SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Central.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning to all of you in the room and all of our other campuses and online.
SPEAKER_00: Just welcome to all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Man, so excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00: My name is DJ.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Glendale campus pastor, and I love being able to come out here and just share a word that I believe that God has for us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Glendale, let me say a shout out to you guys.
SPEAKER_00: I have not seen you guys in a while because I've been on vacation.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll be back next week.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to get back to home there and be able to fellowship with all of my friends and my church family.
SPEAKER_00: Courtney, I and our three kids.
SPEAKER_00: We were on vacation uh over the last uh few weeks and uh good to be back.
SPEAKER_00: Um I heard we missed all of the storms and the rain, and we came back to the hottest time ever.
SPEAKER_00: Um so here, so here we here we go.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope that um all of you um had a chance to um get away uh this summer in whatever capacity that that may be, whether that be uh staycation or just some time where you get to rest, because God designed us for rest.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that at the beginning of the summer.
SPEAKER_00: He designed this for us, he designed us up for Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And uh man, may you hope um as we kind of end up uh this the summertime as school begins and all the stuff, rhythms begin, you get a chance to do that as well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna be in the book of Acts this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So Acts chapter four uh is gonna be the first place that we're gonna be in.
SPEAKER_00: And then Acts chapter nine is the second place.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be uh Acts four, uh verse uh 32, and then uh we have Acts 9, uh starting in verse uh 26, and we'll and we'll get there in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but first I want to tell you a story about a young boy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he was in fourth grade, and this uh young boy of fourth grader missed 82 out of 180 days of school.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of days to miss.
SPEAKER_00: This young boy um obviously did not have a ton of stability in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have a lot of structure in his life.
SPEAKER_00: His mom was only 16 years old when he was born, and she didn't have a lot of support and structure and stability.
SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, uh he received the consequences um of that.
SPEAKER_00: And um, he really struggled in the early uh moments of his life, but he got to, um, when he was in fourth grade, um, get to uh be on one of his friends' uh football teams.
SPEAKER_00: Uh one of his close friends, his name was Frank Jr.
SPEAKER_00: And his dad, Frank Sr., uh, was the football coach.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Coach Frank started to get to know uh this young boy's story.
SPEAKER_00: Um he started to come over his house.
SPEAKER_00: They started to spend the night.
SPEAKER_00: He would take them to practices and games, like him and his son uh were really close, and they he got to know his story, uh, him and his wife Pam.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Walker family, uh him and his wife, uh they approached uh this young boy's mom and said, Hey, like how about he comes and lives um with us?
SPEAKER_00: And the mom allowed him to go.
SPEAKER_00: Um trusted his family and was uh able to pour into him and to love him and to support him in such a way that he started to change his life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he went from missing school to not missing school to getting poor grades to getting better grades because of the love and support that Coach Frank and his family was able to give him.
SPEAKER_00: And this young boy ended up growing up to be uh an amazing, accomplished person that we all know today.
SPEAKER_00: And his name is LeBron James.
SPEAKER_00: This is his story.
SPEAKER_00: And as LeBron James was reflecting on the Walker family and what they did for him, um, he literally says that this family saved my life.
SPEAKER_00: And Frank Sr., uh coach Frank, man, he just was faithful and was just pouring into this young man that was right in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: And many of you probably never even heard of his name.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, his name isn't in Sports Illustrated on ESPN, but what he did in this young man's life, in LeBron's life, changed um his life and was able to become something that is a person who is well accomplished in this world because of what Coach Frank uh sought to do.
SPEAKER_00: And Coach Frank is uh represents um his life and what he did, his legacy represents something that I want us to wrestle with this morning, and that is your greatest work may be a person.
SPEAKER_00: Your greatest work in your life may be a person.
SPEAKER_00: The most important thing you do in your life may not be what you do, it may be who.
SPEAKER_00: That may be your greatest work in your life, and the character in the Bible that I want to study today, similar to Frank Sr., doesn't have a Bible book named after him, doesn't have a long passage of scripture describing who this guy is.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of see him kind of in different places in the book of Acts, and we're gonna look at the character um of this man, and I want us to start reading in Acts chapter 4, verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through verse 37.
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
SPEAKER_00: This is the writer Luke writing um about what's going on in the early church.
SPEAKER_00: So all the believers uh were in, were one in heart and mind.
SPEAKER_00: No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
SPEAKER_00: With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.
SPEAKER_00: From time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them, brought money and from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: So what's going on in the early church is really, really important.
SPEAKER_00: The apostles, the disciples of Jesus, they received the Holy Spirit and they start preaching and teaching the word, start preaching and teaching the truth of the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ, that he is risen from the dead, and the church starts exploding.
SPEAKER_00: It starts expanding.
SPEAKER_00: And the people of the church, man, they are bought all the way in.
SPEAKER_00: Like they're not having to teach uh too much about, hey, man, how can people give or whatever?
SPEAKER_00: No, that the church was bought all the way in.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of them.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love what the writer Luke does, of all the people who were giving, all the people who did uh sacrificial giving, then he points out one guy by the name of Joseph, who was a Levite from Cyprus.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about this guy, Joseph, who is a Levite from Cyprus, um, what we know is that if you are from the tribe of Levi, um, you don't get to have any land.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't inherit any land as we read in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: The tribe of Levi were the tribe of the priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: So, with their inheritance, what they got to do is they got to spend time with God from the tabernacle and in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't get any land inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: They got to spend time uh with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't get any land.
SPEAKER_00: So for somehow, this guy, Joseph, gets land in Cyprus.
SPEAKER_00: That must have been really hard to get back in those days because he didn't get any land, it wasn't given to him, and he just sells it and he gives his prophets and his proceeds to the early church, to the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the guy of that we're gonna talk about today who was called Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: Luke does a great job of giving us an inference on who he's gonna become in the future, and this is gonna be the son of encouragement Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: And what would it take for us to get a name like that?
SPEAKER_00: The son of encouragement, to have an amazing nickname that people know us by.
SPEAKER_00: See, because we also use nicknames today, just like you know, pretty much probably for all of human time, like nicknames were something that were given to people.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them were our great nicknames, some of you probably have inappropriate nicknames, so keep those to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, we all like we understand the nicknames.
SPEAKER_00: So when nicknames do, they say something a little bit deeper about who we are more than our you know names that our parents has given us.
SPEAKER_00: It's usually based out of your personality, or maybe it's something that you've done or accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: But man, we all can think of nicknames that we have um in our life or people that we know that have um amazing nicknames.
SPEAKER_00: And when we think about nicknames, there's a few nicknames I just wanted to highlight.
SPEAKER_00: And uh one of my favorite nicknames, I have a few.
SPEAKER_00: Um one of my favorite nicknames is Iron Mike.
SPEAKER_00: Iron Mike.
SPEAKER_00: And just think about the the that term Iron Mike, who goes with the boxer uh Mike Tyson, that who owns that that nickname, who was given that nickname.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about the most deadliest boxers of all time, Iron Mike Tyson, uh, got that nickname.
SPEAKER_00: And you can think about another one for those of us who are baseball fans.
SPEAKER_00: Um, an old-time baseball player went by the name of the Sultan of SWAT.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what a man, what a nickname.
SPEAKER_00: Sultan of SWAT, just be able to knock the ball out of the park.
SPEAKER_00: And that is uh uh Babe Ruth.
SPEAKER_00: Babe Ruth, not the candy bar, for those of you who are younger.
SPEAKER_00: Babe Ruth, the amazing baseball player, um, who he was.
SPEAKER_00: Um man, just a prolific uh swinger.
SPEAKER_00: And then probably one of my all-time favorite nicknames.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably my favorite nickname, is the black mamba, Kobe Bryant.
SPEAKER_00: Kobe Bryant, sorry, Sons fans.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but Kobe Bryant.
SPEAKER_00: Man, this idea, the black mamba um is a snake, one of the most venomous snakes in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this idea that meant he was deadly, that the black mamba is this idea that meant I'm not gonna be shot down.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the best, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna work the hardest, I'm gonna do all that I can.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna live by that philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: And even now in sports, for those of you who are sports fans, you'll hear people say, Man, that guy or girl has the mamba mentality.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something about a nickname that says something about who we are.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about a nickname that says something about uh our character and our integrity at times.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what would it take for you, if you think about your life?
SPEAKER_00: What would it take for you to get a nickname like the son of encouragement?
SPEAKER_00: What would it take for the people inside of your life that know you well to give you a nickname that you would be fond of, that you would be proud of?
SPEAKER_00: A nickname maybe like I mean, that's like a nickname that that that kind of says uh you're a person of of care or support or love or empathy or encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Or would you have a nickname if you look at your life, you have a nickname of selfishness, greed, drama, fear?
SPEAKER_00: Like what would be the nickname that was given to you, and what would you have to do to earn a nickname that was worth having, like Barnabas?
SPEAKER_00: Like Barnabas had.
SPEAKER_00: So when we think about uh nicknames, um it takes a certain character to bring that type of amazing uh character quality out in uh Barnabas' life.
SPEAKER_00: And we study Barnabas, we see him just pouring into others in uh in amazing ways.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever uh came across someone that was pessimistic in your life, though?
SPEAKER_00: Like I want you to think, church, think with me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about someone in your life that when they walked into the room, you're like, oh man, like that, like this person always has a complaint, they always got to push back, there's always something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You take them out to a restaurant, the food is never warm enough or it's too hot, like they always got something going on with them.
SPEAKER_00: How do they make you feel?
SPEAKER_00: Man, when they walk into the room.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't think of someone, it's probably you.
SPEAKER_00: So do do some work and think about somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, do some work here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Man, just think about that person.
SPEAKER_00: Like they they just bring the room down.
SPEAKER_00: And if we look at the life of Barnabas, man, he is the exact opposite of that.
SPEAKER_00: Like when he walks in the room, everything lights up.
SPEAKER_00: When he walks in the room, people are encouraged, people are inspired, people are cared for and loved on by this guy, uh Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: Man, and he is just loving on people incredibly well.
SPEAKER_00: Because what's fascinating about the story of Barnabas, as we first see him in scripture in the book of Acts that we read, we see him giving a lot of money to the church, but that wasn't his greatest contribution to the church.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest contribution to the church was who Barnabas poured into, who he came alongside of, who he loved on, who he mentored, who he cared for.
SPEAKER_00: That was Barnabas' biggest contribution to the church.
SPEAKER_00: And one of those guys was the name, uh goes by the name of Saul.
SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you a little bit about Saul's story.
SPEAKER_00: So, Saul, if you don't know his story, you can read his story in uh um in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: But Saul was a bad guy to the church.
SPEAKER_00: So, this church that was loving on each other, they were giving to one another, they they were caring about each other, he hated them.
SPEAKER_00: Like he hated this early church.
SPEAKER_00: He thought Jesus of Nazareth was a was a blasphemer, was a fake, like he was not about the early church at all.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted them to be snuffed out, he wanted them to go away.
SPEAKER_00: And so Saul, as he is one day uh going to a city uh called Damascus, a town of Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: He's on this road to Damascus, and while he is on this road to go persecute Christian, he meets Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He meets the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus asks him a simple question, hey, why are you persecuting me?
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment right there, Saul, who was going one direction in his life, turns and repents and starts to go in a different direction.
SPEAKER_00: He starts following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does he follow Jesus, he wants to be a part of this church that he was once persecuting and killing.
SPEAKER_00: He starts teaching and preaching about the person of Jesus, and he starts teaching people about Jesus is the good news, that he is the Savior, that he did rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Saul has turned into.
SPEAKER_00: A man who started to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And one day, as Saul is getting his legs under him and he's starting to preach and teach more, uh, he understands that he has to go to the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: He has to go uh show up to the apostles and to kind of get their blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't go well for him.
SPEAKER_00: This leads us to our second passage of scripture in Acts 9, 26 and 27.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read together.
SPEAKER_00: When Saul arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to meet with the believers, but they were all afraid of him, as you can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: They did not believe he had truly become a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Then Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus and how the Lord had spoken to Saul.
SPEAKER_00: This is our guy, Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a man with so much integrity, so much character, that he can walk Saul into a sacred space, a sacred place, wrap his arm around him and say, Man, you can come with me.
SPEAKER_00: What's fascinating about when we look at this uh passage of scripture, we don't see the apostles argue with Barnabas, but they accept accept him at his word.
SPEAKER_00: That is the man of who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And this guy was so much integrity that they were able to listen to him, that he had the apostles' ear, and he brings Saul alongside of him and say, Hey, listen, he's okay.
SPEAKER_00: He's good.
SPEAKER_00: I want you guys to look at me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you, I want to take a timeout for a second.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at this picture of what Barnabas does for Saul, because this picture is the exact same picture of what Jesus does for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to be a person like Barnabas, if you want to be a person that encourages others, what you are gonna need to first do is follow the person that Barnabas followed, and that is Jesus Christ, who says, Man, no matter what has happened in their past, all of the sin and the shame and the yuck and all the mess does not matter because my son or daughter is with me.
SPEAKER_00: He brings us to the Father and says, They can enter the kingdom of God because they are with me.
SPEAKER_00: And my encouragement, if I can be a Barnabas to you, is that you meant take this offer up for yourself, that you follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the service today, we have our prayer team down at the end.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm done, when I'm finished preaching, that you come down and say, Man, I want to figure out what it means for me to follow Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Man, this is an amazing picture that Jesus does for us as he washes away all the sin of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And Barnabas does this for Saul as he is entering the sacred, sacred place of the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he does for him.
SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing the integrity that Barnabas has, because man, he really understands this idea that your greatest work may be a person.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest work in your life may be a person.
SPEAKER_00: And when we look at the story of Saul, who ends up changing his name to Paul, because he is uh going to be preaching to the Gentiles, so he changes his name uh to Paul, and then when you look through your Bibles and you are reading Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians and Ephesians and uh Philemon and the Philippians, like when you're reading all those letters, they come from this guy, Paul, because if Barnabas said, Hey man, come with me.
SPEAKER_00: Watch, watch me help you get get into this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pour into you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote over 50% of our New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And no, Barnabas doesn't have his name written on a book or isn't he doesn't have a book named after him, but his imprints, his fingerprints are all over the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: When they start preaching to the other churches, when they go from Jerusalem and they start going to the different nations, it's Paul and Barnabas that they send first.
SPEAKER_00: And Barnabas is taking Paul under his under his wing and teaching him what does it mean to do ministry?
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas walks with people.
SPEAKER_00: He walks with people.
SPEAKER_00: So when we look at Paul and Barnabas, um, we see two guys that are really, really different.
SPEAKER_00: They both have incredible impacts on the kingdom of God, but they're very different people.
SPEAKER_00: We have Paul over here, who's the fiery preacher, who is the great order of the day, who, when you read some of his uh epistles, some of his letters, man, he is getting after, he is getting in people's faces, like he is calling people out.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that has the big platform.
SPEAKER_00: And we see Barnabas, who is just with people, serving God faithfully over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy for us to look at Paul and say, man, I need to be like that.
SPEAKER_00: Like I need to have the big platform, I need to have the microphone, I need to have the big podcast, I need to write the next book, because that is how God uses people the most.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not true at all.
SPEAKER_00: Because we could look at the person of Barnabas and look at how much impact he had on the people in the kingdom of God, because he was just so willing to put people first, to put people in front of his life, to live out this truth, to love one another, just as Jesus has loved us.
SPEAKER_00: And Barnabas gets this so, so well.
SPEAKER_00: He gets it so much so, and he is so committed to this, to this call on his life that him and Paul actually have a falling out because of because of this this commitment that he has to people.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that God has called him to something and he's gonna stick to it.
SPEAKER_00: So one time him and Barnabas, uh, sorry, Paul and Barnabas are going on the next uh missionary journey.
SPEAKER_00: And so Barnabas is like, hey Paul, I'm paraphrasing here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm this is me talking here.
SPEAKER_00: Um hey Paul, um, remember the guy, John Mark?
SPEAKER_00: Let's bring him on another uh a journey with us.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's like, no, not bringing John Mark with us.
SPEAKER_00: You remember what he did last time?
SPEAKER_00: Like John Mark was the guy who they went on another missionary journey, the first mission journey, missionary journey, uh that Paul and Barnabas and John Mark were on together.
SPEAKER_00: Uh John Mark decides to go home.
SPEAKER_00: He leaves them.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's like, I don't trust this guy.
SPEAKER_00: He's not come coming coming with this at all.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: And some of you uh may have this happen in your life, um, others may be on the other side of this, but you remember you're going to the movies, maybe you're a teenager or you're going out to play with your friends, and your mom's like, Hey, what where are you going?
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I'm going, I'm going outside, I'm going with my friend.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Oh, take your sibling with you.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I don't want to take them with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be with my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is the attitude uh Paul has towards uh Barnabas, and they are not okay.
SPEAKER_00: They're not okay, but like they are not budging on their stances.
SPEAKER_00: And we can read in in uh Acts 15, 39, uh, where it says, you can see it on the screen, their their disagreement was so sharp that they separated.
SPEAKER_00: Barnabas took John Mark with him and sailed for Cyprus.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't use this term uh sharp today, but I mean, this is a picture of Paul and Barnabas like ready to clash.
SPEAKER_00: Like they're ready to fight, like the gloves are off, and they are just ready to go at it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm I'm not sure who Iron Mike is in this situation, but they are about to go at it, like they are not okay.
SPEAKER_00: So they have to be separated because Barnabas is so committed to pouring into this young man that he sees potential in.
SPEAKER_00: He says, sees potential in John and John Mark.
SPEAKER_00: And many scholars believe that this young guy, John Mark, is the same John Mark that wrote the Bible, right in your Bible, the gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: This is what scholars believe.
SPEAKER_00: And I just wonder if Barnabas was the guy who came alongside Mark and said, Hey man, you have you have some real skill, you have some talent.
SPEAKER_00: You should start writing some of these things, these things down that you've been learning, that you've been experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: And we get the gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: And what's uh also really fascinating about this story is that Barnabas has proved to be right.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he writes this book, and then Paul actually comes around.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we see in Galatians where Paul says something really um uh uh good about Barnabas, and we also see him in 2 Timothy say this to Timothy uh get Mark and bring him with you because he is helpful to me in my ministry.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul talking about talking about um Mark.
SPEAKER_00: He was able to be proved right.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our man, this is the guy who we can emulate.
SPEAKER_00: This is Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: He is an encourager, he is a lover of people, he's a developer.
SPEAKER_00: We are not all called to go viral.
SPEAKER_00: We are not all called to be the name and the shining lights.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just called to do what God has asked us to do with the people right around us.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what I believe, church.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that every single one of you have people that you could be pouring into, no matter what age or stage you're in.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what age or stage you're in, you have the opportunity to pour into the people that are right around you.
SPEAKER_00: That is the opportunity that you have.
SPEAKER_00: I want to prove it to you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at the screen, I want you to look at this first circle, because this is a circle that we all have in our life: close family and friends, really close family and friends.
SPEAKER_00: Like these are the people that you have close proximity with, these are the people that you have emotional ties to, deep emotional ties to, and you can walk in those rooms with those people and be an encourager to.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does it look like to choose how you show up to the closest people in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Where many times these are the people that get the worst of you.
SPEAKER_00: See, these are the people that can give you the true nickname that you have earned in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what does it look like for you to pour into those people really, really well?
SPEAKER_00: And the next circle, as you can read on the screen, is your coworkers, classmates, and neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people that are a little bit outside of your immediate family, your immediate circle.
SPEAKER_00: But these are people that God has placed in your life that are just on the outside, people in your neighborhood, people in your workplaces that you can show up and be a light to.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last circle is anyone that God brings into your path.
SPEAKER_00: See, this circle right here takes some intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: They all do, but this one takes some intentionality on listening to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Like being, having your ears and your eyes open to what the Holy Spirit is doing right around you.
SPEAKER_00: Like being able to ask God, hey, God, are you doing any work right around me?
SPEAKER_00: He is.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are doing that work, is there any way that I can help?
SPEAKER_00: These are people that you meet, maybe sitting next to you on an airplane, or maybe it's at a grocery store, or it's maybe someone that you meet at a party with some local friends.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who it is.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people that brings across your path that you were designed to connect with.
SPEAKER_00: So for my young people, you guys spend a lot of time in the middle circle.
SPEAKER_00: You spend a lot of time in the middle circle at school with your friends and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the challenge for you that maybe you remember someone from last year, or there's a new kid in school.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you remember that kid that was ostracized.
SPEAKER_00: Like you remember that kid that was all alone, and and God has has put you to see that.
SPEAKER_00: And he's and he's asking you, hey, why don't you invite that kid to church?
SPEAKER_00: Because at church, they're gonna hear that they have a God, that they have a Jesus where they don't have to be alone anymore, that they have a Jesus that loves them dearly, where they don't have to be ostracized, where they can find, when they finally find a family, of community, and believers that love and care for them.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he has designed you and put you right where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it doesn't matter what age or stage of life that you're in, God can use you if you allow him to.
SPEAKER_00: If you get outside of yourselves and stop looking at what's going on in your life and start looking, have your eyes open to other people.
SPEAKER_00: God can use you as well.
SPEAKER_00: And for the adults in the room, you know, for us, when we think about these three three circles that we have here, like what we do is we have are so busy, we have so much going on in our life that we ignore all three circles.
SPEAKER_00: Like we are so caught up in the rat race of life, we're so caught up in the work that we are that we are called to do or that that that we're doing for these jobs that we have, that we forget that our greatest work may be a person.
SPEAKER_00: And we ignore all these different things, which is why, man, my encouragement as we are kicking off of the new ministry year here in a few weeks, man, is to find yourself a group where you can be a barnabas to others and others can be a barnabas to you, where you can encourage others and others can encourage you, because you are not meant to do life alone.
SPEAKER_00: We're just not meant to do it that way.
SPEAKER_00: And do not ignore the three circles that God has placed in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Man, even if you're like me and you're in the time of your life where you have kids or you're guardian, you have kids underneath your roof, man, God has placed them in your roof so that you can encourage them and show them what it means to love Jesus well.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you are stressed out, but man, I want my teenager, I want my kid to be able to follow Jesus for the rest of their life.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you this that if you want your follow, if you want your kid to follow Jesus, their best chance of following Jesus is if you show them how to.
SPEAKER_00: If you show them how to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe that is starting a new rhythm of reading the Bible together and praying together, and and and giving words of positive affirmations to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Man, their best chance to follow Jesus is if you show them that they have a parent or a guardian or whatever, aunt, uncle, whatever it is, a cousin that's showing them what does it mean to depend on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You have that opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: So my father, he uh uh passed away in 2018, and I have many memories, but two core memories that are uh uh related to what we're talking about today that uh just stick with me.
SPEAKER_00: They're like burned in my spirit and in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: My dad used to wake up um early in the morning, um, like all old guys do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting older and I'm getting getting up earlier and earlier, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_00: But uh he get he gets up early in the morning, and usually I would never see him get up, but one morning I get up super early in the morning and um I'm looking for my dad, and I and I go downstairs and I find him.
SPEAKER_00: He is on his he's on his hands and on his knees and his face is to the ground and he's praying.
SPEAKER_00: He's praying.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember my I mean I remember that image just it's just burned in my my mind's eye.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that image is burned in my mind's eye, it's the feeling that I got from that.
SPEAKER_00: See was a feeling of safety, stability, security.
SPEAKER_00: That this guy, my my hero was depending on God, was depending on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The second one was during uh Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: So in my house, um, we didn't have a set Thanksgiving dinner time.
SPEAKER_00: So my parents would uh finish making Thanksgiving dinner around noonish or whatever, and then people will be coming in throughout the day.
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe some of you are uh in that situation where there's not really a Thanksgiving dinner, it's more like a Thanksgiving just rolling time throughout the day.
SPEAKER_00: And this was my family, so we didn't really have a uh a time where we would sit and pray and give thanks together.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was just kind of like kind of just a fluid thing uh throughout the day.
SPEAKER_00: But I do remember there was one time where we uh uh we stopped and we got together.
SPEAKER_00: We were in a circle, we were in the kitchen, and uh my dad prayed over the meal.
SPEAKER_00: And I never really heard my dad uh pray a ton.
SPEAKER_00: My dad wasn't a deep theological guy, and he was really just a simple uh man of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Um, couldn't really argue different uh tenets of the faith and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He was just a simple guy, just follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember him praying, and I remember hearing the sound of his voice.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what he said, but I do remember what I felt.
SPEAKER_00: It was the exact same feeling that I felt when I saw him on his hands and his knees praying to God.
SPEAKER_00: Because of his faithfulness, and I get to stand on his shoulders through his faithfulness, that is how he put his arm around me, like Jesus does for us, like Barnabas did for Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And many of you, parents and guardians in the room, have the same opportunity to do that for other people in your life, even if there aren't small kids or young kids who are in your home.
SPEAKER_00: There could be people that you could pour into.
SPEAKER_00: So if I can talk to my older crowd for a minute, those who are in retirement age, the gray hairs in the room, see you at the other campuses too, the bald heads, Sean, like Sean, okay.
SPEAKER_00: You guys don't tell him I said that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he is.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but man, you older crowd, man, you guys have uh an amazing opportunity to pour into us who are younger.
SPEAKER_00: Because let me tell you, we want your wisdom, but we don't know how to get access to it.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't know how to get access to the experience and the wisdom that you have gone through so much that we are about to go through.
SPEAKER_00: And we sometimes need some people to say, no, it's okay, it's normal.
SPEAKER_00: It's normal to be going through what you're going through.
SPEAKER_00: I've been there, I've done that.
SPEAKER_00: I can think of so many people in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, especially before uh Courtney and I, and before I became a pastor at Center, before I came on staff or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were so many people at center who just took Courtney and I uh out to lunch after service.
SPEAKER_00: Older people, listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: It's Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there may be someone in that outer circle that God is going to bring to you in your moment today that you can pray right now as I am speaking of God.
SPEAKER_00: Can you show me of a younger person?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a couple, a person I can pour into, that I could just show love to, to give a free meal to, because we love to eat and we can't afford to go out to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we need you.
SPEAKER_00: Man, but just maybe just to have a time of fellowship and a time where you could just share a wisdom or two with somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Like this could be your time.
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't have to waste your golden years, you don't have to coast through the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do that.
SPEAKER_00: God has given you an opportunity right now.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gone yet.
SPEAKER_00: You still got room to grow, you still got stuff to do for the kingdom because God has you here, specifically in your season of life.
SPEAKER_00: But for us younger people, we do have some ownership in this as well.
SPEAKER_00: Where where, man, if there is something that we need or that we want or there's wisdom that we want, man, we have some we have some ownership to go ask.
SPEAKER_00: To go ask for someone to be a mentor to us, to be a barnabase too.
SPEAKER_00: But either way, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: We all need people to be pouring into us and us to be pouring into other people.
SPEAKER_00: We all need people to love on us, and we got to love on people as well.
SPEAKER_00: We all need this type of encouragement because the most important thing in life that you do may not be, man, something that you accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: It may be a person, your greatest work.
SPEAKER_00: It may be a person, it may be someone that God puts right in your path, or he already has inside of your path, like Frank Sr.
SPEAKER_00: Coach Frank, man, had this young kid right in front of him and just saw a need and just stepped into it.
SPEAKER_00: And his name isn't broadcasted everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you probably never even heard of this story before today.
SPEAKER_00: But man, he did something amazing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think about my father and other men that poured into me and other people that poured into me, that I get to stand here today because man, somebody was a Barnabas to me, and you get to be that for other people.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about the person of Barnabas.
SPEAKER_00: Man, look at this guy.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I love about Barnabas is that he didn't slay a giant, he didn't break down any walls, he did not split a sea, he was just faithful to what God had called him to do right in front of him, and it was people.
SPEAKER_00: It was people.
SPEAKER_00: So if you look back at your life, maybe you're in the moment where you are looking back at your life.
SPEAKER_00: What would your nickname be?
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're looking ahead into the future, what is your nickname going to be?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like, man, I I haven't done a great job, but it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You can start over today, you can start making an impact right in the circles that you have.
SPEAKER_00: You can, you should.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal, central Christian church, man, we all have a part to play in this.
SPEAKER_00: We all have a part to play in this mission to share the gospel with everybody around us.
SPEAKER_00: That we as a church understand, man, that we have a core value of people always, and we we live that out each and every day.
SPEAKER_00: That our student ministry and our kids' ministry and our cafe and the greeters in the lobby, like we have so many people willing to serve that we would never have to ask for uh people to serve again because the church is bought all the way in.
SPEAKER_00: We have a part to play.
SPEAKER_00: Where if we understand this, man, imagine what this church will become.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine how we're gonna impact the city around us and all of our campuses.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine how we're gonna impact the state, imagine how we're gonna impact the world because we are church to understand that the walls of the church is not the church, it's you who are the church.
SPEAKER_00: You are the church.
SPEAKER_00: Church, we have to get this.
SPEAKER_00: That the most important thing that we do isn't what happened, is not what happens on the Monday morning or that shows up on our desk.
SPEAKER_00: It what happens when we are being faithful to what God has for us and the people that are right on that are right around us.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the legacy that we can leave.
SPEAKER_00: This is the nickname that you can have in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: So as we close our service today, I want you all to stand here in the room, even at if you're at home on your couch, listening online, I want you to stand.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want to do is, I'm gonna do something a little bit different of how we're closing our service today.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do something uh that uh the church calls a commissioning.
SPEAKER_00: This is an old tradition.
SPEAKER_00: See what a commissioning is, a commissioning is when the church uh takes on the responsibility of the mission of the church.
SPEAKER_00: So you understand that there are people in your circles that God has specifically designed you for.
SPEAKER_00: Like there are people in your circles that Pastor Sean cannot reach, that I cannot reach.
SPEAKER_00: No speaker on this stage can reach except for you, because God has placed you in your space.
SPEAKER_00: He's placed you in this building, he has placed you to love others well.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray over you a commission that you understand this and that you take the walls of the church to the world, that you take the mission and the gospel of Jesus Christ to those around you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to bow your heads and I want you to close your eyes everywhere that you are.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Dear Heavenly Father, you are the holies of holies, you are the King of Kings, you are a reconciler, you're a redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: You take what was in our past and you wash it all away through your blood.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, I pray for every single person that is listening to my voice today that your spirit just comes over them and shows them who is it in their life that they need to be a barnabase to.
SPEAKER_00: How can they walk out of this building and be a light to the world as you have called us to?
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your goodness.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your mission, even though it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your mission.
SPEAKER_00: Uh give us the courage and the boldness to walk it out every single day of our life.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Church.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you guys, and we'll see you next week.