Sermon Transcript
Isn’t it great to see what God is doing in the church? This is wonderful. You could be in a gym and still have a great time. That was meant to be a smiler, okay? So— what is that?
And actually that song, as they were singing there, Give Me the Eyes for the Brokenhearted, is a prayer, but it’s also a desire to reach out to those who are hurting. And that’s kind of a perfect summary of what we talked about last week. If you were here last week, we just started a series called Be One, Make One.
Let’s be a disciple. Let’s make disciples. Disciples making disciples, which is the commission that Jesus gave us, Matthew chapter 28, gave his disciples, his followers. And so that song is really kind of a perfect summary of the B and the R, right? Begin with prayer, give me eyes.
So it’s a— it was a prayer song, and then it’s a song that is saying, so let’s reach out to the brokenhearted. Let’s reach out to those who are in need. Reach out to unbelievers was the R. So it really kind of summarizes actually both of the matters that we talked about last week. And of course, if we’re going to take steps forward in discipleship, we’ve got to build relationships with people that are far from God, help them come into relationship with God, and then continue that process. It’s all about relationship.
Think with me just for a moment about people that you’ve had in your life that have somehow shaped you. You are a different person because of somebody who came into your life. Maybe it was just briefly, but in some capacity they’ve impacted your life. I think of Lee Boland, for instance. Lee and his family came to the church that we were a part of in Southern California, Gore Hills, California.
We were there for 25 years. His family joined the church in the early years of the ministry that we had there, especially during those lead pastor years, Southern California. But Lee was a framer. Okay, so he wasn’t a pastor or anything like that. I mean, he was involved in ministry because we’re all involved in ministry, but he was a contractor, a framer.
So he had a framing company. He had 500 employees in his framing company. So this is a guy that, you know, God blessed, and in so many different ways he was being used in the kingdom as a framer. But a testimony to Jesus Christ through his company. In fact, he didn’t have any debt.
He purchased all of the equipment with cash. That was just part of the desire that they had and how they set the company up and all of that. And so this guy was a go-getter. When we needed to build a children’s building, he said, I can help with that. We said, thank you so much.
We’re glad that you’re going to be a part of this project because we don’t know how we’re going to completely get the thing done. And he told his crews, he said, listen, on such and such a Saturday, we’re going to be working on framing the children’s building over at the church that I go to, and I want to invite all of you guys to come and be a part of this project with me. So they lined it up for several weeks. There were 50 workers that came. They framed the building in one day.
This is before the days of what we watch on television now, you know, where they get it all done in a week or something. I’ve heard about the days of barn raising. Well, this was a children’s building raising kind of experience, and they got the whole thing framed and roofed and all the rest of that in one day. It was just because of his leadership. I asked him, how’d you get the 50 guys here?
He said, I told them that I was going to be working at my church framing the building on such and such a date, and so I said, so you ought to think about coming. Well, 50 of them did. They showed up. They said they wanted to make a good impression, I guess, on their boss, but whatever. But Lee would time from time take me out to breakfast, and I could still remember one particular breakfast.
I could remember where I was sitting, what the restaurant was. We had a great conversation around the food and all of that. And then at some point he said, you know, Dave, I just want to encourage you. There are a couple things that are going on in your ministry that you don’t realize that if you were to just take a step further in these areas, you would see God do even greater things than he’s doing right now. And we talked about leadership.
We talked about matters like that. And I still remember him saying, Dave, you’re a better leader than you are right now. You really are. You gotta realize that God has given you leadership. He’s given you leadership gifts.
And if you were to step forward in such and such ways, you would see God do even greater things through your life, and we would see it in the ministry here. We talked about other matters as well related to teaching and other matters like that. It wasn’t the only time that we got together and talked. There were other times that we got together and talked, but I can still remember that Sometimes we think of certain moments in our lives as defining moments. Well, that was a defining moment for me.
And when Lee shared that information with me, he was being Barnabas-like. Now, are you familiar with the Barnabas name? Are you familiar with the Barnabas character in the Bible? Do you remember what Barnabas was nicknamed? Encourager.
Yeah, he got the nickname Encourager. Wouldn’t that be a great nickname to have people nickname you? The encourager. In fact, you might just think right now about that. Would anybody nickname me encourager because I’m just so encouraging?
I’m a people blossomer. I come along, I see the optimistic side of things. I’m hopeful. I go to people and I say to them, you can do this. It’s so cool to see what God is doing in your life.
You know, when you did such and such last week, wow, it really made a difference in my life. I mean, would anybody say that about you, or would anybody say that about me? Well, they said that about Barnabas. I mean, what a great nickname, right? I mean, some of us, our nickname is Poopsie or Cootie, or I don’t know what it is, but you know.
But encourager, now that’s cool. And so when Lee was speaking to me about these things that I could actually become, he was Barnabas-like in our lives. And not only was he Barnabas-like, but he was actually discipling me. Now, sometimes we complicate discipleship. We think that it’s something, you know, it’s all for apostles or something like that.
Do you realize that Barnabas as the encourager, he wasn’t an apostle, okay? Nowhere is he in the apostles’ list or anything like that. He was just an ordinary person. Anybody here sort of ordinary? Okay, at least I got my hand up.
All right, most of you do. Yeah, so we qualify on this thing. We could actually be a part of discipling people in people blossoming ways and them becoming even more— I don’t even know what I want to say at this point. I’ll think of something, just a minute. They become even greater encouragers than they are right now.
That perfectly fits. Okay, so that’s what I wanted to say all along. So here’s what I want you to see with me this morning. I want you to see the life of Barnabas, because Barnabas can actually help us step forward with discipleship. And there are a couple principles that comes out of his life life that can really be helpful to us.
And I promise you, everybody— it doesn’t matter how old you are— everybody sitting in this room this morning can disciple others in these 2 ways, all right? So, open your Bible, Acts, chapter 11. Let’s look at it together. Acts, chapter 11, gives us a little bit of insight into the life of Barnabas. Acts, chapter 11, verse 19.
You there? All right. So, Acts 11— actually, we’ve already spent some time in Acts 11. David took us there. We talked about what happened with the Gentiles in Caesarea and how they found faith in Christ and how that was the result of this vision that Peter had.
And so, we’re coming after all of that, and this is what we know. And by the way, we’re going to mention Stephen here. You may remember if you’ve been with us that Stephen was martyred for his faith. He gave a walk through the entire Bible, and afterwards they took his life. They didn’t appreciate what it was that he was saying.
That’s found in Acts, chapter 7. And as a result of that, the church came under persecution, but the church multiplied. It actually scattered as it came under persecution. So that’s kind of the context we pick this up in. Acts 11:19, now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews.
Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went down to Antioch, and they began to speak to Greeks, Gentiles, also telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus Christ. So here’s the aftermath of Stephen’s death. The church scattered. They continued to preach the gospel to Jews, but now they’re also preaching the gospel to Gentiles. And it says in verse 21, the Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people— this would be Jews and Gentiles— believed, and they turned to the Lord.
Well, in their hearing these reports about those who are believing, the church at Jerusalem decides that they gotta know more, especially about these Greeks or these Gentiles coming to faith in Christ. And so it says, verse 22, news of this reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas. So here’s Barnabas, first we’re gonna talk about. They sent Barnabas to Antioch. And when he arrived, he saw the evidence of the grace of God.
He was glad, and he encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all of their hearts. And then it describes Barnabas this way, verse 24, He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
Now there’s a lot going on there. I want to pull out a couple principles, but make sure you first of all understand the context here. There are people that are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Among those who are coming to faith in Christ are Gentiles. Church at Jerusalem hears about that, so they choose one of their faithful leaders.
I love that fact just in and of itself. They chose Barnabas. They said, Barnabas is a trusted person. We’ll send him down. We’ll let him check it out, and we’ll let him see what’s going on down there.
And, of course, he was the right guy to do this, because, as you can see here, it describes his character, the kind of person he was, his faith as well. He was a good man. By the way, wouldn’t it be great if we’re going to be described by other people, wouldn’t it be great that this would be the description that they would give of us? That’s a good man. That’s a good woman.
Okay, this is a person who’s walking with God. There’s something different about that person’s life. Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit. Well, boy, is that going to make a difference, right? I mean, if you’re full of the Holy Spirit, you’re going to see the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience.
You think that would make you a better person? Absolutely. And he was also full of faith, which is something that would honor and please God. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God, we’re told. So he was a good man, full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit, and he was also an evangelist.
He was also— are here— he was also reaching out to others. A great number of people were brought to the Lord. And as a result of this growth of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ, Barnabas in Antioch, all a part of this as well, he decides that he needs some help. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found Saul, he brought him to Antioch. And so now it’s not just Barnabas in Antioch teaching these new converts, these believers in Jesus, for a whole year.
Not only was Barnabas doing that, verse 26, the middle, but Saul now is teaching the church as well, and more people are coming to faith in Jesus. And not only that, the disciples— you wondered, where did they get the name Christian anyway? Well, it happened in Antioch. It says right there they were first called Christians down in Antioch. So, little Christs, they were people that were representing Jesus, and they took on the name Christian.
Now, there are a lot of things we can focus on, but let me just focus on just a couple of thoughts here. Number one, the character of Barnabas. We want to know that. What he was doing, that’s really important. But I want you to think about his life as through a first responder, all right?
He was a first responder. He was the first guy to be sent because of his character in the church. He was the first guy to be sent by the church at Jerusalem down to Antioch to check things out. That’s wonderful, a trusted person. But if we back up to chapter 4 of Acts, we find out that Barnabas was a first responder in that when there was a need in the church, he was the first guy to step up and meet the need.
In fact, he even sold his property and the cash or whatever it was that he received from the property brought to the church and he laid it before the apostles and they distributed that money, whatever it was. To those who had need. I mean, that was just the generosity and kind of guy that Barnabas was. But if you look at Acts chapter 9, he was the first guy to speak up and vouch for Saul’s conversion experience. We talked about the Apostle Saul.
In Acts chapter 9, it says this: When he came to Jerusalem— this is speaking about Paul, verse 26— he tried to join the disciples. So this is the guy who’s been killing Christians, or at least persecuting Christians, or wanting to kill Christians, or giving endorsement to kill Christians. So it’s this guy. This guy wants to join the disciples. This is after that amazing conversion experience that Steve Durand helped us understand a couple months ago, or maybe it was just a month ago.
And it says that they were all afraid when Saul tried to join the other disciples, not believing that he was really a disciple. Kind of like, yeah, really? You prayed the prayer? Come on. That’s not going to happen.
You? Are you kidding? But it says, verse 27, Barnabas took him, that’s Saul, and he brought him to the apostles, and he told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. What is that? What’s he doing?
He’s vouching for Saul. He’s saying, hey guys, really, his conversion experience is— it’s legitimate. Now, what we know is that after this, Saul spends some time in Damascus, and then ultimately he goes to Tarsus, and he just hangs out at Tarsus. And that’s where then we connect Acts chapter 11, verse 25, where we see that Barnabas, as this first responder, is the first one, listen, to invite Paul, or Saul at that point, into a vibrant ministry that was taking place in Antioch. What we know chronologically is people kind of piece this together, and some of you that love to go into the details, you can, after we talk about this today, go put some more details on all of this.
But here’s what we know. We know that Paul has been in Tarsus maybe for a minimum of 2 years now, sitting on the shelf. But it could possibly be for as many as 8 years sitting on the shelf. And there’s a guy whose name is Barnabas, and he remembers, you know what? That Saul dude, he’s got potential.
So, as this church is growing at Antioch, verses 25 and 26, Barnabas went to Tarsus. He didn’t even know where exactly he was living. It just says, to look for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch— that’s Saul. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people.
And the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Now here’s what I want you to see. Barnabas did what good disciplers do. They see potential in other people and they call it out of them. They basically say, Hey, let’s— you’ve heard these words before— let’s do life together.
You’ve got something there that God could use, so let’s hang out together and let’s see what God does. And he gives that kind of an invitation. It wasn’t in those exact words, I doubt it. It was better. But he gives that kind of an invitation to Saul.
He says, so, hey, you want to come over to Antioch where God is working? Where there are people coming to faith in Jesus Christ, where they need to be built up in the faith. You want to come and do this with me? Now, what I don’t see here is the fear that some of us have about this disciple-making thing. And here’s the fear: we have this fear that, well, what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to go up to somebody and we’ve got to say, hey, you want to be my disciple?
Now, that just doesn’t feel good, does it? It feels like arrogance or pride or something. It’s just like, that’s weird, you know, to, hey, you want to follow me as I follow Jesus?
So how do you get around that? Just like this. It’s just you see potential. You have people in your life right now, like Lee Boland had a friend in me. You have people in your life right now that you could say, hey, you want to do breakfast?
Hey, you want to do lunch? Hey, you want to help me? I’m doing such and such, and we’re seeing God work in these kinds of ways. You see, all this is— we’ll use the word that’s thrown around a lot now— this is just organic, isn’t it? And the organic result of inviting Saul to leave Tarsus and to come to Antioch was that Barnabas, listen, became Saul’s disciple maker.
That was the result. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this before, but you actually see that Barnabas was Saul’s disciple maker, this guy who was a layperson, we would say, in the church, okay, who was not an apostle. He was just an ordinary person like us. Fascinating. When you look at the order, you know, Barnabas and Saul is the first order that you find throughout these opening chapters where they’re doing ministry together.
So here in chapter 11, verse 26, who is it first, Saul or Barnabas? It’s Barnabas and Saul. Acts chapter 11, verse 13, Barnabas and Saul. Acts chapter 12, verse 25, it’s Barnabas and Saul. Acts chapter 13, verse 7, it’s Barnabas and Saul.
Acts chapter 14, verse 14, it’s Barnabas and now it’s Paul, because Paul’s name on the first missionary journey was changed from Saul to Paul. Acts chapter 15, verse 12, it’s Barnabas and Paul. Acts chapter 15, verse 25, it’s Barnabas and Paul. Why am I, you know, spending time talking about that? Because I think we have to see that every person needs a Barnabas in their life, and it’s possible for every one of us to step into relationships that God has given us, or maybe it’s just a, you know, a contact.
I remember that person that I met, and it seemed like they had potential. And maybe we could have breakfast together, or maybe we could do something together. And all of a sudden you reach out to them and wow, look what God is doing now. You see, the I here is just invite, invite others into your life. Invite them into your life.
That’s all. Take the initiative to reach out to people that God has put in your life that somehow you’re connected to and invite them into your life and invite them to do life with you. Just start with a breakfast. Hey, let’s get together for breakfast, like I did with one of my friends who has now become a very close friend. I just invited him to get together for breakfast.
We had a very small conversation about spiritual things. It didn’t matter. We just began a friendship. And at the end of the breakfast he said, hey, this would be great. Let’s do this again.
And I said, I agree. And so we had another breakfast and another breakfast, and we’ve been doing breakfasts and lunches for the past couple of years. That’s all. And he would say, I’m discipling him. I never have said to him, I’m discipling you.
But that’s what discipleship’s all about. It’s all about a relationship and what God does through that relationship. We were at a conference this past week, a few of us, on Thursday. It’s a Q Place conference, and Q Place is a ministry that’s helping ordinary people reach out to ordinary people. And they showed this video and I thought, I gotta show you guys this, take a couple minutes and show you this, because I think it will help you see the perspective.
But they showed this video of these women who have some friendships with others, and they could see that possibly just by getting together they could help their friends who are far from God maybe take a step toward God. So they started a little thing in their house. Watch what the video helps us understand.
I don’t think I’m saved yet.
I am still trying to live a life that’s worthy. I’ve had years of wandering where I left my church because I felt that I wasn’t good enough. I have some questions. How do bad things happen to good people? I really struggle with that.
I struggle with what’s happening in the world. I struggle with how much we have in our neighborhood and how little other people have elsewhere. 3 women who had a passion for reaching their community heard the needs of their peers and set out to meet them where they were spiritually and geographically. We both were having women say, I wish my friend, you know, Diane would come, my friend Sue would come, but she’d never come to Bible study. She’d never set foot in a church.
That’s just too scary, too threatening. So We came up with this idea to start a group called Coffee and Questions. We sent these emails out to women. Honestly, I was surprised by the responses of, thank you so much for creating a safe place for me to come with my questions. I do have questions, I just didn’t know where to go.
We thought we’d have probably 7, 8 women show up. We had over 20, and we heard incredible stories of pain and hurt and what the church had done and what Christians had said to some of these women that had hurt them and caused them to say, I’m never going back.
And there are so many people out there like that. People do have questions, and people do want to find a place, a safe place, where they can discover together what the Bible says about God. It is a gift to get to sit there and watch God do his work in these lives. This has made me a more active person around faith. It allows me to dip my toe in the water and learn about it, and I’m not judged.
We talked about praying, and I’m not a person that prays on a daily basis, but those are the kind of things that are changing for me. There is no gossip. Women are really loving each other. This is something that is different. That’s why the groups began to multiply.
There’s so many people out there like this who are searching and lost and hurting and lonely. It gives you a safe place to be able to open up, ask the difficult questions, have a discussion that goes back and forth rather than just being talked to. Our group meets on Thursday morning and it’s my happy day of the week. You don’t have to be perfect. You You can bring all your flaws in a very safe environment.
The original group that was started by Diane and my friend Carol expanded. It got too big, and so they asked— prayed for more leaders. I was one of those, and then we prayed for more leaders. I mean, we could probably start 4 new groups right now if we had enough leaders. It really does feel like some kind of a revival that is going on.
Jesus told us to go make disciples, but many Christians feel they aren’t qualified, spiritual, or trained enough to carry out this important part of our faith. The Great Commission can be so daunting, overwhelming. I need to have that heart, but, but where do I start? You have so many resources in your church body and so many people who want to be salt and light, but they maybe don’t know how to do that, and they’re maybe scared to do that. People want to find a role that they can play and have conversation about God in a way that that isn’t threatening, but they simply don’t know how.
Give them the gift of knowing how to do something with their faith, how to share it with other people in a non-threatening way, and that they don’t have to convince other people of their faith. They can just open their homes and their hearts to listen and allow God to do the work of convincing, because only he can. Q-Place really very clearly and simply It simply gives us the steps for, here are some ways to invite people in. You’re really giving a gift to your congregation, a really great tool to use to do what they probably really want to do but don’t know how. Once you get something going like this, you know, and somebody really is transformed by it, then they want to pass it on.
Grassroots phenomenon going on right now in Medina and Clyde Hill and West Bellevue. And it started with a woman from our church who spent a lot of time at her kids’ sporting events talking with other moms. And she’d hear things like, oh man, I’ve never set foot in a church, or I’ve got questions about God. So this woman used her gift of hospitality to invite some women over to her house to talk about God. And a lot of these women said it was great to be in a place that welcomed their questions.
Well, out of that, a Bible study group formed to talk more about God, and then from that group, other groups started to form. 2 years after one Q-Place started in a Clyde Hill, Washington neighborhood, 7 more groups of women, 3 men’s groups, and 2 for teenagers were started there, with 17 people still on a waiting list until more facilitators are found. A woman named Sherri who participated in a Q-Place rediscovered her faith in Jesus and felt the Holy Spirit’s call to launch a new group so she could pass on the gift she’d received. And plus, it’s all just grassroots, it’s organic, not a pastor in the bunch to screw it up. Can God work through non-pastors?
Absolutely. As the woman who started it all says, this is just a story about how God can use a normal everyday Christian in her everyday life sitting at her kids’ soccer games.
Now don’t get lost in the Q-Place part of this. Like I said, we saw this at a Q-Place conference. We’re actually using Q-Place in our missional communities, so that’s fine. It’s a wonderful, helpful guide and can be very helpful, but don’t get lost in this. What I want you to see is that they knew that the Lord wanted them to make disciples, and they didn’t know how to go about it, but they did have relationships with people, and they said, you know, at least we could open our home for coffee questions.
And anybody can do that. You could do this, students, with your friends. You could say, hey, let’s just get together. Let’s just get together like on a regular basis. Let’s just talk about life.
Let’s see what we can learn about life that could help us be better people than we are right now. Anybody can do this. And as we do this, we want to move toward this D, which is discerning the need or the needs of the people that God now has put into our life. Now what’s fascinating about Barnabas is he had a knack for just knowing what people needed. He knew when the Apostle Paul was basically— or excuse me, at this point he was Saul— but when he was under suspicion by the apostles Saul knew— or excuse me, get it straight here, Dave.
Barnabas knew that Saul needed a Barnabas to step up and to be an advocate. So he stepped up and he was an advocate on the part of Saul, saying to the disciples, hey, this guy’s legitimate. Here in Acts, chapter 11, he knew that Saul, if given the chance, probably could blossom into ministry. People, don’t, you know, get this out of order. This is before he ever took 3 missionary journeys.
This is when he’s sitting in Tarsus wondering, is there any kind of future for me? I mean, I was more active when I was an unbeliever than I’m active right now. And it was Barnabas who saw the need that Paul had and was somehow— I think it’s just the work of God. God will sometimes speak to us in such a way where he’ll just say, hey, And he gives you a name. And your responsiveness to that name could be the very thing that gets this person on a journey to something they’ve never experienced before.
And so Barnabas just responds to that. He invites Saul in and basically gives him a platform or a start, a start in the ministry. Hey, want to come over to Antioch with me? God’s doing a great work there. And he did.
And Barnabas even had this kind of impact on John Mark. You remember the story in Acts chapter 15? Don’t have time to go through it, but read it sometime, the end of Acts chapter 15, where there’s a big disagreement. This is a disagreement now between Paul and Barnabas. So, you know, the guy that discipled me, it’s that kind of a disagreement.
And after that first missionary journey, they have a difference of opinion about John Mark because John Mark deserted them on the first missionary journey. And so here they are having a sharp disagreement, the text says, about whether or not John Mark should be invited to go on the second journey, whether or not— listen— he should be given a second chance. And the apostle Paul basically says, no, no second chances for that guy. But Barnabas sees it different, right? Barnabas is an encourager.
And so Barnabas basically says to Paul, that’s fine, you go ahead and go on your journey without us. But I’m going to pick up John Mark and I’m going to take him with me. See, he saw the need. What was the need? To be given a second chance.
And there are some people in our life right now who, if they were given a second chance, who knows, they might blossom into ministry. What Paul did not realize is what ultimately John Mark would become if Barnabas would give him a second chance. And what did he become? This guy who deserted them on the first journey, this guy who Paul said doesn’t deserve a second chance, what did he become? He ultimately became the guy that wrote the Gospel of Mark.
Why? Because of Paul? No. Because of Barnabas. And there are people like that in your life right now, and there are people like that in my life, that if we were to reach out to them, we would be making disciples.
But more importantly, we would be seeing people who perhaps are sitting on the shelf becoming something greater than they ever anticipated they could be. Now, is that exciting?
Jim Putnam speaks about levels of spiritual development. I love his book, Real Discipleship, and he uses this wheel, and we’ve put this into the curriculum that we’ve passed out in the different channels that are covering this subject with us right now. But he talks about there are people around us that are spiritually dead. You’re wondering, you know, how do you minister to need? Well, here’s one way to just think about it.
There are people around us that are spiritually dead. What they need is a new life in Jesus Christ. They are unbelievers. There are also, secondly, those who are in spiritual infancy. And those who are in spiritual infancy are just ignorant.
They need to be taught. They are also dependent. Last night we babysat our 4-month-old granddaughter Paisley. She can’t even roll over. Are you kidding?
She’s totally dependent upon babysitters and parents and all the rest of that, right? So we have spiritual infants. Excuse me. And then we have people who are in spiritual childhood. What’s a spiritual child?
It’s somebody who’s basically self-centered. It’s somebody who’s in it, you know, come on, man, feed me, feed me, feed me. It’s that kind of a level of progress. And then there are spiritual young adults. I call these YOPROs, but you call whatever you want to call it.
And the key indicator here are people who are growing more outward in their faith. They’re more focused on God and they’re more focused on other people. So unselfishness is the growing dimension in those who are growing into spiritual young adulthood. And then there are spiritual parents or spiritual parenthood. And the key indicator here is discipleship.
The key indicator here is reproduction. If you’re not reproducing yourself, if you’re not multiplying yourself, that’s where ultimately God wants us to be, to be one and to make one. He wants us to move towards spiritual parenthood. And you say, how do I do it? You just become sensitive to the people that God has put into your life and ask yourself the question, what’s the need that this person has that I could actually help them with right now?
See, that’s what a parent does, right? They’re aware of the needs. Bernice and I have 3 children. As we were raising our 3 children, we were very conscious of the needs of our children, sometimes because they told us, you know, I got a need for money, whatever it was. But sometimes it’s just because you have a sensitivity about those things, right?
We would go away a couple times a year and we took with us one of those little Hallmark books. Have you ever seen those little Hallmark cutesy little lined books that have no content in them but just pages? You know, one of those things. And we would take that with us, and a couple times a year part of our goal, which we’d record in this little cutesy book. I just say cutesy ’cause Bernie’s picked it, but anyway, so part of this little cutesy thing, we would write down goals, and some of our goals would be for our children.
For Brent right now, he’s at this stage in his life, and we really know we need to focus on such and such now. And for Brian, this is where he is, and so over the next couple months, we’re gonna focus on this. And for Katie, well, Katie just needs us to be loving and kind, and you know, we’re just gonna focus on that right now. And each one of them had different needs that we could focus on focus on that could help them take that next step in their development. And you could do the same thing with somebody.
Now, what am I suggesting to you this morning is simply this: there are people all around us that if we were to move into a relationship with them, we could actually disciple them without ever asking them, hey, can I disciple you? You don’t have to go down that road. And these people who we have the privilege of discipling could be like a Saul, a Saul who needed a Barnabas so that he would become a Paul. And that really is the bottom line of what this text is teaching us for this morning. There are Sauls all around us who need a Barnabas if they’re ultimately going to become a Paul.
And God wants to use us. Isn’t this amazing, people? God wants to use us, and so he’s given us this charge. What’s the charge? Go out, make disciples.
How do you do that? You begin with prayer. You reach out to unbelievers. There are people all around us that need Jesus. You invite them into your life.
You invite them to do life with you, and you ask all the while, what is the need that is here? And there are so many needs you can go after. It may be that the need that they have the most is just to have a friend. That’s it. Somebody who would say, hey, I’m going to take time out of my life, and I’m wondering if you’d like to take time out of your life, and let’s just build a friendship, and let’s see what comes out of this friendship.
And then you could go on and you could talk about areas like in Romans 12 and Ephesians 6 and 5 and so forth. And you could talk about other matters related to God, and you could talk about other matters related to faith or family. There’s so many different things that you could talk about, but the point is this, is that you’ve built a friendship, and in the context of their friendship, it’s life on life changing lives that ultimately in this we see people who have tremendous potential become something that they not— they are not yet. And would not that be good? Amen.
Amen. Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for this morning. And thanks for the opportunity again to talk about discipleship and how you want to use us. It’s so amazing.
But like you used Barnabas in Saul’s life, we pray you would use us in the lives of others as well. So help us take a step into that. What does that mean, Lord? And what does that mean in your life this morning? Think, everybody.
You taking the step of prayer in this? Lord, just show me. Show me what you want me to do. Just a simple prayer like that, he will.
Are you reaching out to unbelievers? Are there unbelievers in your life? Are you building friendships and relationships? Have you invited them into your life in some way? Hey, let’s hang out together.
You can do that.
Ask God to give you wisdom to know where they are in their life right now so that you can be responsive to those needs. If it’s an advocate they need, you can be an advocate. If it’s— they need a second start, they need a restart, second chance, you could, you could give them that. You could help them take a step in the direction of what that means. You could even introduce them to Jesus, who gives everybody a second start that asks for it.
In fact, if you’ve never invited Jesus into your life, that’s what he’ll do for you. Ask him now, Lord, I need to start over. I’ve been living life my own way. I haven’t been living with you.
I want you to take the lead in my life. See, that’s what a Christ follower is all about. It’s about asking God to be the leader in your life. It’s asking him to be in relationship with you and telling him you want to be in relationship with him. And it’s recognizing he’s made the relationship possible through Jesus who died on the cross for our sins.
So that our sins no longer separate us from God, but in Christ’s payment for our sins, we’re forgiven.
And it’s a gift that he gives to us if we ask, if we receive it, if we believe. Have you ever done that? Do you want to do that even now? He’ll hear that prayer. Just tell him, Lord, save me.
God, help us do the very thing you’ve asked us to do, to make disciples. And may the result be people’s lives are changed forever. I pray, God, right now that people that are sitting here this morning that have nobody discipling them can break that pattern by beginning— if somebody doesn’t disciple them now, by beginning with somebody else that they can disciple. And help us all live in relationship that changes lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name.
Amen. Well, let’s end our service with some more singing, some worship of God. So Nate, take
