The Encourager

 

Acts 11:19-end

Do you believe that God is working in our lives, right now?

Do you believe that God might be working in unexpected ways in our lives, right now?

Do you believe that God might do something completely unannounced in our lives tomorrow?

I’d like to suggest, if I may be so bold, that if in the quietness of your soul you answered no to any of those questions….that perhaps you need to hear this sermon more than anyone else today.

The moment we believe that God has done all that God is able to do, our faith simply becomes a relic of history; a great story once told that will bear less and less relevance to our lives with each passing year.

 And that makes me sad. And that isn’t the God I know and love. So listen up if you were a no voter….this sermon is for you. Hopefully by the end of it, you’ll start to realise that something amazing could be just around the corner.

Today is St Barnabas Day. Well, actually yesterday was St Barnabas day, but the C of E being what it is, nothing really makes sense. And, I have to say, we’ve done something quite unprecedented today, as instead of celebrating our dear St Barnabas, we ought to be marking the feast of Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the day where preachers up and down the country tear their hair out and cry into their cornflakes at the thought of explaining the Trinity, the unexplainable doctrine of God in three persons, to their beloved congregations. 

I am indebted to St Barnabas and to this dear church for saving me from that fate! We can think of our lovely patron saint instead.

The chances are, you’ve all heard more sermons about St Barnabas that I have. 

So what do we know about our dear St B?

Well, he was not one of the 12 disciples. 

He was a Cypriot Jew

He was a travelling companion of Paul

He was a trusted Christian by the early church.

He was probably a cousin of Mark (as in Mark’s Gospel Mark)

He might have written the letter to the Hebrews

But most of all…..

St Barnabas was an ENCOURAGER!!!!

How and why do we know this?

Well, because Barnabas is the man sent by the church in Jerusalem to check out all the crazy new stuff that’s going on in the various towns and villages as the Spirit of God spreads, and the love of God was received into the hearts of the many who heard.

Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good gig to me. Being sent around, to see the wonderful work that God is doing in the lives of ordinary people….sounds amazing, doesn’t it!

Sounds a bit like being a Bishop without all the paperwork and the funny hats!

So Barnabas must have been the kind of person who was looking for the work of God in the lives of the people he met. He would have had conversations with new converts, with trusted leaders and, perhaps most importantly, those who were still sceptical about the work of the Spirit of God in their lives.

Barnabas was an encourager because he was able to spot what God was doing, and cheer and clap and whoop whilst this amazing story unfolded!

So how is that like you and your faith? Are you open to the possibility that someone might say ‘Hey ……, you’ll never guess what’s just happened! God’s doing this in my life, or in the life of my son or daughter or friend or neighbour.’ 

Are you, just as St Barnabas was, tuned in to the work of the Spirit, and excited by what’s going to happen next?

Or has is all become a bit boring and cynical for you at the moment? 

Are you conscious of the work of God in your life, or is it all a bit too much; stale, boring, predictable?

In my experience, stale, boring and predictable are not words that come to mind when I think of God and His spirit moving among us. 

I do not recognise a boring God, a predictable God; a God who always does the same old thing and life’s just a bit….meh!

How do we know that God isn’t boring and predictable?

Well…answer me this. If you were boring and predictable, would you choose someone like Paul to be your chief messenger of the goodness of grace and mercy?

Would you choose someone who has, on a number of occasions, witnessed and possibly participated in, the stonings of the very kinds of people that you have now become a part of? 

If you were boring and predictable, you wouldn’t choose Paul, 

you wouldn’t choose Peter, 

you mightn’t choose you 

and you definitely wouldn’t choose me, to be a worker in the kingdom.

And yet…..

He does choose us! And He does love us. 

And….he chose Barnabas too. Barnabas, this loving, encouraging, enthusiastic, warm-hearted, and patient man, who was, according to Luke, the author of Acts, 

A good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith.

Barnabas was not a man who believed that God only did things in the past. He was not a man who thought he had seen all that God had to offer. 

If he was, he wouldn’t have spent all that time travelling around to different churches, would he?

If he was, he wouldn’t have stuck up for Paul when he faced, let’s say, a 'Vote of No Confidence' from the other disciples.

Barnabas was always willing to look beyond the past, to accept what God was doing right now, and look forward to whatever it might be that God was about to do next. 

Be more like Barnabas, I say. 

Be expectant for God. Be kind hearted and enthusiastic. Be an encourager. 

For God works in our midst when we all act a little more like St Barnabas. Amen.