Acts 9:23-31
Walking Together in Christian Love
Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church
February 12, 2006
Introduction
I heard about a young man that said to his father at breakfast one morning, "Dad, I’m going to get married." "How do you know you’re ready to get married?" asked the father. "Are you in love?" "I sure am," said the son. "How do you know you’re in love?" asked the father. "Last night as I was kissing my girlfriend good-night, her dog bit me and I didn’t feel the pain until I got home!”
Do we really know what love is? I would venture to say that the average believer really doesn’t know. For years we have taken our cues from Hollywood, where love is fantasized and romanticized, where divorce is not only acceptable but normal. The truth though is that our ideas of love must come from heaven, not Hollywood. Our values must be shaped by Scripture and not by the songs coming out of Nashville. If anyone ought to know about real love it ought to be you and me – those of us who know and have experienced the love and grace of God.
This week Americans will celebrate Valentine’s Day, a special day for many people. Husbands and wives will express their love for one another; some of you will think of those you love who have gone on to be with the Lord, and certainly that is a great opportunity for you to thank God for the love He allowed you to know. Some of us just aren’t good at Valentine’s Day. You might even related to the preacher who quoted 1 Corinthians 7:1 on Valentine’s, “Now for the matters I wrote you about: It is good for a man not to marry.”
In the passages we’re going to consider this morning, it is not the Valentine’s Day sort of love I want deal with, but rather I want us to consider love for one another: brotherly, or Christian love. You remember that Jesus told His disciples that by their love for one another would all men know they were His disciples. For a people who constantly talk about witnessing and sharing our faith, perhaps one of the most frequently missed opportunities to do so is through our love for one another, or the lack thereof. The world in which we live needs to see the love of God demonstrated as much as it needs to hear the words.
In the two primary passages we’ll read, two men come under consideration who spent much time together building the Lord’s churches. Though Saul, better known as the apostle Paul is the better known of the two men, it is Barnabas that I want see, and more specifically it is his Christian love on display that I want us to see. We may revel in the magnitude of Paul’s ministry, but we forget that Barnabas was God’s instrument in getting that ministry started.
Barnabas is first mentioned in Acts 4:36 where he was a part of the church at Jerusalem. Remember that the Jerusalem church had many needs, and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit many who had land and goods sold them to help care for the needs of others. Barnabas was one such man. He would later be instrumental in strengthening the church at Antioch. His name means “encourager,” and we see that out of his love for God and for others that he truly was a disciple of Christ.
You and I are called on to love one another like Barnabas loved Paul. I am to love you. You are to love me. We are each to love one another. You can call it brotherly love, Christian love, agape love or biblical love. You call it what you like, but when you practice it two things will always happen that are going to draw attention to you and your Savior.
You Will Accept People As They Are
Do you remember the reputation Paul had before his conversion? In Acts 7:58, we read that the religious leaders of the day had taken deacon Stephen, “And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.” Chapter 8:1 says that
“Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women committed them to prison.”
Everyone around knew about Saul! He had a great testimony all right – the man was bad news! He was causing great trouble for the followers of Christ. He hated them and wanted to stamp them out of existence because of their blasphemous religion.
Of course you know that just a short while later in Acts 9:1 that…
“Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.”
This man lived with a passion – a passionate hatred for these people who followed Christ. He had gained a reputation for killing some of them, for his abuses of them and for having many arrested. But on his way to Damascus Saul met the very Jesus that he hated, saw Him for who He really was and accepted Him as his Savior!
Now, watch what happened after Saul was saved in Acts 9:20 and following.
“And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which call on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that his is very Christ. And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him: But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.”
Imagine the despair Saul must have felt. He had betrayed the religious leaders he was working for and could not gain the trust of the disciples he had been persecuting. For the first time in his life he must have experienced a loneliness he had not known before as he wondered how he would overcome his past. That’s what makes verse 27 such a wonderful verse.
“But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.”
Barnabas had been around long enough to have the respect and trust of the apostles. He too knew who Saul was and what he had done. He knew about his reputation and his history of persecuting believers. However, he didn’t allow what he knew to be true about Saul’s past to affect what was happening in his life right now. He didn’t try to reform Saul or clean him up or make him look better that he really did. He just told the men that yes, this was the man who we all feared, but as a new child of God we must accept him as one of us.
Whether you realize it or not, Barnabas really stuck his neck on the line for Saul. How did he know this wasn’t just a trick to infiltrate the church? How could he defend a man he barely knew? I think he did for two reasons. First, I think he did it because he knew something that we too often forget – that a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ will change lives, and secondly because he was a man filled with the Spirit of God the love of God could be expressed through him.
Listen, if we are going to walk together in Christian love today we must still accept people the way they are. I understand that we’re not to tolerate sin or ungodly conduct, but it does mean that God is going to bring people together in the context of our relationships who are different from one another.
God brings people together as He sees fit. If someone accepts Him as Savior and you know they’ve lived a terrible life, you have a God-given responsibility to love that individual and accept him as a brother. It’s easy to love people who are like us or who share our interests. Its easy to love people who are good and clean and wholesome, but we have been called to love the bad; to love the dirty and defiled and to demonstrate the love of God to those who are unwholesome. They may not look like you, think like you, act like you, dress like you, live like you or appeal to you, but God is in charge, and we must accept people as He brings them into our lives.
Barnabas did this for Saul. He stuck up for him at a time in his life when no one else would. I wonder how Paul’s ministry might have been different had this one man not been willing to love Saul just as he was. Would we even know about Paul? Would he have gone on to do what he did? Would he ever have gained the acceptance and trust of that Jerusalem church body? We don’t know – and the reason we don’t know is because a man demonstrated Christian love by accepting a man just as he was.
You Will Recognize The Worth Of Other Believers
I’d like for you to turn to Acts 11:22 and read with me there.
“Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that which purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”
Now Barnabas had been sent to Antioch to help build up the church there, and you can see from the reading that God was doing a great work. As Barnabas shared Christ a whole lot of people started getting saved and were added to the church there. Now Barnabas could have done what a lot of people do. He could have started boasting about what a great leader he was. He could have tried to do it all alone and keep everyone and everything under his thumb, but he didn’t. The Bible says he journeyed to Tarsus, about 200 miles by land and about 100 miles by water, to go and recruit Paul to come and help him.
Did you ever wonder why Paul was in Tarsus? After he accepted Christ he was out of a job. You remember what he did before he was saved, but after his conversion he returned to his hometown and presumably went back to making tents, but that was about to change. Barnabas had heard Paul’s first sermon in Damascus, the sermon where he testified of his conversion and how he met Christ. Barnabas recognized the worth of this man and invited him to partner with him in the work at Antioch.
In my opinion Barnabas went out of his way physically to get to Paul, put his own reputation on the line by getting involved with this man and was willing to give up the glory he could have received as pastor of the church of Antioch to do an even greater work for the Lord.
The Scriptures are full of these kinds of examples of people who were willing to walk together in Christian love and work together for the glory of God. Jesus called out sinful men to form His church. He used the adulterous woman of Samaria to win many to salvation. Simon Peter was given to fits of temper. Andrew was more of a follower than a leader. James and John were more concerned about getting credit than about given of themselves. Matthew was considered a crook by the general public, but Jesus looked past all of their faults and sins and personal shortcomings because he recognized what they could be and even would be, and of course the Bible says that this odd assortment of men turned the world upside down for Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
This week as America celebrates Valentine’s Day, we’re going to be bombarded with appeals to demonstrate our love for our boyfriends and girlfriends, our husbands and wives. Go get her some flowers. Buy him a box of chocolate. Stop by Zales and get that diamond ring and by all means go out for a candlelit dinner.
As all of this goes on, here’s what I want you to remember: there are a multitude of people in the world who will never know what it means to be loved and recognized as valuable people in the kingdom of God. Will you love the unlovable? Do you struggle to accept people just as they are or have you set up a set of standards that people must meet in order for you to love them? Do they have to be a certain color? From a certain race? Of a particular income? Dress a certain way? Behave in a certain manner? Will you be the one to change that?
Chances are you know someone right now who is wrestling with a sorted past, so much so that they haven’t yet given their life to Christ. You could be the one to change that. What about the child of God who is sitting on the sidelines right now wanting to be put to work for God but is waiting for a Barnabas to come along and invite them to join in? Too often I think that many of us look at other believers and criticize those who don’t get involved in ministry. They won’t teach, won’t come to the workdays, won’t do this or that – but perhaps it is us who are in the wrong. Could it be that they accepted Christ and returned to their own Tarsus, waiting for an invitation to join in ministry? Will you be the Barnabas they need?
Perhaps today you are that person who has never trusted Christ. You have never felt loved or accepted as valuable in your life. Today I want you to know there is One who loves you and accepts you just as you are, and His name is Jesus Christ. Would you come to Him today?
