Barnabas exemplifies the role of a servant and encourager within the early church, demonstrating that true value lies not in prominence but in faithful service. The sermon highlights Barnabas's willingness to support others, such as his financial contribution by selling land and his crucial role in bringing Paul to Antioch and later advocating for John Mark. His life teaches that commitment to Christ involves commitment to His people, requiring humility and a servant's heart, even when taking a secondary role. Ultimately, Barnabas's legacy is one of selfless encouragement and seeing potential in others, reflecting the grace of God and the importance of serving within the body of Christ.
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How many of you read the Daily Bread today, March tenth? Wasn't that interesting? Those of you who haven't, let me read it. A page in the three hundred and sixty-five stupidest things ever said, ever said, calendar, had this amazing quote. It talks about a company that sells packages of various things and it says, if you bought our course, how to fly in six easy lessons. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by our failure to include the last chapter, and that is how to land your plane safely. Send us your name and address, and we will send you the last chapter post-haste.
Request by estates. We'll be honored. Well, I didn't read that just because it was funny, but I read it because that's how I feel. Just the last Sunday morning we took off. And I wouldn't care if the last chapter never came and we never had to land again and just drive up into those cold, wintry climates of Ontario. For us, the four of us, it's been a wonderful week, and I appreciate it more than I can tell you. And I appreciate your love and kindness and the fellowship of the Lord's people. And we've met people that we don't know each other until we got here, but we know a lot of people we both know, and that can only happen in the body of Christ.
What a wonderful thing. I appreciate your encouragement and we ask the Lord to bless us as we leave and bless you as you stay. Please open your Bibles to Acts chapter four. Christians bear God's name in the world. Sometimes we forget that, don't we? But Christians bear God's name in the world, and it's a serious matter to share the responsibility for his reputation. I think of that from time to time, but not often enough.
Henry Drummond wrote some very insightful things, and he said, how many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely characters of those who profess to be inside that kingdom. Well, the fact is, inside that kingdom are a whole lot of folk just like us. We have our ups and downs and we're flying along and we don't even realize we don't have the landing instructions and sometimes we crash. And there's a little lesson to be learned in Acts chapter four and a few references further on in Acts about our reputation meaning a lot. We're going to just look through a few verses and meet some of the folks in the church in Jerusalem.
We don't know many of their names. Well, we know the bright lights. We know the shining stars of that church. We know people like Peter and Paul and Silas and James and Apollos, but then we know a few others who don't get much press. But all of us leave our footprints in the sands of time as we are part of the body of Christ, heading from time to eternity. I thought we'd just visit some of those folks that aren't so well known and whom we may think quite badly about in some cases. And just remind ourselves that they're part of the body of Christ too. And God knew all about us before He saved us.
He knew exactly whether we'd be shining stars or just flickering lights. Now the background is found in Acts chapter four, verses thirty-two to thirty-five. It says in verse thirty-two, and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul or one mind. What an unusual thing. Very difficult to find a body of believers that numbers more than twelve that are of the one mind and one heart. But that's a wonderful thing. So we know that the folk that we were going to be looking at by name and a little bit of their background are At one point in time, in verse thirty-two, we're part of a multitude that believe.
They were authentic believers of one heart, one soul, one mind. Neither said any of them that ought of what the things that he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. As you read through the Acts, you find those expressions all the time. They gave great witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I've been just trying in the last few days to impress upon you how powerful and dangerous a theme that was. were six weeks maximum from the resurrection of Christ. Nothing ever disturbed the Romans or the Jews more than that, that they put a dead man in the tomb and guarded them with their best soldiers, and the next day or two he could not be found.
Because he claimed that he would rise from the dead. And multitudes attested to that was the fact. And they were looking for a body if they could only find the body but they could not, and that bothered the Jews and the Romans in a powerful way. So with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Then our next verse says, Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold. What on earth brought on that indication that they were going to lack if they didn't sell their possessions and share them with the fellow believers in the Lord Jesus?
We have to go over to Second Corinthians chapters eight and nine for that. You needn't look at that. But those two chapters in two Corinthians eight or nine are the really heart of what we need to know from the mouth of the Lord Jesus through Paul about our stewardship responsibilities in the body of Christ. It's in that chapter eight verse nine that it says the consummate text of stewardship. Why do we meet needs? Why do we handle the Lord's resources entrusted to us with grace and with responsibility? Because that verse says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet he became so poor that we through his poverty might become rich.
That is the example that the Spirit of God gives us for prudence, and freedom in stewardship to do what this first said, that we didn't hold anything to ourselves, but we willingly brought what we had and distributed among the body of Christ in Jerusalem. There was only one church. If you flew over LL to Jerusalem in those days and then took a taxi to the Bel Yehuda Hilton and checked in there and looked up the yellow pages under churches and looked for a church to go to, you wouldn't have any trouble.
There was only one. It was a body of believers, probably still meeting in an upper room, and they were the body of Christ on earth. And the Lord was beginning to keep a promise that he had given way back in the Gospel of Matthew. I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. These were these dear people. But what was the need for all of that communal support of each other? Why are chapters eight and nine of second Corinthians talking about Gentiles, a way over in Macedonia and Achaia, who Paul, when he heard of the plight of the believers in Jerusalem, he went to his Gentile brethren in Christ Jesus, who led to Christ, and he said, way back in Jerusalem, are the people that...
that are the first church on earth. They are the people who trusted the Lord Jesus in the very early days of ministry. And there's been a tremendous drought, and there's been hurricanes, and there's been other sorts of natural disasters, and those dear people are in desperate need. And my heart beats in pain for them. I used to live in their city, and I persecuted them. And I tortured them, and I sentenced some to death, and I hauled men and women into prison. Until one day on the Damascus Road, I saw a light and heard a voice, and I opened my heart and life to Jesus Christ, and I became one of the people of the way.
And they're dear to me. They're my kinfolk in Christ. They're part of my heritage. And they too belong to the body of Christ. And now they're in this difficulty. So we went to... to Gentile churches and told them something of the need of Jewish people who were so far away they would never get to see them, they would never get to hear them, they just knew that Paul had a burden on his heart for the plight of these dear Christians in the Church of Jerusalem. That was something that touched my heart when I saw the alacrity of these dear Gentiles. It says of them that out of the depths of their deep poverty When they had nothing, they gave liberally, first to the Lord, because if it wasn't for the Lord Jesus Christ, they too would have never heard the gospel.
And then to Paul, because if he had not come and brought that message to that Gentile territory, they would not have been saved. And then to the Lord's people in Jerusalem. It was an act of worship and condescending grace. The fact is they would never see those people. No one would ever come and make that journey on foot to tell them how grateful they were. But out of their deep poverty they gave to the Lord and to Paul and in that sense they then gave a significant amount of funds to meet the needs of that church. But it said that the example that they followed was not what Paul said to them.
it was the way the Lord spoke to their hearts. For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was so rich, we could spend the whole night just trying to get a little glimpse of the riches that Jesus Christ gave up when He left heaven's glory, and came down into this scene of woe and sin and misery and died on the cross for me. He was so rich, yet for your sake and your sake and your sake and my sake, he became so poor. Now the word poor there is an interesting word. It doesn't mean that when they looked into the bottom of the barrel in Macedonia and when the Lord Jesus, as it were, looked into the bottom of the barrel, that it was nearly empty.
It wasn't even that it was empty. There was no bottom left in the barrel. That's the force of the word. So desperately poor. He came into this world so poor that we might be made so rich. And I just love that expression. That was the motivation and the example that moved these dear people in Macedonia to come and minister to a people that were Jewish. They were Gentile, that they would never see. It's just as remarkable that they would do anything for the Gentiles. the leaders, the spiritual leaders, and some of the common Jews before God saved them, had learned that they were obligated to wake up every day and say, I thank thee, God, that I am not a Gentile dog or a woman.
Now, I didn't write those scriptures. I'm just quoting them. I am not a Gentile dog, and they despised the Gentiles. Those folks knew it. By this time, Jews had infiltrated into that part of the world. and many other parts of the Gentile world. And here were people who despised them until God saved them. And a lot of them continued to have that attitude afterward, and it lasted for a long time. We sometimes have attitudes in the body of Christ that does not do much for the reputation of the Lord Jesus, as Henry Drummond said. But there were those dear people. Now the Jews were looking at, not now Macedonia, but back at Jerusalem.
And Paul's heart was burdened. And the people themselves were burdened. And the apostles gave a great witness of the resurrection of the Lord. And great grace was upon them all. And none of them that lacked, for there were many of them. And as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold. and laid them down at the apostles' feet and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. That's the background of our story tonight. Well, let's look at one or two of those Christians. We're going to meet them in heaven. And sometimes those we thought were spiritual giants will be found to have been ordinary people like us.
And some of them who we thought were losers right from the start. God has got them in the first line of those that he's going to say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Because we don't get the whole story of any one of these people from birth to death. We only know little snippets, little snapshots of them as they act here through this part of the early history of the church. We're going to look at a man who was not one of those bright lights like Peter and Paul and Silas and James and those. They weren't some of the spectacular people. They were some of the flickering lights at this time. But how deceiving that can be.
Now, verse thirty-six says that we're going to look first, chapter four, about a man whose name was Joseph. Do you ever remember a man in the early church of Jerusalem whose name was Joseph? Or if you want to get a little better and more accurate, in Hebrew you would call him Yosef. You know that person? He marches across the pages of the Book of Acts in greater and greater stature, but we just don't recognize his name. His real name was Joseph, but the apostles appreciated this man. I can just imagine the elders of any assembly would just appreciate this man in a powerful way.
In fact, his character was so consistent and so blessed and so appropriate to the needs of God's people in a very difficult time in the church in Jerusalem that he had to have his name changed. He got a nickname. Wouldn't you like to know Ernie Woodside's nickname? Goes back a long way. All the young people like me had one for him. So would you like to hear it? It's a secret. It's a secret. But if you're good sometime in the future, I'll tell you. Anyway, this man had a nickname. So it's biblical to have a nickname.
What was his nickname? the apostles surnamed him. They gave the most important part of his name a change, a nickname, and they called him Barnabas. So it's okay if you want to call him Barney or Barnabas, but it's probably better if you call him Barnabas than Joseph. And that says, which is being interpreted, the son of consolation or encouragement is a better word. He was a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus. Well, that tells us something. His character was that although he was a robe of outsider, he had a personality and a character that was very much appreciated by the apostles, so much so that they kept saying, you're such an encourager, you're such an encourager, you're such a consoling and healing brother.
Why don't we just call you what you are? We'll call you Barnabas. If the Lord led Christians to be as insightful as some of them are, and they looked at me and said, I think we better give you another name. Because Paul isn't very appropriate anyway. I don't have a middle name. I had a twin brother by surprise, and my middle name got gobbled up by my brother David. But nevertheless, if you use the interpretation of my real name, Paul, what does that mean? Little. How I wish. Wouldn't that be blessed if I was little, especially this way, this way?
But, you know, I may have a nickname, but my brothers and sisters in Wallenstein just haven't had the nerve to tell me what it is. But they see, and God sees. Men look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. But these men with great joy and enthusiasm said, Joseph, hey, Joe, for the last time we're calling it Joseph, you're the encourager and the consoler of this assembly, and we want you to be named like that until Jesus comes. And so Joseph became that man, an outsider. Well, he was an encourager in many ways. First of all, it's amazing that he wasn't born and raised.
He was like he was parachuted into a park of the palms from Hawksville, Ontario. That's what four of us were done doing last week. We just drove in here and didn't know hardly a soul. He was a foreigner. What else does it say about him? Well, he was a Levite. What does that tell us about him? His history went back to the priestly tribe of Israel. So he was a Levite, but he lived outside the country. He didn't even live on the mainland. He was from the country or the island of Cyprus. I don't know how he got there.
He may have been there for, in his family for generations, but there he was. By the grace of God who controls the destiny of all of his people, he got him back to the city of Jerusalem because there was a need to be met, and God meets his needs through people. Isn't that a wonderful thing, that we have the privilege of meeting the needs of God's people just as we are? God has something for all of us to do, and when there's a need to be met, it may not be financial. It may be that we need encouragement, and I think one of the greatest graces and spiritual gifts that can be bestowed upon the body of Christ anywhere until Jesus comes is to be an encourager to God's people.
Do any of you ever had a time when you needed encouragement? That only somebody whose heart is beating with the heart of the Lord Jesus and who sees in your face the needs that there are in the body of Christ, that you know that God has placed you in that situation. Sometimes situations which are not pleasant because He has given you the gift of encouragement. If God beats in your soul and gives you some idea that there's somebody in this particular congregation who needs encouragement, have the grace to meet that need. I don't know of anything that I pick up more readily as I move for a week or two amongst God's people.
At the first time we meet people on a place like this, everybody is... humming under the breath that every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. And then we say those inane things like, hello, how are you? And everybody says, fine, with that funny little wave of their hand. But down deep, there are many problems and many hurts. And I've had the opportunity, especially in the last two days, because I've been wandering around the grounds just hoping to meet up with some people that I would never see if I didn't wander. And what I hear is some of God's dear people, either from the past or in the present or looking into the immediate future, have great struggles and great problems and great hurts and great disturbance.
I don't know them, but you live with them every day. And God may ask you to use your gift and spirit of encouragement to meet the need of God's dear people. I don't think anything will please the heart of the Savior to know that you are acting in His name to be an encourager and a sustainer and a consoler and a builder up of the people of God. Well, this man had come from this island. He was a Levite and said he owned a piece of property over there. I don't know whether it was in the family tree for years, maybe several generations. Maybe it was a resort town. Maybe it was a farm.
I don't know. But I don't know what a Levite was doing owning land anyway. Do you remember way back in the book of Joshua when they divided up the land? there were the tribes of Israel all lined up just rubbing their hands saying I hope I get that part just south of Hebron or north of the Galilee and Moses under God's guile and is saying now to the tribe of Reuben and to the tribe and he gives out all the land and they said now we're through and the Levites are standing there and they didn't get a thing and the Lord said to them that I your God will be your portion. That meant they couldn't be a landowner in the kingdom of Israel.
And maybe, I don't know, maybe his great-grandfather stomped out of there and said, I'm through with serving the Lord as a Levite. I'm going overseas and I'm going to own land anyway. But whatever he did, Joseph or Barnabas became the inheritor of a choice piece of land over in Cyprus. But when this thing happened, and God's people needed some consolation and help, he became an encourager in a financial way. We find that in verses thirty-six to thirty-seven, having sold the land, he brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet.
That's all it says of him. Just a few lines. But he did it. I don't know whether that surprised anybody, but it didn't surprise the Lord, and it didn't surprise the apostles. They already knew his heart. He was an encourager in fellowship, and as a follower, he was quite willing to take second place. That's really tough to do. When you've been a person who have quietly gone through in the local church as he did and just met the needs of people in a quiet way, and then they made all this fuss and changed his name, and when the opportunity came to move into first place, he took second place. One of the greatest challenges to an authentic Christian life is to be a servant, to be a servant.
The Lord Jesus said to those disciples who were so arrogant, and as they were going to the last supper, and they were going to spend the last hours with the Lord Jesus in that upper room just before they got up and went down and across the brookhedron, into Gethsemane, and into the agony of that garden, and then to the cross. They're saying to themselves, who is going to be greatest in the kingdom? And the mother of two of them was in on that. Mothers do that, don't they? And they were whispering in the ear, go for it. Go for it. But the others weren't innocent. They were so angry at the others who got in there first with their mother because they felt the same.
We want to be great in the kingdom. The Lord looked them in the eye and said, I want you to learn something. Before he gave them the words, he gave them the example. What did he do? He stripped off his rabbinical garment, the one with the blue band around the bottom that marked him out as a teacher in Israel. It was without seeing. Now, no Roman loom could weave a garment like that that would be in one piece. It would have to be handmade. Who do you think made that? The Bible doesn't tell us, but I think there was a little home where Lazarus and his sisters often gave health and sustenance and relaxation to the Lord Jesus.
And I bet those two women, I'm not sure whether they both worked on one end and the other or not, but I'm sure that it came for that home. And they took that garment off and he laid it aside and He took the servant's towel and wrapped it around him. And in the dusty floor of an eastern home, he took a pail of water, a bowl of water, and a towel, and he kneeled down in front of each one of them and washed their feet. And then what did he say? If I, your Lord and Master, and you say, well, I am your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, then you should wash my feet. Is that what he said? Park of the Palms had decided that to end their weeks of conference, that the Lord Jesus was going to be here sitting in front just behind those bells.
And we could come and wash his feet. All the trains, buses, planes, and any other means of transportation from all over the world could never congregate in this place. Because people would flock to wash the Savior's feet. And so would you. But what he said to them, if I have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. He was teaching them a lesson that you and I need to learn until Jesus comes. And this is, you cannot be committed to Jesus's Lord if you're not committed to his people. You cannot. You cannot be committed to Jesus's Lord when you are unable to be a servant to the least of his disciples.
And those men were so slow to learn that lesson. And I say with regret, so am I. I don't find it easy to be a servant to some of God's people, but I know the Lord Jesus would be willing to do it even if I refused to. So we taught them that lesson. So they were not always like this, but Joseph, the encourager Barnabas, was willing to take second place. Look at Acts chapter eleven, verse twenty-five. It says simply, then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul.
What does that mean? That means by this time Antioch was the seat of the center of the church's strength. It had since passed from Jerusalem, which was Jewish to the core, to Antioch, which was Gentile. And the force and the direction of the body of Christ in the infant church had shifted to Antioch. It was from Antioch that the first, second, third, and the fourth missionary journey began. People say, well, I only know three missionary journeys. And we find it hard to remember who was on them, who was on the first one, who was on the second one. But there were four.
The fourth is not well known. But it was from Antioch. By this time, Barnabas as an encourager was needed in Antioch, and he went there. He gave up all of his friends who had blessed him so much and valued him so much because there was a need at Antioch. And he went down there. He saw the need for God to branch out from Antioch to the whole world. And it was from Antioch that Paul was going to go on his missionary journey number one. Paul and Silas. there was a problem. Paul was not there. Paul had gone back after his conversion in his time in Arabia.
He had gone back to his hometown in Asia Minor, where his parents were, and he spent almost nine years there of a short life for Jesus Christ. And the Lord had poured into his life so much of the Scripture that we would never have known very much about the church and church order and the future and many of the things if he hadn't been patient to be there. But because of his rabble-rousing days in Jerusalem, not only was he suspect, but the Gentiles in Antioch, who now knew the freedom of a Gentile in Christ Jesus, when Barnabas suggested that the man to spearhead the ministry of the gospel and the furtherance of the growth of the church should come to Antioch and be part of that, they just couldn't buy into that at all.
And so Barnabas said, leave it to me. I believe under God's plan he is the man. And I'm going to walk. You know, he didn't fly, didn't have a second place ticket on a boat or anything else. He walked all the way to meet Paul in his old hometown. And he brought him to Antioch and supported him and nominated him. and encouraged him and dealt with the doubts of the brothers. Now it was a sure thing, it was a sure thing that when they discovered the spiritual gift, the energy, the drive and the vision of the Apostle Paul, they weren't going to notice an encourager too much.
Why are we mesmerized with the bionic believers of the body of Christ? People who have a presence People who have drive, and when they look at you, they're looking right through you. And they walk that way, and they talk that way, and I'm sure it took a while for that to wear off from the Apostle Paul. It was a long time before he witnessed that I am the least of all saints. I'm the chief of sinners. And when he arrived, you couldn't have two at the top. And up till now, the Bible talks about Barnabas and Paul, but from here on it talks about Paul and Barnabas. And here is a man who is willing to leave Jerusalem to Antioch, and then to go all the way up into Arabia and bring this dear man down.
And when they saw his spiritual gift and the believers prayed and fasted and selected two people to go, it was Paul. That isn't easy. when you've been numeral unero to be numeral secondum. But this man was not only an encourager, he had humility and grace. Oh, I just think that every church on the planet who belongs to Jesus Christ would like a barrenful of people like that, don't you? And that was Barnabas. He was an encourager in finances and in fellowship.
He met that growing need of a church which just needed a Paul. And chapter eleven, verse twenty-five says he brought him to Antioch. He wasn't trusted, but Barnabas said he was God's man for God's work at that particular time. Well, if we go to Acts fifteen, just let's look at Barnabas again. Acts chapter fifteen, verse thirty-six. And some days after, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brothers in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they do.
And Barnabas determined to take with him John, whose surname was Mark. Now he was connected to him by family. But Paul thought not good to take him with them who departed from them from Pamphylia and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them that they departed asunder one from the other. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed unto Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas. Paul and Barnabas were on the first missionary journey. Paul and Silas on the second. John Mark was a young fellow. Paul remembered his past on the first missionary journey.
He was kind of long as the Joe boy, but when he got so far along, he left the journey and went to another area that he knew to do what he really felt he ought to do. But Paul wasn't one to have much regard for somebody who left with the job not hardly started. Barnabas knew him better. Barnabas also knew his past. Because he was related to him, he knew him better than Paul did. But he could see him in the future. A lot of us have written Christians off because of their past. Sometimes we do it to our own family. Paul could only see his failure.
But Barnabas could see his potential. And he believed that the God who had saved him over in the island of Cyprus was the God of the second chance. I'm so glad that my God is the God of the second chance. I failed him desperately in my past history. And he's been for me the God of the second chance. And some of you know times in your life when your chin was on the rock. And everything that God had equipped you to do spiritually with your gifts was exercised in the flesh, and you failed miserably. And we can remember those days vividly as I speak. And I can now. But the God who knows our past specializes in our future.
And this dear man, Barnabas, was willing to get into a contentious situation with the Apostle Paul because he loved God's people enough that he was willing to be like his Lord and look at the potential in a young man like John Mark. I think we underestimate the love of God in Christ Jesus. You know, when he died for me and knew me on the cross and knew you by name and sight, He knew the failure and sin of all of us. He knew that we'd be saved. He knew that we would fail. But if we as a failure were the only person on planet Earth, he'd have come to the cross to die for me.
And so I'm so grateful that he's the Lord of the Second Chance. And so it was that in the end of Paul's life, in the Mamertine prison in Rome, in that hell hole that he was in. He writes, Timothy, you've been faithful to me. Come to me and bring the parchment and bring the cloaks and bring these things. And by the way, bring John Mark because he's profitable to me for the ministry. Took Paul a long time to learn what this dear, encouraging man, the uncle of John Mark, knew all along. and he was the person who encouraged people in spite of their failure.
And his ability to meet the need of the body of Christ came to pass. Well, our time is gone. I was going to talk to you about another couple that you might not think quite as fondly of as this dear man. But you'll find it for your own reading in chapter five, verses one to eleven. And I must confess that for a long time when I began to read this, I thought to myself, good, they got what they deserved. What terrible people. How did the Apostles fail to see these people acting the way they did? Well, the fact is this may be the first time they made a major mistake.
But we're not a forgiving body, are we? And we have long memories for people. who blow us. And here's what it says in that little section so you'll study it for yourself. But a certain man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira immediately there's a great caution goes up. There isn't love beating in our heart for them as it was for Barnabas, is there? You have not told your children a bedtime story about Ananias and Sapphira. But it says they all joined in faith and beneficence earlier on before this incident to meet the need. There was a time when they were part of the body of Christ.
And I think sometimes we forget that they participated generously in the meeting of that need because they also had land to sell. The other thing we needed to know that they were God's children. We ought not to despise God's children because of their failures, for there, by the grace of God, go I. They were Christian. I'm looking forward to having a talk to Joseph and Barnabas in heaven and going up to him and say, tell me what it was like sailing with Paul. How did you get that piece of the land over there in Cyprus anyway? And did you have any tugs about cashing it in?
But I don't know anybody says, I can hardly wait to get to heaven and have a little chat with Ananias and Sapphira. But the Lord loved them with the same passion. His grace went to them in the same degree, and they made a terrible mistake. But in heaven, somewhere in that lineup of the people who hear the Lord's well done, our Ananias and Sapphira, but they made a desperate mistake. And it was made because they wanted to imitate and get the acclaim that Barnabas and get the attention that Barnabas got. And they wanted to be thought of higher than they really were. And so both of them paid the ultimate price.
You say, wasn't that arbitrary? Aren't we allowed one mistake? Not in the early church there wasn't. There are three occasions in the New Testament when people died and they died because they misrepresented their relationship to Jesus Christ. This is the first one, Ananias and Sapphira. The survival of the church, the integrity of the church, the reputation of the body of Christ, the integrity and reputation of Jesus Christ, the head of the church, was at stake. And Satan was in there doing his best to abort the early church's establishment and growth. And because they sinned in a public way, so that brought shame upon the local church and the Lord of the church, they dropped dead at the feet of those men and were buried before one knew the other was dead."
First Corinthians tells us that that happened again. And for this cause, many are weak and sickly among you, and many are dying. Were they believers? Yes, they were. And it has to do with their attitude to the Savior in His excellency and sovereignty. And if we don't behave ourselves in the local church at those days, and you were drunken and you're disorderly at the Lord's Supper and you despise the poor, and you flaunt your riches, and you're doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the world knows it, the Lord took action. And for that reason, many were sick and weakly and died.
But they were Christians. The third is in James chapter five. James chapter five is a chapter that's a burden on my heart because most of God's people meeting together as congregations don't know how to handle that. And elders are boxed into corners and they don't know whether that they were supposed to go and anoint an oil in the name of the Lord and pray. And the Bible says when that happens, God will raise the sick. No ifs, ands, or buts. But that's in the book of James, chapter five. What did I tell you about the chronological order of the church?
The first church mentioned by the word is synagogue. The second is just a called out group. It is not in any integral way a description of the early church. So if it's the first book that's written, we ought not to teach church truth through that book. We ought to be thinking that this is not normative for the church. But this was normative in those early days when a man who knew God's grace and had sinned and had not repented. And if you want to see the quality of the sin they committed, read chapter four.
It says you're murdering each other's reputation. You're promising to pay wages to men who work for you and when they work, you don't pay them. You're slandering each other's reputation and the world sees it and knows. And if this man is willing to confess his sin because he knows that he's sinned and he calls upon the grace of God and calls for those men who he's accountable to in those early days, about AD And he likens it to Elijah calling down rain because of the, calling down drought because of the sin of Israel. And then when they repented, he prayed and the rain came back. He says, this is exactly what's going on here.
So three times in the early church, this happened. And it isn't normative for today. God isn't going to kill you if you are despising the Lord's table. He's not going to follow through with the sorts of things we do when he sees the body of Christ fighting with each other, condemning each other, castigating each other, despising each other. Do you think it hurts the cause of Christ? It does, but what's more important? It hurts the heart of Jesus. But the Bible has one powerful word in In John, First John, one, nine, I think we quoted it this morning or yesterday and it says, if we confess our sin, it doesn't say, and you cry out on your knees for forgiveness, nowhere were there's confession of sin or we asked to tell God to forgive us.
If we do the confessing, he'll do the forgiving. If we confess our sin, he will be faithful and just. to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all A double L unrighteousness. What a gracious God. Do you ever fail him? Do you ever disappoint him? He says, if we confess, we call upon him for forgiveness and grace and blessing. Tell him we did it. He will forgive. These are just two people, two little groups in that church. If you go through the book of Acts, you'll find a whole lot more. But the wonderful thing is that they all belong to Jesus Christ.
And someday we're going to be rubbing shoulders with both Barnabas and Ananias and Sapphira. And I know that at the moment as we're speaking, they are with the Lord Jesus. And the heart of my Savior beats with love and compassion and grace that his blood was sufficient to save those two dear people. and we're going to greet them in the name of the Lord, and it may be very soon. It's not a perfect place, and neither are we. But you said you were the builder, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it, and Satan failed.
But although he's not all-powerful, he has a lot of experience with Christians like us. So we pray for a sense of humility in servant's hearts. that we may be encouragers and that we may avoid being responsible for the smirching and the darkening of the reputation of the Lord Jesus in the world. Because sometimes we are the only Christians that people know and we're not representing Him well. So give us grace and give us the authority to speak in His name about our love and affection for the Savior. And when we tell them that we belong to Him, may it be glorifying to our precious Lord.
Thank you for our time together this past week. We pray that some little thing might have been said that may be encouraging, but most of all that it may shine in a light upon the face of our precious Lord, and that we've learned to worship Him a little more with more sincerity and intimacy and truth. We ask it in His powerful name. Amen.