Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon June 8, 2008
I am very glad to have Shannon and Carol back with us for a while from the mission field. I remember vividly the time you stood before us to give us your testimony from the mission field. Carol, I especially remember how hard it was for you to hold your tears back. I wonder if it was when you thought of the faces of the students who were being transformed from Muslims to Christians, and the village children and the adults who have yet to believe in Jesus; I wonder if it was because your heart was aching for the lost souls and yearning for more workers to go to the mission field to make disciples of Jesus. I think it was something along this line that made it very difficult for you to hold your tears as you shared.
And, Shannon, few days ago you when I asked you what you have learned about yourself having served two years in the mission field, you shared with me couple things. The first thing was how you realized you could live anywhere. Whether in the States, in Africa, in Bosnia, wherever it may be, you feel that you can adapt and live anywhere.
And, the second thing you shared with me about yourself was what it was like having to depend on God to provide for you guys to be in the mission field in the means of finance, prayer and moral support.
What I cherish from you guys is how your hearts beat after what makes God’s heart glad that is for people to come to know Jesus. I think the reason Carol you cry when you think of the faces of the people you got to know in Guinea, the reason Shannon you feel that you can live anywhere is because in deep level you’ve been awakened to what makes God glad. Having to depend on God radically for two years, you know little deeper what it is to experience God’s grace personally and to see God imparting his grace to others. What I will say is that you are now addicted in the healthiest sense to God’s grace.
My prayer is that as long as you remain with us until God moves you again to where he wants to send you, you cherish what makes your heart really glad that is when you see the evidence of the grace of God and continue to allow this being glad by God’s grace motivates you to remain true to the Lord with all your hearts. And, somehow this deepened capacity to be really glad for God’s grace rubs on us as we rub our shoulders again.
Today’s story asks this question. What makes you glad? What makes you happy? What we see in the passage is the picture of a man who was at his best in terms of being most happy and glad when he saw the evidence of the grace of God and how this became the drive, the motivation to encourage others to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.
When it comes down to it, we all want to be happy, we all want to be glad and delighted. And, what makes you happy is what you are going to invest most of your precious resources, your time, your effort, your talent, your money. Another word, to see what makes you happy, or to understand what you think that makes you happy, all you have to do is to evaluate what preoccupies your attention, your time, your human resources. Then you know what is that you think would make you happy.
- The ordinary you and I in preoccupation with telling the good news about Jesus Christ can find true happiness.
The key verse for today’s passage is Acts 11:23. “When he [Barnabas] arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.” This verse plainly states that what made Barnabas glad, happy and what motivated him to encourage others was seeing the evidence of the grace of God.
But, what this verse doesn’t tell us is what the evidence of the grace of God was. For this we have to look back to 19-21 and consider what actually happened.
What we see in these verses is the ordinary people whose names aren’t mentioned by Luke preoccupied with telling the good news about Jesus Christ. There were two groups of the same. They all fled the persecution in Jerusalem which was ensued after the Jews killed Stephen for preaching the good news. The major differences was that one group of people telling the good news to other fellow Jews only, while the other group who originally came from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and told Greeks the good news about the Lord Jesus.
Now, these people weren’t missionaries commissioned by Jerusalem church. These were simply unnamed ordinary people doing what the Spirit was compelling them, to share the good news.
The evidence of God’s grace in this scene is captured well in verse 21. “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.” When we say someone’s hand is with so and so, we are talking about how this person is helping others. We are talking about a person empowering others. One of the ways the word grace is used is this aspect of God empowering. In this case, God empowered the unnamed ordinary Jewish Christians who were simply fleeing for their lives. They fled in weakness, but God empowered them to use them exactly where they fled to.
The implication should be very obvious to us. It is not just the missionaries who were commissioned, sent by our church like Shannon and Carol, it is not just me the official pastor of our church, but it is all of us ordinary Christians who can experience God’s empowering help to spread the good news. Jesus’ command to make disciples in Matthew 28:19 and his promise in verse 20, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the ages,” these command and promise aren’t just for the select few to follow and experience. Fernando says, “Some of the most significant work for the kingdom has been done by unknown witnesses who are obedient to Christ right where they are and where they do not attract much attention.” You may say, “I am no Shannon, I am no Carol,” implying the false belief that somehow only the officially recognized or select gifted individuals of our church can tell the good news to others. The truth is that God wants to use you. God wants you to get excited by this truth, it is not about what you can do, but it is about what God can do through you. When you gripped by this truth, that’s when you are going to get really glad.
- Character of goodness is what will drive your appetite for the things of God and make you truly happy.
Few weeks ago we learned little bit about Barnabas. Here was a man who got excited and happy for seeing the evidence of the grace of God and how this motivated him to encourage others.
How do you become like that? If you have heard about Barnabas in the past, understood what he stood for, I won’t be surprised to find all of us desiring God to shape us like him. But, again the question is how does this happen? How does God shape us so that we get excited for God’s business, we get really happy whenever we see God at work in power?
The answer is character. Character speaks to who you are. In Barnabas’ case, his character defined him as a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. That’s who he was. What naturally happens to a person who is a good man, who pays attention and follows the leading of the Holy Spirit, and trusts in God? This person finds happiness not in happenings, not in material possession, not in what he or she can do, accomplish for his or her own gains. This person doesn’t find happiness in making himself or herself happy, but when he or she is preoccupied with what’s in God’s heart.
In what ways, was Barnabas a good man?
I am sure he was a morally outstanding person. He was a good hearted person. But, more than that what really made him a good man was because he stood on the shoulders of Jesus Christ who paid the price for Barnabas sins by dying on the cross for him, who was raised from the dead to overcome the death, the sin for him. Barnabas was a good man because he precariously lived his life through Jesus Christ’s ultimate righteousness, Christ’s goodness.
Living precariously through Jesus’ life is the ingredient to living a truly happy life. This requires the conviction that we do not stand on our own merit, but only on the merit of our Savior who died for us, who is resurrected for us, who is sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us. When we stand of Jesus’ shoulders for all that he has done for us, does for us and will do for us, the one who promised that he will never leave to the very end of the age, only then the true happiness, true gladness is possible.
Another character formation that I see in Barnabas is that he was a man full of the Holy Spirit and faith. John’s gospel in chapter 3 describes the Holy Spirit as the wind that blows where it pleases. As wind cannot be controlled by any of the best of the best human technologies, the Holy Spirit cannot be controlled. As the one who cannot be controlled, he calls us to yield to his control.
This is a key to experience real happiness. When your life is about you being in control, what you discover is that all your effort to be in control won’t float you when you try to walk on the water. As Peter walked out the boat on to water toward Jesus, the Spirit of Christ calls us to step out of our own boats on to the water. Being a Christian means having a completely new set of DNA. God changes us so that we are wired radically in different shape. People walk on the solid and safe ground where there is no risk of falling, hurting, sinking. But as Christians we will not find true happiness unless we walk on water where there is the real risk of sinking into the ocean, where you will be out of control unless you are controlled by the Holy Spirit.
And, this giving up the effort to control our own lives, but allowing the Holy Spirit to control us requires us to take a leap of faith.
When Peter stepped on to the side of the boat and saw the water, his human emotion and logic, all that he knew about life told him, “Don’t do it, stupid! No body walks on the water!” But, then he saw Jesus standing on the water, he remembered how he fed thousands out of few loaf of bread and fish, he saw him healed impossible diseases, could he enable me to walk to him on the water? What got him off the boat and did what was considered really a foolish thing was he saw Jesus, he remembered what he did, what he taught, he trusted in him.
His trust in Jesus wasn’t perfect, since he took his eyes off of Jesus and sunk like a rock. When he realized in the split moment, he was going to drown deep into the lake, when the crisis brought on by taking off his eyes off Jesus came on him, he called out for help. And, Jesus was right there, never having left him. I don’t know if that doesn’t build trust what will. I bet Peter was really happy guy for having experienced what it was to walk on water as he fixed his eyes on Jesus.
You can walk on water too and be happy if you fix your eyes on Jesus, if you would trust in him.
The last thing I would like to mention is the character of encouraging and empowering others to do God’s ministry.
Barnabas being a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith had contributed greatly to the growth of the Antioch church. God used him and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. At this point, if he was about building his own little empire of his spiritual legacy, well he would have stayed there and enjoyed the glory of the growth.
But, what he did was to leave to Tarsus to look for Saul. Even before he left, what he did was as seen in verse 23, encouraging others to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was encourager.
When he left the church of Antioch and found Saul and Tarsus, he brought him to Antioch. And, for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people.
His character was such that he wasn’t interested in building his own little kingdom. He was all about empowering others so that they too can be full participants in building God’s kingdom. He wanted others to experience the happiness in doing God’s work with his empowering Spirit and seeing the evidence of God’s grace.
He was a kind of person when it was time to walk on water, he would look around for a person to bring along with him so that he could share the great happiness of walking on water toward Jesus.
So, if you want to experience the death of happiness, then look around for that person, the people whom you can journey together and be known as those who walk on water.
Conclusion
Verse 26 says, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” When Christians were first called Christians, it was understood very well that they were ordinary people who found true happiness in telling others about Jesus Christ, who possessed unique character of walking in the robe of Jesus’ righteousness, not controlling their own lives, but yielding to the control of the Holy Spirit in trust so doing crazy things like walking on water.
We have diluted the richness in being called Christians. My prayer is that we rediscover the true meaning of being Christian as one who get really happy for seeing the evidence of God’s grace and encourage others to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.
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