is willing to climb every wall built by fear. It will not be held back. It will not be held back.

Thank you for being a Barnabas church and I challenge you to continue in that. I know it can be exhausting when other people are pressing against that. Please continue in the beautiful work of the kingdom that you are living out. Here's the thing It's easy for us as Christians to think about redemption, to think about salvation as a closed loop.

And so we get into this mindset of an us and them kind of mindset as Christians, and we can see Christian. We often see Christianity and salvation as a closed loop. Do we have that image for the screen of a circle, us and them? If not, no problem, is it? They're awesome. Good. All right, great. So us versus them.

Sorry, I'm looking around for the screen. Sorry. It's over here. All right. I trust you all. All right. So we often see salvation and redemption as this closed loop us on the inside of sort of the circle them. They're on the outside of the circle. And we think that's how salvation works. But as we read through the sweep of the scripture and as we experience for ourselves the reality of the redemption of Jesus, we see that that closed loop actually turns into this ripple effect and it continues to go out.

The circle continues to go out and go out and go out. Redemption is not a closed loop. It is a ripple effect of grace. The rising tide of the kingdom of God that is engulfing people that we once thought were on the outside, people that we once thought were on the other side of the lines, that we often allow ourselves to be defined by.

But a Barnabas won't live like that. A Barnabas opens doors of reconciliation and is willing to cross those lines. Paul will later write beautifully about this, about the kind of grace that breaks down the dividing wall of hostility, that grace of Jesus, that breaks down the dividing wall of hostility. He writes about that in Ephesians chapter two, the jail he first saw it lived out in Antioch, and he was never able to shake that away as Barnabas sees what's happening in Antioch, he brings Paul in to be a part of that and to help shape that community.

And the believers are first called Christians at Antioch. The next piece is this Barnabas opens doors of mission in chapter 13. We see this happening. It says that they're in the church. This is still in Antioch, that while the church in Antioch, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting the Holy Spirit said to them, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul or Paul for the work to which I have called them.

So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. I love the beauty of this picture here because it shows a church that is together in fasting, together in worship, together in prayer, and as they are united in that community, around Jesus, in worship, in fasting, in prayer, they're prioritizing these things.

They are open together to hearing the Word of the Holy Spirit and the direction of the Holy Spirit. And they hear the Holy Spirit saying to them, set apart for me some among you that will be sent out for mission. And they are willing to do that and some are willing to go. Paul And Barnabas are willing to be sent out from that home base location to go and to carry the borders of the kingdom with them wherever they go.

I want to encourage you one church for the way that you are a Barnabas church in this as well. You have open doors of mission together as a church, as you're praying, as you're worshiping, as you're fasting, as you're discerning together, you have open and you're willing to pray over and bless people who are core leaders among this church to be sent out to extend the kingdom into other places.

I want to encourage you for the way that you just shared last week about Hunter and Emma Curtis. Amen. Let's give it up for Hunter and the way that you have walked with them as they have discerned a calling into church planting. And for the way that you are blessing them and supporting them as they've gone through the assessment process and and people who've been praying and discerning are saying, yes, we see these gifts in you, we affirm this and for the way that you are partnering with them and standing behind them in that.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. You're opening doors of mission beyond what is just happening within these walls. I want to encourage you to continue to do that as you prioritize worship and fasting and prayer together, continue to listen for who might be next. Maybe it's you who might be next. I want to encourage you for the way that you have blessed Santis Baby, let's give it up for our friend.

Santis Amen. And Santos is leading here locally in beautiful ways and at the same time and I think you all know this, but you should know this, he is leading nationally. He is known out of this church community. He is known nationally for the leadership that he has given gift giving and give it across a network of churches, across a global network of churches.

And that's beautiful. And that's coming out of your congregation and out of your church family. The same with Pastor Ryan. He's continually being recognized over and over again for the gifts and the anointing that God has placed on him. Amen. And time and time again, he's being invited into more leadership, more responsibility. And people are continually looking to him and asking him to step into those leadership roles.

And it's coming out of this local congregation. I love that. Continue to keep your hearts open, continue to keep your ears open for how you can bless and open doors of mission out of one church. Last one, and I'll end here. All right. The last door that Barnabas opens is he opens doors of restoration. He opens Doors of Restoration Act Chapter 15 verses 36 through 41.

Sometime later, after Paul and Barnabas had been sent out on this missionary journey and completed a missionary journey, it says Sometime later, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go back and visit the believers in all of the towns where we preach the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. Barnabas wanted to take John also called Mark with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him because he had deserted them on an earlier missionary journey that they were on together and did not continue with them in the work.

They had such a sharp disagreement over this that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. This little small, little passage is deeply heartbreaking to me. So in just the short amount of time that we've had together, walking through this relationship, this deep, beautiful spiritual friendship, this kingdom, partnership between Paul and Barnabas, and we're loving this story in how God is using them in each other's lives.

And now we get to this point of the story and we see them split ways. It says they had such a sharp division and disagreement over whether or not to take Mark with them, that they split ways. This is heartbreaking to me because of this loss of a partnership, because of this break in a friendship. It's also heartbreaking to me because I'm thinking, Paul, don't you remember that Barnabas was the one who held the door open for you when other people didn't want to give you a chance?

Listen to him when he's saying we should give Mark another chance. You should listen to him because you might not be here if he had not done that for you. It's heartbreaking. Now I get it. Paul's got a solid leadership point here, no doubt. Paul's like, listen, we're going into life and death situations here and so we can't have somebody with us is going to bail on us in the middle of it.

And he says, I don't think it's wise to take. I get it. Good leadership point. I understand. But Paul, did you forget where you once were? All right, listen to Barnabas. He's doing it again. He's trying to hold the door open for somebody else. Listen. And it's heartbreaking to me. And it says they have such a sharp division that they part ways.

And the scholar right points out that as Barnabas heads away and sails in the opposite direction from Paul, he sells out of the narrative of acts and we never hear from him again. That's sad to me. That is heartbreaking to me. But look what happens in this moment. Once again, we have Barnabas holding open a door and this time it becomes a door of restoration.

And look at what the Holy Spirit does because Barnabas refuses to quit on Mark and believes in gently restore restoring him, as Paul will later write, as a matter of fact. All right. But believes in gently restoring him into this leadership role and, continuing with him in this leadership role because Barnabas believes in Mark and continues with him.

What we see happen here that begins as a division in the Holy Spirit's grace and power. The Holy Spirit turns that division into multiplication. You see it. So there's one missionary team of Paul and Barnabas. There's a division. Heartbreaking. The Holy Spirit's restoration here multiple flies that into two teams instead of just one heading in opposite directions, covering more ground with the good news of Jesus.

So we see that beginning to happen. God is redeeming this and His grace is restoring this situation. That restoration continues on. And because Barnabas did not give up on Mark later on, apparently, and obviously there is some of restoration that happens between Paul and Mark as well, because in one of his letters in second, Timothy Paul writes, Please send to me who Mark because he is a good help to me.

Some kind of healing and restoration has taken place there because Barnabas wasn't willing to cast Mark aside. And actually, according to some scholars, it takes even another step beyond that. Now, scholars are divided on this point, but some scholars believe that the mark we're talking about here is a cousin to Barnabas, possibly, but they feel strong that he's also a cousin to the apostle Peter, and that through that close relationship to the apostle Peter, this is the mark who takes down the first hand accounts of Peter and his experiences with Jesus as a member, not just of the 12 disciples, but of Jesus his inner circle, and pulls together that testimony of his cousin Peter

that becomes what we know today as the Gospel of Mark. Isn't that beautiful? A Barnabas opens doors of restoration and Barnabas refused to quit on Mark. Here's my challenge to you today. As we close, I'm going to pray over you as a church. But before we do that, I want to leave you with this challenge. Two questions. First of all, who is your Barnabas?

Who is that person in your life that has opened the door of generosity or redemption that is spoken over your life when it comes to the mission of your life that has challenged you in the area of reconciliation, that has been a part of restoration, that the Holy Spirit is bringing about in your life, Who is your Barnabas?

Take a moment and think about that person and then I want to challenge you to do this. I want to challenge you to think person today. Send a text. Maybe they're in the room. Go and find them if they're in the room and speak that to them personally and thank them for being a Barnabas in your life. A catalyst who opened doors that you could not have opened for yourself.

Who's you're Barnabas. Make sure you think that. And then the second question is, how can you be a Barnabas? How can you be a Barnabas? Identify one person that the Holy Spirit is putting on your heart right now where you need to be a catalyst for that person? You need to be an and an encourager. Maybe as part of the pastoral staff here, maybe it's some other leader within the church.

Maybe it's somebody who's outside of the church that the Holy Spirit is pressing you, that you need to open a door of redemption for that person. Who can you be a Barnabas, too? How can you be a Barnabas? Identify one person and then act on that. This week? I challenge you to act on that. This week, let's close together in prayer and I want to honor you for the ways in which you are already so beautifully living this out.

And I want to challenge us through prayer to continue to take those next take those next steps that the Holy Spirit is showing to us. And Jesus, thank you for your church. I thank you today for one church and even just the beauty of that name drawn from your prayer in John Chapter 17, where you prayed that your church, that your believers, your followers, your disciples, would be one that the world might believe.

We thank you for that prayer, and we thank you for the ways in which this local congregation is living out the answer to that prayer. We pray that you would encourage them and spur them on to continue to live into that reality here in this community. God, we pray that you would raise up a community of Barnabas after Barnabas after Barnabas here in this church, an Antioch kind of church that continues to take risks and crossing lines, that continues to take risks in believing in the power of grace and opening doors for people who have experienced closed doors everywhere they've turned God.

We pray for the people that you're going to raise up to send out of this church to continue the trajectory of mission that you've already sparked here. We pray specifically for Hunter and Emma, for Santis, for Ryan, in the ways that you are using now. And we pray for whoever is next. Jesus, We pray that this church community would be marked by encouragement of each other.

Yes, we want to see those open doors that go out to the community, but we also pray that this church will be marked by its encouragement of each other. We pray that you would empower your church to be who you have dreamed that they would be, to continue to be who you have made them into, and that they would find the courage to take those next steps, give them wisdom to do it.