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The Weekend Pulpit: A Church Member Named Consolation · Enjoying the Journey

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  There is no substitute for the preaching and teaching of God's Word.
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  Each weekday on Enjoying the Journey, Scott Pauley leads us in
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  a brief study of Scripture. Today on The Weekend Pulpit,
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  we are happy to share a full-length Bible message
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  given through Scott's pulpit ministry. These messages were recorded
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  live in a local church or gospel event in recent days. It is
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  our prayer that the message will be a help to you today.
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  The Bible with me, would you please, to the book of Acts.
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  And I want to bring you to Acts chapter number 4, to the very first
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  mention of this man. Now When you get to Acts chapter
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  4, this is the revival season of
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  the early New Testament church. How many of you would like to see a revival
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  season in this church? Well, I think all the ingredients
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  are found in Acts chapter number 4. Matter of fact, let's read just a little
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  bit. We'll jump into it. Look at verse number 31.
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  The Bible says, and when they had prayed—
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  did you know God always does big things when his people pray?
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  Somebody said that every time God gets ready to do something very special in history,
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  he always sets his people to praying. I believe that's
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  true. I was most encouraged— would you look at me just a moment? I was
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  most encouraged when your pastor said to me
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  that this church family for the last month has been giving attention
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  to prayer and even fasting and prayer. I looked
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  at the list of the things that you've been praying for, and I'm I'm entering
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  into that prayer with you and I'm saying amen to all of that because
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  here's what I know. The great move of God does not come
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  because of the preaching.
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  It comes because of the praying. I think
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  sometimes, you know, I'm in a special meeting every week of my life and I
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  think sometimes people put their stock in the fact that some guest
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  preacher is going to blow through town and preach certain messages and I just
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  want to tell you right up front Preachers don't bring revival with them.
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  The Lord's the one who sends the revival and the Lord sends the great awakenings
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  when the people get in the place of prayer and ready for
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  God to do what God wants to do. And when they had prayed,
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  the place was shaken where they were assembled together and
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  they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake
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  the word of God with boldness. By the way, if you want to know what
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  I think the 3 key ingredients of a great meeting are, they're all in verse
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  31. There's the Holy
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  Ghost at work, and there's the Word of God. You want to have a
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  good meeting this week? Here's what we need. We need people to pray. We need
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  the Holy Spirit to work. And we need the Word of God to be given.
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  Is that right? Verse 32 says, and the multitude
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  of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.
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  Neither said any of them that all of the things which he possessed was his
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  own, but they had all things common. Now you'll know revival's come to town
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  when people stop thinking less about their money. Isn't that right?
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  You want to know whether people are really right with God or not?
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  Look at how they look at material things. And the Bible says these people
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  got so thoroughly right with God, stuff didn't matter to
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  them anymore. What mattered to them was the Lord and the Lord's people
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  and what God was doing in their city. Powerful.
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  Look at verse 33, and with great power Gave the apostles
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  witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace
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  was upon them all. You might want to mark the 2 greats in verse 33.
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  There's great power and there's great grace. You know
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  what we need? Great power, great grace. That word great is
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  the word we get mega from. I do no disservice to the scripture when
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  I say there was mega power and there was mega grace.
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  Let me just tell you, you get the mega grace and mega power of God
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  at work, things are going to change. They're going to be different. You can't
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  be the same when God shows up. Verse 34, neither was there
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  any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands
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  or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things
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  that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet,
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  and distribution was made unto every man according as
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  he had need. And then we come to our man in
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  verse 36. It's the first mention of him in the book of Acts.
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  He'll be mentioned 29 times in the New Testament. Did you know that?
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  29 times. This is the first. There's a
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  man there in the church whose name was Joses. That's a form
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  of Joseph. A lot of Josephs in Scripture,
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  but we don't know him as Joseph. And the reason we don't know him as
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  Joseph is because that's not the name he went by. And the reason that's
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  not the name he went by was the church gave him a nickname.
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  How many of you have a nickname?
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  Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. Isn't that right?
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  This man got a nickname because the church
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  observed something in him and they said, we're not going to call you Joseph anymore.
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  No. The Bible says, who by the apostles was surnamed—
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  everybody say the name with me, ready? Barnabas. Would you circle that in your Bible?
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  This is Brother Barnabas. You can tell the people that aren't
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  here today, the preacher's preaching on Barney this week, and tell them to come hear
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  it, all right? It says, Brother Barnabas.
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  Now why did they give him the name Barnabas? Look at the parenthesis.
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  Aren't you glad even God's parentheses are inspired? Which is
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  being interpreted, the son of consolation.
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  Mark that word consolation. We'll come back to it in just a moment. He's a
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  Levite and of the country of Cyprus, having land. He sold
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  it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. Now this is
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  fascinating to me. You got a big church, and by the way,
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  a great church is not always a big church. God never measured his church
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  by numbers. He measured his churches by their likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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  But this church is a big church because the gospel is advancing,
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  lots of people are being saved. In fact, do you remember on the day of
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  Pentecost there were 3,000 people that got saved, and then a couple chapters later you're
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  going to have 4,000? Men who believe, and it's growing.
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  And the Bible here describes the church as the multitude.
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  That's a lot of people. It's a multitude. And have
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  you ever noticed that in the midst of the multitude, the Holy Spirit called our
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  attention to one man? How many of you are glad God doesn't
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  just see us as a crowd, he sees us as individuals? He knows you
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  by name. In fact, he knows you better than you know
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  you. I hate to tell you this, but you are not what you say you
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  are, and you are not what others think you are.
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  You are what God knows you to be. And this is
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  a man whose life was so radically changed
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  by the gospel— Christ was so big in this man that
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  when he got in this church and the church got acquainted with this man named
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  Joseph, they said, we're going to call you something different. And they renamed him Barnabas.
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  Now, in our day, we choose names because we like
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  the way they sound. We're pretty shallow people sometimes, aren't we? We chose
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  our children's name and we said, does that sound good with the last name and
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  all that? And now grandchildren, our kids right now are talking about what the new
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  grandbaby's name's going to be, and it's quite a debate, let me tell you.
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  But in Bible days, they chose names because of the meaning of the names.
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  In fact, there are occasions where God changed people's names. Remember Abram
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  becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. Remember that?
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  And Simon becomes Peter. There, there are these definite shifts
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  in scripture. Saul of Tarsus becomes the Apostle Paul.
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  Why? Because the changing of their name reflected something
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  in their nature. God changed something on the inside,
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  and it was so evident on the outside that they got known to be different
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  people. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
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  Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
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  Let me just tell you, Barnabas met the Lord Jesus. And when he met
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  the Lord Jesus, Christ moved into his life. And when Christ moved into his life,
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  he changed the man. He wasn't a perfect man, but he became an exemplary Christian,
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  so much so that the members of that church said,
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  we're going to call you Consolation from now on.
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  This was a man, if I could describe it in a word that we're well
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  acquainted with, who was an encourager.
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  How many of you think we could use some encouragement in our world today?
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  Everybody's having a hard time. The school
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  superintendent's here, I understand. Where are you, sir? Would you raise your hand?
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  Good. Thank you for your work. I admire it.
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  I've been in evangelism for 10 years, but I was in education for the 20
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  years prior to that. And I love education. I love educators.
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  Our world, a generation of young people need help and
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  need hope. Suicide is up and drug
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  dependency is up and depression is at an all-time high. Somebody said,
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  what's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. People need the gospel. They need
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  Christ. They need great grace and
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  great power. That's what they need. Only Jesus can change what's wrong with this country.
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  There's not a politician on earth that can do what Christ can do in a
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  moment of time in a man's life. No man can do that. No preacher can
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  do that. Only Christ can do that. This is what's so
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  amazing to me. When the Lord became so
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  real in the life of Barnabas, suddenly this man became a conduit
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  for the consolation of Christ, for the grace of God, for the comfort
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  of the Holy Spirit, and he became an encourager to everybody whose path
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  he crossed. Now, we're going to see more about this over the next
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  3 days. But Barnabas is not confined to one church. He starts
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  in a church, and for the record, you ought to have a church, and you
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  ought to love your church, and you ought to be a dedicated member of your
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  church. And if you ever have to move, it ought to be because God
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  moves you, and if God moves you, you ought to find another like-minded
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  church and put your life and influence there. I'm a local church man from the
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  top of my head to the sole of my feet because I believe Christ is
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  at work in this world and he's working through his local churches. And Barnabas
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  was a local church man. He was at the local church in Jerusalem.
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  Before we're done, you'll see him at the local church in Antioch.
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  And then you're going to see him in many different cities across the
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  empire. And everywhere he went, he connected himself to God's people.
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  And everywhere he went, he was an encourager.
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  There's 2 kinds of church members, 2 kinds: drainers
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  and refreshers.
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  I grew up in a pastor's home. My dad pastored the same church for 33
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  years. That's a long time. And I grew up around God's
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  people, and God's people are the greatest people on earth, but God's people aren't perfect
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  people. And if you're waiting on a perfect church, you better just give up the
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  search now. My grandpa used to say, if you find a perfect church,
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  don't go there, you'll mess it up. He was exactly right about that.
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  But I learned something. There's some church members that are
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  there just to see what they can get out of it, and usually
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  those people are drainers.
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  I meet them everywhere I go. How you doing? Oh,
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  it's tough. I call them Eeyore Christians. You remember Eeyore?
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  Everything bad, everything on the down note in minor key.
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  And then you get around some people, they're different.
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  They're refreshers. You can't always
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  put your finger on it. It's not just personality. No, no,
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  it's not them. It's Christ in them. You get around some people and they
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  speak with such faith and hope and they have the joy of Jesus
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  in their life and they show the love of God. And just to be in
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  their presence, you feel like you've been with the Lord.
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  How many of you know what I'm talking about? And I want to say,
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  may God multiply their kind. I don't know
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  this church. I really don't know anything about this church, but I know this: every
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  church I'm in needs more men and women like Barnabas.
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  What is this consolation? Can I give you 3 simple little thoughts
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  just from one verse? Look at verse 36. They're all right here in the first
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  mention of Barnabas. This is a church member known as consolation. Why was
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  he a consolation? You want to write them down? Number 1, I think
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  his devotion to Christ was part of that consolation.
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  It's encouraging to see somebody totally given to Jesus.
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  His devotion to Christ. You say, well, where do you see that in the verse?
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  Have you ever wondered why God told us he was a Levite?
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  Do you remember the Levites in the Old Testament? They were the priestly tribe.
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  Remember the Levites? The sons of Levi that was Aaron
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  and the priestly tribe. And the Levites were to be
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  people totally given to God, set apart to the Lord. Now this
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  is fascinating to me. You do know nothing in the Bible is there by accident,
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  right? Look at the verse carefully. The Bible says he was a Levite,
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  and then the Bible tells us in verse number 37 that he had
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  land. How many of you see that? Hold on to your seat. Did you
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  know one of the things that God said the Levites were not allowed to do
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  was his own land.
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  This is a religious man. He's a Levite. I just got back from
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  Israel. Our guide there, Avi was his
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  name, last name is Cohen. It's a Levitical name.
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  He said to me— by the way, I've been praying for his soul. Help me
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  pray for salvation. He needs to know who the Messiah is. And Avi
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  said to me, I'm of the tribe of Levi. He knows his tribe still.
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  I'm of the tribe of Levi, the Kohathites. They're found in Scripture. That's my
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  tribe. That's my people. That was the group that Barnabas
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  was of. And this is what struck me. Here is a man who was given
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  to religion. He was of the tribe of Levi, but that didn't change his
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  life. As a matter of fact, he's become so secular-minded,
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  he's not even doing what God told the Levites to do.
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  But I love this. What religion could not change in this man,
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  Christ changed in this man. He's not given to religion,
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  he's given to Christ. And let me just tell you, when you get devoted to
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  Jesus Christ, he reorders your priorities, he changes every area
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  of your life. That's the consolation. There's a second thing.
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  Look at the verse again. Not only is there a connection here to Christ,
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  there's a connection to others. Watch this. His devotion to Christ was a
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  consolation. His determination to help others was a consolation.
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  This was a man who now, because he had experienced
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  the love of God and had fallen in love with Christ, began to love other
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  people. We're living in a hateful time right now.
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  I've never seen so much strife and contention in my life.
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  Look around, scroll social media. Don't do it long, you'll be depressed.
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  But you watch all these people fussing and fighting. Do you
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  know who stands out in that? People who who are filled with the love of
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  God. Because it's not all about them.
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  They're so given to God. Watch this. Jesus said, you love God,
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  and if you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength,
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  guess what you do? Now you love your neighbor as yourself. Your relationship to God
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  changes your relationship to everybody else. And now you stop living so
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  self-centered. We're all stinking self-centered people, you know.
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  And suddenly God turns you upside down and inside out. And you begin looking at
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  the needs around you and think, how could I encourage that man? How could I
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  help that woman? How could we minister to that family? How could I reach that
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  hurting soul? How can I pray for those people? Look, you want
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  to know what revival looks like? I'm telling you, I'm showing you in the life
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  of one of God's great servants. Revival looks like this: you
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  fall in love with Jesus and you begin showing the love of God to others.
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  There's a third thing. Look at the verse, because the Bible says in verse 37,
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  when he had land, he sold it And he brought the money and
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  laid it at the apostles' feet. Here is not only his
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  devotion to Christ and his determination to help others, here is his dedication
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  to his church. He's given— I love this— he's
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  given to the local assembly and what's going on there. It's not
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  about the men. You've got a great pastor.
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  I do not really know your pastor well. Over the last few days, we've talked
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  a number of times, and I had a meal with him today and his beautiful
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  family, and I just listen to his heart. Did you know you got a real
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  shepherd in this church? You ought to thank God God's given you a shepherd in
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  this church. There's churches all over this country looking for pastors right now.
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  They call me every week. You got anybody, anybody that you can recommend
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  to us to come preach the Bible? You got somebody that leads you and feeds
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  you. Thank God for it. But I want to tell you, it's not about him.
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  No, it wasn't about the apostles. When he laid
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  that money at the feet of the apostles, that wasn't being given to the apostles.
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  That was being given to the work of the local church and the advancement of
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  the gospel and the care for the needs of others. I love
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  this thought. It was bigger than Barnabas and it was bigger
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  than the preacher and it was bigger than any one person. He was connecting
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  his life and his resources to the greatest thing in the world,
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  and that's the work of God through the local New Testament church.
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  Now I'm just gonna tell you something. You fall in love with Jesus,
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  begin to love others and love the local church, and I'm telling
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  you, that is a Christian that will be a great
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  consolation to everybody that he comes in contact with.
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  Did you know in the very next chapter there's the exact opposite, the contrast,
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  the flip side of the coin to this man? That's right.
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  There's a man in the next chapter named Ananias. He had a wife by
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  the name of Sapphira. Anybody remember them? And you
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  know what they did? They had land. Yeah. And they sold it.
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  And they brought part of the money.
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  And they gave a portion of it. But they told everybody they
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  were giving all of it like Barnabas had. And they fell
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  down dead. The Bible says that
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  people didn't want to join that church because people were dying there. How many of
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  you can understand that? Can I just tell you, the kind of church I'd like
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  to be a part of is not a dead church, it's a living church.
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  And living churches are made up of members like Barnabas, not people
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  like Ananias and Sapphira. You want to kill a church? Let me
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  tell you how to kill a church. By the way, I've been in some dead
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  churches. I've been in some meetings where I wanted to preach on Lazarus come forth
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  every service. Dead as a hammer. You wanna kill a church?
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  Be partially given to God. Be partially
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  given to the church. Be partially given to the needs of others. No,
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  no, you wanna live in church? Be entirely given to God.
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  Give it all. You know the difference between Barnabas and Ananias?
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  Barnabas was a genuine, authentic man, and Ananias was
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  a pretender. Listen to me with your heart just a moment.
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  Don't be a pretender. Pardon me, too much
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  plastic Christianity going on today. That's why when
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  the heat gets turned up, people melt.
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  It's all plastic. It's not genuine.
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  You know what we need? We need revival of some brethren like Barnabas,
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  the sons of consolation. And I tell you on the authority of the Word of
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  God, if we'll have more people like Barnabas,
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  We'll see the great power and great grace of God in our towns and in
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  our churches, and we'll experience what only God can do.
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  If this Bible message has been used of God in your life or
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  we can pray for you in some definite way, please contact us at
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  enjoyingthejourney.org. We hope you will share the message
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  with others who may also be encouraged by it. For additional full-length
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  Bible messages, please visit Dr. Scott Pauley's YouTube channel.
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  Tomorrow is the Lord's Day, and we want to encourage you to be faithful
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  to attend a Bible-preaching church in your area this Sunday.
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  Thank you for listening to The Weekend Pulpit, and don't
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  miss Enjoying the Journey daily devotional podcast each Monday through Friday.