03 Understanding God’s Will: In the World

Krisan Marotta: Uh, you're listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast, and I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the third and final talk in our series on understanding God's will. We're looking at understanding God's will in the world. You can download the handout that's mentioned in the lecture by going to our website at wednesdayintheword.com slash God's Will3. Glad to have you along. So our topic for this last session is understanding the will of God in the world. So last night we talked about finding God's will as an individual, and I argued that what God wants us to do is grow in wisdom and progress from being foolish, immature children into wise and mature adults such that we are equipped to make wise choices. And then this morning we talked about understanding God's will in the church, and we looked at Miriam and how she grew resentful of her brother Moses as his role and the way God was using him began to take center stage and God began this new work through him. And in the process, her role did faded away and she became jealous and resentful. And we talked about how she was focused on who got the glory rather than doing good. So in this last section, as we took at understanding God's will in the world, I went to look at Barnabas because while Miriam was focused on getting glory and not doing good, Barnabas was focused on doing good and not getting glory, and in the process, he changed the world. So if you had to name five people in the New Testament, not including Jesus, who changed the world, I bet none of you would have put Barnabas on the list, right? You'd think, okay, Paul, Peter, James, John, Mark, Matthew. But none of you, you're probably going, who's Barnabas again? What did he do? Paul, you know, he would be, of course, on everyone's list because he was perhaps the world's greatest evangelist. He's the author of a large chunk of the New Testament. His letter to Romans was instrumental in bringing Augustine, Luther, Wesley, and Whitfield to the faith. You could say he is responsible for two reformations, the Protestant Reformation through Luther, and then the Great Awakening in America through Wesley. I bet none of you, if you think, oh, who really changed the world? You'd never even think of Barnabas. And yet he left an everlasting legacy of good. And I would argue that he changed the world because without Barnabas there would be no Apostle Paul, no John Mark, and no Gospel of Mark. So I want to present him to you as an example of all the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit. Because he's an uncelebrated man in the New Testament. He's eclipsed by his more famous contemporaries, say Peter, Stephen, or Paul. And we're going to follow his story through Acts today and consider what we can learn about how we can change the world if we don't care about who gets the credit. So we are on page five of your handout, the last page. You want to turn to Acts with me. We're going to go through basically all the spots where we see Barnabas in Acts. And what I want you to learn, hopefully, is that when you start envisioning, okay, here I am, I want to do something significant for Christ, I want to change the world, that your goal should be doing good and not glory. Ronald Reagan said, It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. And today we're going to see someone who didn't care who got the credit. Alright, so we're going to start in Acts 4. This is the first time we see Barnabas. And Luke is the author of Acts. He begins with a description of what's going on in the church in Jerusalem. I'm going to start in Acts 4 and look at 32 through 35. Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of land or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed each at to each as any had need. They didn't have the New Testament. What scriptures existed were in Hebrew. Many of them, of the Gentiles, of course, couldn't read Hebrew anyway. There wasn't like a Christian church in every city or on every corner. If they wanted to hear who was Jesus and what is the story all about, they had to come to Jerusalem because that's where the apostles were at this time. So as all these new converts and seekers poured in, it created like this huge refugee crisis. Now you've got all these people flocking to Jerusalem. They need food, they need housing, they need clothing. And the church's solution to that was to sell what they had and provide the required hospitality. So people brought money, goods, and proceeds of things they sold to help kind of support all these seekers and converts who were flocking into Jerusalem. And then, of course, they would leave, go back to their home cities, and tell people there about Jesus. So that's what's going on. And in that situation, Luke gives us an example of this generosity, and this is where we meet Barnabas for the first time. Look at Acts 4.36. Then Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means sons of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. So we meet Barnabas when Luke singles him out for this special gift. He sold a field and he gave all the proceeds to the apostles so they could give it to the poor. And in the process we learn a bit about his biography. Barnabas was a Jew. He was from the island of Cyprus. He was a Levite. Since he was a Levite, he would have no portion or no distinct inheritance in the land in Palestine. You remember the Levites were the one tribe that did not get an allotment of land. It's likely that the piece of land he sold was on the island of Cyprus. And if so, it was worth a lot of money. Cyprus was an island, and it was on the main commerce route of the day. And so to own land on Cyprus was like owning a city block in downtown Manhattan. This was worth a lot of money. His original name was Joseph, but he was nicknamed Barnabas by the apostles. It means son of help or son of encouragement. And the Hebrew idiom son of means one who is characterized by whatever the noun is that follows. So they're looking at this man and saying he is characterized by help or by encouragement. He's a man whose life is characterized by this tendency to encourage others. And we're going to see as we follow Barnabas through Acts that he is as good as his nickname. He's never prominent, he's always the secondary figure, he's always standing in the background, but he helps others come into their own because his goal is doing good, not glory. If you read on in Acts 5, which we're not going to do right now, you'd find the tragic story of Aeneas and his wife Sapphira. They're the foil or the counterexample to Barnabas. They sold land and they withheld a portion of it. I think in part they put those stories side by side to contrast with Barnabas's positive example. And then Luke reports on the imprisonment and flogging of the apostles, the story of Stephen and how he was martyred, and then after the martyrdom of Stephen, people began to flee Jerusalem as the persecution began to ramp up, and the story then spreads outward into Judea and Samaria. And then in Acts 9, Luke shifts from this outward expansion of the church to the opposition of Saul of Tarsus, who is raging throughout Syria and Palestine, as he says in 9.1, breathing threats and murder against the Lord's disciples. And Saul, of course, will become the Apostle Paul. Luke then reports on Paul's conversion on the way to Damascus and his subsequent ministry there, his humiliating flight from the city, an event he later claimed was at the same time his most inglorious and ennobling event of his life. You can find that in 2 Corinthians 11. And soon after that, Paul seeks asylum in Jerusalem, where he thought he's going to be sheltered by his fellow Christians. So here he is. He was the most notorious persecutor of the church. And now he's converted, he's become a believer, and he comes to Jerusalem, and he doesn't exactly get a warm welcome. Look at Acts 9.26. And when he came to Jerusalem, that is he, Paul, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. Now that's a very reasonable reaction because not long ago Paul was the most hated and feared man in Jerusalem. He was persecuting Christians with a vengeance, and now he appears knocking on the door and says, Let me in. And you can imagine they're all going, Yeah, right. You're just looking for names so you know who to turn over to the authorities. This is like Hitler knocking on a synagogue door and going, I've become a Jew. You're gonna go, yeah, no, no, I don't believe you. So who would believe it? Paul has to be a spy, he has to be double dealing, he's probably causing trouble. How could this guy be a disciple of Christ? But notice verse 27, but Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that he had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. Who gives Paul a second chance? Barnabas. Barnabas lets him in the door, risking death or persecution if Saul is being duplicitous, and he's the one that listens to Paul's story, becomes convinced that Paul has had a genuine conversion, and takes him to the apostles and says, Okay, you need to listen to this guy. And then Acts 9.28, so he, Paul, went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. Thanks to Barnabas, Paul stayed with them, moved about freely, and began preaching in the name of the Lord. He alone opened his home and his heart to this friendless Paul. He alone was being will was willing to be caught in Paul's trap if Paul was not sincere. That's why I said earlier, without Barnabas, we might not have Paul. Now, obviously in God's sovereignty, we would have Paul. But Barnabas was the person he used to bring that about. Once Barnabas was convinced of the reality of Paul's conversion, he brought him to Peter, and once Peter was convinced of it, Peter brought Paul into his home, as Paul talks about in Galatians. Paul was sheltered and encouraged and nurtured through Barnabas's intervention. And Luke's account of this is so matter-of-fact and so quiet that if you're not reading, you miss it. There's this sense in which there would be no Paul without Barnabas, and Luke just kind of said, Oh, yeah, well, there's this one person that took him in. Alexander White put it this way. He said, Barnabas was never destined to shine in the service of Christ like the Apostle Paul, but Paul himself never did a more shining deed than Barnabas did when he took Saul into his heart at a time when every other heart in Jerusalem was hardened against him. Well, the first example we see of Barnabas is his willing to sell his land. The second one is he's willing to give Paul a chance. And now Luke goes on to summarize Saul's short-lived ministry in Jerusalem. Verse 28 says he stayed in Jerusalem, moved about freely, but that began to stir up trouble. So look at 9 28 through 31. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem. This is Paul, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord, and he spoke and disputed with the Hellenists, which are the Greeks, but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. I just find that amusing, because if you you can just kind of read through that and not think about what's happening. Paul's preaching in Jerusalem, but all his preaching is doing is stirring up trouble. So the disciples say, You're out of here. We're sending you off to Tarsus, where Paul goes and he lives in obscurity for several years, and then says the church then flourished without Paul around. You'd think Paul would have given up, but thankfully he didn't. So halfway through Luke's narrative, the scene shifts from the church in Jerusalem to the city of Antioch, which is the was the third largest city in the Roman Empire at the time. It was this big, bustling metropolis center. It was a meeting place for East and West. Some people called it an Oriental Rome, and it was famous in Christian circles because there was a large church there composed of many Gentile Christians. So turn over to Acts 11. I'm going to start in 19. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyrus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. So after the martyrdom of Stephen, persecution started ramping up against these new Christian sect the Romans were suspicious about, and people began to scatter, and as they're scattering, they're talking to Jews, and then eleven twenty. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. And when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord. Believers are being scattered because of the persecution, and of course Paul had a large hand in that persecution before his conversion. Some of them go to Antioch, but instead of just preaching to the Jews, they start preaching to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles start coming to faith. And this is like a new novel concept. The Gentiles are coming to faith. The church in Jerusalem hears of this. They say, we have to send somebody to go check this out. And who do they send but Barnabas? The man who mediated between Saul and the Apostles. Now they're sending him to make inquiries about this new crazy thing that's happening among the Gentiles. And he's going to mediate again. Kind of gives you the impression that when you have trouble, he's a good man to have around. So we've seen him now three times. The first time he's generous. The second time he's giving Paul a second chance and bringing him into the circle of the apostles. And now again he's a mediator. And his verdict is immediate and reassuring. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. That's 1123. And he exhorted them all to remain faithful in the Lord. He sees the grace of God. He's a Jew, but he doesn't say, oh no, we can possibly have those Gentiles in here. This is a Jewish thing. Our Messiah has always been promised to the Jews. He doesn't have any of that. Instead, he sees the grace of God at work, the hand of God even among the Gentiles, and he has no hesitation in affirming this is what God is doing. So even though he's Jewish, raised in a Levitical family, he doesn't let that interfere with his judgment. He sees God's hands at work and he rejoices. And he gets this rare personal eulogy from Luke in 1124, for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. I assume by the time Luke is writing this, Barnabas must have passed away. And Luke, as he writes this, throws in this tribute because all the verb tenses shift to the past tense. He was, he was full of the Holy Spirit, and he uses this word good that suggests someone is just like easygoing, affable, or cheerful. And wouldn't you love your effet to be he was full of the Holy Spirit and faith? Wow. Someone solely controlled by the Spirit of God and his word. What a eulogy. So again, he's not in the spotlight. He's not the one out there preaching, he's not writing New Testament letters, but he is doing a world of good. Because you see in 1124, and a great many many people were added to the Lord, and so what does Barnabas do? Look at 1125. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. So the church is going rapidly. In this short time, Gentiles are flocking to it, and there's this huge success. And what could Barnabas do? He could say, My job, they sent me. Watch this. I'm going to take over this large church. I can step into the spotlight, be the leader. But because his goal was doing good and not glory, he says, wait, I know this guy, Paul. He's been especially commissioned by God to preach to the Gentiles. Here's this huge Gentile church. I need Paul. And he goes to Tarsus to look for him. Paul has been in obscurity during this time, and we have Barnabas to thank for bringing him back into the world stage. Apparently, Barnabas had a hard time finding Paul. The verb translated look suggests like finally locate, like a long, intensive search, and then he brings him to Antioch. And there the two of them meet with the church for a whole year, and a great number of people are brought to the Lord. This is the first time disciples of Christ are called Christians here at Antioch. Earlier than that, they were called followers of Christ, believers, brothers, saints, or followers of the way. The Jews referred to them as Nazarenes, which was a pejorative, kind of insulting way to refer to them. But the Greeks coined this word Christians to describe this movement that's a because the name Christ is on everyone's lips, so they became Christians. You notice they didn't become Barnabans or Paulites because they weren't teaching about themselves, they were reflecting the name of Christ, which tells you something again about their ministry. For our purposes in talking about changing the world, I think it's significant that Barnabas once more set aside his own ambition to encourage someone else to use his gifts. He could have taken center stage at Antioch, he could have grown the church around himself, and instead he doesn't act as the main leader. He goes to get someone he knows is gifted who will help him, and they are both insisting that we are followers of Christ. I think he must have realized this is not my within my ability to handle this. I'm not the person to bring these saints to full maturity, so he goes looking for Paul. Okay, look at 1127 through 30. Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, named Agabas, stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea, and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. So here again is Barnabas acting in time of crisis. There's a famine in Judea. They're up over in Antioch, and the Christians in Antioch want to help the church in Judea, so they send a gift to help them out. And who do they pick but Barnabas and Saul? And notice whose name comes first. Barnabas, suggesting he was the leader. He was the one they were looking to. Then Luke relates the story of Herod putting James to death and arresting Peter and Peter being led safely out by the angel, and then Herod dies. And look at 1225. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark. So Barnabas and Saul go to Antioch to Jerusalem to live with this gift. And then they return home and they bring with them a new young disciple, John Mark, who is later going to become Mark, as in the Gospel of Mark. Here's someone else he's mentoring and bringing along. He's bringing Mark into the picture. And for a time then they continue their ministry in Antioch along with the other leaders. In Acts 13, Luke gives us a list of those who are prophets and teachers in Antioch. And if you look quickly at that, you'll notice Barnabas's name comes first, implying again he was the leader. And then in 13, 2 and 3, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Send apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. Don't ask me exactly what that is. Meant by the Holy Spirit told them. We don't know exactly how that happened, but it became clear in whatever method, could have been mundane, could have been supernatural either way. It became clear that Barnabas and Saul were supposed to go out on a journey. And again, note the order of the names. Barnabas is first at this point. The Spirit's call is corroborated by whatever means fasting and praying, and they send them out and they take John Mark with them. If you look at 13, 4 and 5. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Silusa and from there sailed to Cyprus. And when they arrived at Salamis, they prophesied the word of God in the synagogues to the Jews, and they had John to assist them. Here again, you see they're setting off on what will become Paul's first missionary journey. Barnabas is still being treated as the acknowledged leader, but as the journey progresses, the order of the name starts flipping. I think, and I'm speculating again, but I like to think that Barnabas recognized Paul's got a real gift here. There's something going on, and he steps aside and lets Paul take center stage. Because you notice by the time we get down, well, as we go through into 13 and 14, Paul's name starts coming first. But look at 13, Acts 13, 13, and 14. Now Paul and his companions were no longer Barnabas and Saul. Now it's Paul and his companions, set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pam, however you say that. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. So the order of names has switched. Now it's Paul and his companions, which I think indicates Paul is now emerging as the leader. Luke will continue that order through the rest of Acts for the remainder of this journey. I think we have again this idea that Barnabas realizes if my goal is good and not glory, I will step aside and let Paul flourish and do whatever he can to help him. So he's giving up his chance in the spotlight because his goal is good and not glory. There's one notable exception to the order of the names, and this is in chapter 14. When the two men healed a cripple in Lystra, the excited citizens of the city regard Paul and Barnabas as deities, and in that instance, then Barnabas' name come first. I think it's kind of a funny if you think about what's going on. Look at Acts 14, 8 through 12. Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet, and he was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking, and Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, Stand upright on your feet. And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycanian, or Hyconian, however you say that, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. Barnabas, they called Zeus, and Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Tradition has it that Barnabas was a tall man and that Paul was a little man, which is probably one of the reasons they picked these names. Barnabas is they likened to Zeus because he was the larger, more imposing fellow. Paul's the little guy who's always talking, talking, talking, talking. So they call him the messenger of the gods because he's little and he's running around speaking all the time. But it gives us a window into their relationship and into what Paul was doing, that by now he has become the chief speaker. The poet Ovid mentions this, an old tradition, that Zeus and Hermes would appear in disguise, and on one occasion, according to this legend, this myth, they come into a city looking for hospitality and they're turned away by everyone but an old couple, and then in their anger they kill everyone in the region. So apparently the residents of Lystra are familiar with the story and they don't want to repeat that error. They're saying, Oh no, we're gonna accord Paul and Barnabas all these honors, but notice Paul and Barnabas have none of it. This is Acts 14, 13, and following. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gate and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways, yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven in fruitful seasons, satisfying your heart with food and gladness. Even with these words, they scarcely restrain the people from offering sacrifices to them. Again, you see this picture, they're not they don't want the limelight, they don't want the glory, they don't even want to be thanked, especially as if they were gods, and again they're pointing people to the God of heaven. So Paul and Barnabas now finished their first missionary journey and they returned to Antioch. Skip down to Acts 14, 26. And from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had fulfilled, and when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door to the faith of the Gentiles, and they remained no little time with the disciples. So they finished this journey, everyone's excited by what's going on with the Gentiles, but actually not quite everyone in Acts 15 1. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Paul and Barnabas finish this great journey, they get home, and here come some men from Judea, and they're going, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's all fine and dandy that these Gentiles are coming to faith, but after they come to faith, they have to become Jews. They have to start following the law and be circumcised. And it was probably during this time that the incident recorded in Galatians 2 occurred. So keep your finger in Acts and turn over to Galatians 2. So this is Paul writing, and he says, But when Cephas, which is another name for the Apostle Peter, when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles, but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party, and the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? So what's going on is prior to this time, the Jews and Gentiles who are now all believers are eating together and mixing together, and all those rules and rituals about who was unclean and who was clean and who wasn't, have been thrown out the window. And now these men from James or from Judea come and they say, no, no, no, you've got to follow the law. And Peter thinks, oh, yeah, I don't want to look too bad in front of these guys. So he withdraws and refuses to eat with the unclean Gentiles. But notice that Paul says, even Barnabas was led astray. He's not surprised that Peter was led astray. It's like, but Barnabas, oh my gosh, even Barnabas was led astray. That's telling. And I also think it's comforting that even the most rugged of saints gets knocked off their feet now and then. Even Barnabas. Peter can get confused, and Barnabas can get confused. That's there's hope for the rest of us. So Paul sets them straight. He says, No, you you know this is not what the gospel is like. You know that this is not an implication of the gospel. And of course, Peter then begins eating with the Gentiles again. But the controversy continues. Go back to Acts 15. We're looking at verse 2 there. So the men have come. They said, No, you have to keep the law of Moses. And then Acts 15, two, after Paul and Barnabas had no small discussion and debate with them, no small, that's a euphemism for this was a knockdown, drag out, big fist debate, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So the issue became such a big deal that they have what we call the Council of Jerusalem, where they go to the apostles and they say, we have to settle this. And we don't have time to go into the debate, but what I want to point out to you here is that even Barnabas got tripped up, but when they want to go settle the debate, who do they want to go help present it? They want Barnabas, Paul and Barnabas. So after a brief respite, Paul proposes they go back and revisit the churches of their first journey and wants to begin what we now think of as Paul's second missionary journey. And this will have really far-reaching results through which Paul will gain his great reputation, but this time Barnabas doesn't go with him. Look at Acts 15, 35. And this is so after the Council of Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others. And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Now Barnabas wanted to take with him John, called Mark, but Paul thought it best not to take with him one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone back, had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord, and he went through Cyria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Paul wants to go on another journey. Barnabas says, Great, let's go. Let's bring John Mark along, and Paul says, No. Now we don't know exactly what happened, but you'll remember Mark deserted them on the way from Cyprus to Asia Minor. We don't know why he left. We don't know what the reason was. We don't know if it was family or whatever. But apparently, whatever reason it was, Paul didn't think it was a very good excuse. But Barnabas says, no, I think Mark needs another chance, just as he had insisted Paul get another chance in Jerusalem in Antioch. But Paul is against it, and the disagreement becomes so sharp it reaches an impasse and they decide to separate. Paul chooses a new associate, Silas, who will now you will see like Paul and Silas, those names on the letter. You don't see Paul and Barnabas because of the split. And Barnabas takes Mark under his wing and sails off to Cyprus. And that's he passes from history. He again is giving up his chance at fame and fortune to go down as as Paul's great traveling companion in history on this second journey. Instead, Silas gets that honor. And why? Because Barnabas says, no, I think John Mark needs a second chance. I think there's something more. His goal was good, not glory. Mark was a loser in Paul's eyes, but through Barnabas' love, John Mark played a great role in Christian history. He wrote the first gospel, the gospel we know of as the Gospel of Mark. And interestingly enough, Paul changes his mind about John Mark by the end. In 2 Timothy 4, which was one of the last letters he wrote, he writes this this is 2 Timothy 4.11. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. So over the years in between, Paul later said, No, John Mark's become one who's very useful. So he had changed his mind. And I have to wonder if John Mark wouldn't have proved so useful if it wasn't for Barnabas taking him under his wing. So without Barnabas, we might not have the gospel of Mark. Now of course we would, because God would have seen to it, but he used Barnabas in that role. Barnabas gave him another chance. John Mark later came to Rome as Paul's associate, and after Paul's martyrdom, he became Peter's associate. And most people think that his gospel is Peter's story, that it's through that association with Peter after the death of Paul that he writes down the story that as Peter told it to him. We don't know this from the New Testament, but church history tells us that John Mark became the founder and bishop of the church in Alexandria in North Africa. According to tradition, he then went on to have this prominent role in the early church. So there's another great leader of the faith that we have Barnabas to thank for. So after the separation from Paul, the biblical references to Barnabas cease, but tradition tells us that Barnabas continued in his quiet way to encourage others and that he was martyred in his hometown. There's a story that says in eight, and it's probably apocryphal, but it's kind of a neat story. But the story claims that around 8477 Barnabas's remains were discovered, and that when his remains were discovered, he was clutching a battered copy of the book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark, which probably wouldn't exist without him giving Mark another chance. So you can see Luke's description of Barnabas is quite apt. He's a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. And you think people come and people go, and their achievements are forgotten, but the good that Barnabas did has is following us down through the centuries because he nurtured the ministry of the Apostle Paul and of John Mark. And without him being willing to set aside his own glory and seek good, the world would have been a darker place. How do you find your goal in the world? Again, seek good. Seek what can you do to serve the kingdom, not who's going to get the credit, who's going to get the glory. So just to wrap this up, just to we've talked about these before, but I just want to hit these points one more time. God never promised us that we would be equally gifted in this life. We are not equally gifted in the sense that we have different roles to play. Some are upfront, some are behind the stage, some are visible, some are more invisible. We shouldn't be surprised if someone in the church has more money or a better job or a better family in whatever way you define that, or they make a public splash or whatever. God has given us different roles to play in serving his kingdom on purpose because he's telling this huge, wonderful story. But in the things that really matter, he has promised us an equal inheritance in the age to come. These roles are they're just the things we're doing here and now until we get to heaven. But in the things that really matter, we have the same grace, we have the same mercy, the same forgiveness, we have the same Holy Spirit, we have the same Lord, the same Father, and those things that are eternal, we are equal. So in the meantime, we should just focus on doing whatever it is that God asks us to do. And if that's quiet and behind the scenes, wonderful. If that's public and in the limelight, that's wonderful. Both those callings have their own temptations and their own trials and pitfalls. But there's no end to the good we can accomplish if we're focused on good and not glory. So once we recognize that roles are not created equal, but we as children of God are equal, that kind of frees us to clap and cheer for the other guy because we're on the same team fighting the same fight. Remember, seek good and not glory. Let's pray. Father, thank you that we have this time this weekend to take time out of our routines and busy schedules to think about you and your word and how you've called and gifted us. And I know in a room this size, people are struggling with what should I do? How should I do it? Am I doing it right? What's the next step on the journey? Or I thought I had it figured out, but now it all looks different. And I just pray that you would write these truths on our heart, that you would help us be content with whatever role you've given us, that we would do it with eagerness and excitement and joy, knowing that we are serving your kingdom, and that it doesn't matter who notices and who doesn't, or who gets thanked and who doesn't, that you are a God who loves us equally and gifts us the same inheritance. We have the same Lord and the same Savior, and that we can be content to run whatever race you've put before us, knowing you're in control and you're doing it for our good and your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.