Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 1, 2018 | Game Changing Moves - Make A Barnabas Move

Transcript

July 1, 2018 | Game Changing Moves - Make A Barnabas Move · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is a cool thermomper.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you noticed, if you counted the number of X's and O's and so forth, it's 11 on each side.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: What sport is that?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: What we call, yeah, what the world calls football, what we call soccer.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure there are at least two or three of you watching the World Cup with me.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, good, good.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's somebody that knows.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's the greatest sporting event in the world is happening right now.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um that's great.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this week, of course, happy birthday, America, this Thursday.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that cool?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or Wednesday?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wednesday.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That day is it?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, whatever.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, this Wednesday.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you get hope you eat a lot of uh hot dogs and hamburgers and so forth.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Someone reminded me that nothing says let's celebrate America quite like drinking beer and playing with explosives.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what's happening this week.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're just visiting today, we're in a series called Game Changing Moves.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I stole that title, as you know, from the title of a book.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see them out in the lobby.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you signed up for them last week, couldn't get them, they got sold out.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Game changing move, Chad Parks, uh wrestling coach at Shiny Heights, spoke last week, and he'll also speak again.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Number 10 in this series in August.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: He did a great job.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this is week number three, and each week I'm beginning by sharing with you uh one of my favorite game-changing moves.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh one was, first one was the Royals, way back when.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: This one, of course, is one that took place 10 years ago, when uh KU was one of four teams, the four number one seeds, the only time all four number one seeds have made it to the final four.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: KU was playing in the final game.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: KU's lost three times.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Memphis has only lost once.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Memphis is favored.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Memphis with two minutes and 12 seconds to go goes up after Derrick Rose, I think, hit a shot, goes up by 9.60 to 51.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is uh is very dim uh in San Antonio for the Jayhawks, which uh 49% of you really love and 51% of you hate.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, but anyway, through a series of miracles which have made Memphisabans very sad uh ever since, four out of five free throws missed by the Tigers.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh KU comes back, is only down by three with six seconds to go.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Mario takes a shot that goes through the hoop to tie the game with two seconds to go, they go into overtime.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sports Illustrated called it Mario's miracle, and they were right that that was the game-changing move.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a KU fan this morning, at least you get to cheer.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: K-Staters, you'll have your time later.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So feel free to be happy about this.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Greatest shot in Jayhawk basketball history, and they became champions.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say a quiet yay?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yay, yay.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um, two claps.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was good.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so but there's a game-changing move I want to share with you about this morning that happened to the Bible.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna encourage you, this is number three in our series, to make a barnabus move.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the best way to introduce it is to tell you about the girl who graduated from KU with a teaching degree, brand new teacher in the fall, in her first class.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: She'd taken those child psychology courses.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: She was determined to really help out, you know, the students that that maybe felt, you know, were behind academically, and she just couldn't figure out how to know who they were.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: She wanted to know who they were first day of class.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So she picked a really interesting way of doing it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: She started out the class by saying, Everyone, everyone here who thinks they're dumb, stand up.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: No one moved.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: She repeated it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And after a few seconds, finally, Johnny stood up hesitantly.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Johnny, do you think you're dumb?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, he said, No, ma'am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Johnny was giving his new teacher the gift of inclusion.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to share with you the New Testament character who we owe so much to.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: The early church wouldn't perhaps have existed without him.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Joe, and he's introduced to us.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Joe is in Acts chapter 4, 36 and 37.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now that was his given name, Joseph.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: He came from Cyprus.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Cyprus, big island out there in the Mediterranean.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was a, he was of the tribe of Levi.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Levi was the tribe, the poorest tribe normally, because they couldn't own any land.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: They supplied, remember, the religious people for the temple, the priests and so forth.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But he didn't serve in the temple.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: He lived in Cyprus, but clearly his was a business family.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: He had money.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was pretty wealthy, and he was a Levite from Cyprus by birth, now had moved to Jerusalem.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he is the one whom the apostles, whom his friends and those who knew him best, they called him instead by a nickname.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: The nickname was Barnabas or Barnavas.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Bar is uh bin, is as you know, bin is in Hebrew, means son, but Aramaic, which they still speak in Syria and some places, Aramaic, the language of the common man in those days, to say son, you said Bar.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Navas, Barnavas, they called him son of encouragement.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Which, by the way, if you've probably seen the word son of, like son of man, Jesus' favorite term for himself, son of God, son of thunder in the Bible.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean daddy was named thunder.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Daddy was named man.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or daddy was named encouragement.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Son of man means the picture is that you're son of something, it's as though this is the characteristic, it's as if both of your parents were this thing, therefore that's who you are.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, when he said I'm the son of man, was saying I am fully human, human in every way, totally human.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when he was called the Son of God, that meant he's also totally God in every way.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is a mystery, of course.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those, it's the theanthropic person of Jesus Christ, the fully God and fully man, which the we were once told hundreds of years ago that you become in you get insane if you try to understand it, you go to hell if you don't believe it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not exactly true.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so Jesus, 100% man, 100% God.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Son of thunder, James and John, sons of thunder, what does that mean?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you think of when you think of thunder, that's what they were like.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: They were loud.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, made loud noises.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: They scared you a little bit.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were sons of thunder, they were thunderous people.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Son of encouragement means Barnabas was through and through that big teddy bear who, in fact, all the time, every time you see him in Acts, he's got his arm around somebody.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's just so loving and so inclusive and so encouraging.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so they called him Son of Encouragement, the encourager.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he sold a field.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a way he encouraged people.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you have money, you can encourage a church, of course, by giving.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he sold a field he owned in Cyprus, obviously.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Levites couldn't own land in Israel.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he brought the money and he laid it at the apostles' feet.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's left behind, as we hear about people in Acts like Stephen.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen's a martyr.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he he loves Jesus, and so the super orthodox Jews hate that, and so they kill him, they stone him.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and we read that there was a young man named Saul who carried, who held the cloaks.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: They gave him their jackets, their coats, and he sat there watching it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Saul grew up to be public enemy number one of the church.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: He became basically a terrorist, a terrorist in the church.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and he would uh he would uh it was, in fact, in Acts chapter 8 it says he ravaged the church, a word only used otherwise for a wild animal.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: This guy, Saul, as he grew up, was like a wild, when the church saw him coming, man, they ran and hid, because he had a face like a wild animal.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do anything to kill Christians who worship Jesus, thinking, thinking like Muslim terrorists that they're doing God a favor.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we read in Acts chapter 9 that heaven does a game-changing move on him.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Saul is breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And having ravaged the church in Jerusalem, now he's heading a hundred miles north-northeast to Damascus, still the capital of Syria, one of the oldest cities in the world, 6,000 years old.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that if he found any men or women up there belonging to the way, which is what they called Christianity then, he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there he goes and his super orthodox Jewish thugs, and they're headed up to Damascus.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was nearing Damascus, a light from heaven flashed, heaven opened, and he could see Jesus up there, everybody else was blinded, and he heard him say, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, What?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you, sir?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and and the answer comes back, I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when Paul, who later would write all about it, that's when he learned that Jesus so identifies with his church, that he calls it his body.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's the head and there's the body, and therefore, when you persecute his church, his believers, you're persecuting him.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so at that moment, that game-changing move by God, like the one Chad told us about that last week, where God crippled Jacob, that's what he did to Saul here.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Saul became a Christian.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Saul trusted Christ.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, Saul goes up to Damascus and then up to Antioch, and he's preaching and he's witnessing.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, in the days before TV and good cell phone service back then, uh, they didn't hear it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't, they weren't sure about that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: They heard rumors about it down in Jerusalem, but they didn't they didn't know whether it was true.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really believe that the terrorist of all terrorists could become a Christian.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So later, Saul decides he wants to go to Jerusalem, back to his hometown, and now he's excited.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to join the church down there, and he's pretty pumped.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so he arrives in Jerusalem and he tries to meet with the believers, but they're all afraid of him, which makes sense, doesn't it?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't believe he had truly become a believer.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like, by the way, what happens, been to I've been to a number of Arab countries, and what happens in an Arab country is that when a Muslim, a fervent Muslim, comes to Christ, he immediately becomes, of course, hated by his family and his community.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when he tries to join the church, he oftentimes finds that there's a cold shoulder to him because they're worried.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're worried.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have I been told over in Arab countries we're not sure we should let him in?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're afraid he might be a spy, that he might be just here to get our names and turn us in and so forth.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happened to Saul.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can sort of picture him going into Jerusalem, and it's Wednesday night, it's prayer meeting night, or whatever.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: They met in house churches in Jerusalem, didn't have a big building like this.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he found out where one of them was meeting, and he goes and knocks on the door, and they open the door, and then they they're shocked.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Hey, hey, hey, here I am.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can I worship Jesus too?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, Hey, I'm I'm sorry, small group's full right now.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I apologize for that, but we just we don't have room, you know, in the house.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another one meeting, you know, several blocks over.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll we'll tell you the way to do that.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: See ya.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they close the door.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then so he goes over to the next one.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: He knocks there, but they've the this they've you know, the cell they've called over with a cell phone, or they've sent a runner or something.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the way I picture it is they don't open the door.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: He keeps knocking, you hear them in there, but they're not opening the door.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he sees the living room, you know, curtain move a little bit and he knows they're watching him.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so he keeps he keeps looking to meet with the believers.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: He can't hang around with his old buddies, the Haredeim, they call them in Israel today, the super orthodox, because they they're angry.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're so mad at him for becoming a Christian.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: They've they've heard the truth.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And finally he finds the apostles themselves, the Peter, Andrew, James, John lot, you know, and they're having a board meeting or something, and he walks in on them, and chairs crash to the floor, and and the apostles jump up and their faces are white.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, I'm one of you now.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I've I've come to grips with God, I'm saved, you know, I love him, I believe in him, and so forth.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they're going, you know, listen, we need we need some time to get used to the idea.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'd like you to prove yourself to us, maybe take six months or something like that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, in the end, you know, they say, and Paul walks out the door, I can see him with his head down, and they shut the door behind him and sigh, deep a sigh of relief.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: But then the door opens again just a short time later, and there's Barnabas.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas, the guy that Saul had met up in Damascus and again in Antioch.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas, who had enough money to be able to travel around to all of these towns, and Barnabas, who was a believer in him, and here's Barnabas with his arm around Saul, bringing him in.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas goes, You know me, guys, right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, Oh, yeah.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're the only reason we have a church.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, you know, for the gifts.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Barnabas says, This guy's legit, I gotta tell you.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're scared of him, but Saul is legit.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's the real thing, he's really trusted Christ.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and and we read about that in Acts 9.27.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the game-changing move for both Saul and for the early church.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus and how the Lord had spoken to Saul.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he also told them that Saul had preached bully in the name of Jesus in Damascus.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Wow! And he goes, You need to accept him as you accept me.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: They looked at Barnabas and looked at Saul and they said, Okay.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love how the artist, one artist put it.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, The brothers, this is Saul of Tarsus, and he's one of us now.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Andrew's going, oh no, gulp.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter's going, not that's Saul.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably how it was back then.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But Barnabas stayed at it.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of these guys that was a connector, you know, as Malcolm Gladwell likes to put it.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: He linked people together and he was an encourager.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the result was phenomenal.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Acts 9, 28.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So Saul stayed with them, and he moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord, and in the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's a key verse in Acts.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: That verse, or a verse much like it is used, though you probably didn't realize this.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Six times in Acts.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the outline of Acts, and each time it says it, it's because something great has just happened.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's great that just happened here?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is that Barnabas did something remarkable.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: He gave Saul the gift of inclusion.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he transformed Christianity by doing that.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about this with you today because um because this has happened to all of us.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: This has happened to all of us.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because all of us grew up, and we all of us, I think, know uh we have experienced and we have memories of being excluded on the playground.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, recess, ever?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I imagine I I have a lot of those memories because starting in second grade, I was always two years younger than all the boys in my class.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, when we went out to recess at school, if if there was an even number of kids, you know, choosing up, of boys choosing up for football or basketball, it was fine.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I got chosen last, I got to play.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if it was an odd number, like they're 11, and we're choosing up for basketball, well, generally I was almost, I was the one excluded.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean I'm I was always watching and wishing.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Little, may I say this though, little did I realize at that point how valuable, valuable those experiences were to me.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I did not realize that later on in my life, I would thank God for the fact that I was at those young ages that I was excluded, that I was left out, that I would gain the precious experience of knowing the feeling of being excluded, knowing how wonderful it felt to be brought in, to be included.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that feeling is one that must be experienced so that maybe later in life you can have this sort of magnetic draw toward the person who's sitting alone in church, or the kid who's sitting alone at the end of the bench, or the person who's getting excluded, right?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or the person who's just gotten out of jail, or the woman who's just going through divorce, or the refugee, or the homeless person, or the vagabond, or the bum, and you don't understand, it's it's that doesn't come automatically.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: You somehow have to go through life and experience some blood, sweat, and tears.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And let me say to you, dads and moms, the please think for a second about your mission in life.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is not to protect your little darling from every experience of exclusion which will come to them at school, every experience of bullying, every experience of not getting on the team.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing for a five-year-old is not getting included.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing for your 10-year-old is not being popular, the most important thing for your 15-year-old is not making the team.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: What is most important, right, is that they become at age 20, 25, 30, 40, and 50, they become the kind of a person who has the kind of character, who's drawn to the outcast, who's drawn to the refugee, who's drawn to the orphan or the widow or the excluded person.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And your mission, I'm just saying it, your mission, dad and mom, is to think long-term.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: For exclusion doesn't stop on that recess on the playground.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: It continues, doesn't it?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Into adulthood, continues at work and at college and graduate school and cliques and in clubs.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: People of all ages exclude each other for hundreds and hundreds of years, as you well know.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: People have been excluded all over the world, especially African America, because their skin was a darker color.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And all over the world have been excluded because they were Jewish.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Even today in the Olympics, Arab nations instruct many of their athletes, instruct them not to go in a swimming pool, not to go in a boxing ring with somebody who comes from Israel.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Exclusion.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it was disgusting to me that just two years ago, Brazil Olympics, Facebook of all things, Facebook joined the anti-Semitism, refusing to list Israel and Israel's flag as part of the alphabetical list of nations.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Exclusion.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You and I know what it's like.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: We knew what it's like when we were young, and we girls couldn't climb up there and get in the treehouse with the boys, and the boys couldn't go in the girls' rooms, and and and girls were excluded by other girls because they weren't cool enough.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and that that kid that unfortunately decided to wear the KU jersey when it was school picture day and Manhattan Elementary School, you know.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love I love that picture.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love that picture.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: That boy knows forever what it's like to be excluded.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you get excluded because you come from a different country.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you desperately need someone, you want someone, you'd love to have someone who makes a barnabas move, who comes and gives you the priceless gift of inclusion.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Inclusion.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I thank the Lord that I went through those exclusion experiences so that I would have a sort of a rabid alertness to excluded people the rest of my life.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you ask, who in the world then should we include?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Who should we keep an eye out for?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously the first answer to that would probably be well, let's look at who Jesus, the most inclusive of all people, let's look who he included.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, Jesus grew up in a very exclusionary society, Jewish Jewish society in the first century.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the main people they excluded were you and me.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So 98% of us who are non-Jewish, that is Gentiles.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus spoke up and offended many when he said, I have other sheep, by the way.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, he said, I'm a good shepherd.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Shepherd gives life for the sheep.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, Yeah, we know we're the sheep, we're the Jews.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I must bring them also.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus deliberately included Gentiles.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then he said, I include women, even sinful ones.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: He meets with that woman, drinks from her hand there at the well in John 4.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Comforts the adulteress, women caught in adultery.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In John 8 and in John 12, allows a woman to bring perfume and wipe his feet with her hair in gratitude for forgiveness.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: In a society that excluded women, he includes them.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: In a society that said that children should be seen and not heard.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Let the little children come to me.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: But how about Jesus?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: How about how would he do with criminals like the worst criminals, like white-collar criminals?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he said, looking at Zacchaeus up the tree, this guy who took advantage of his own people, he said, I include men who, for very good reasons, are outcasts.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I include the disgusting and the unclean.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I even included a demon-possessed guy.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 5.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when God has asked them, could you give us just a summary of whom you include?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: He tells three parables in Luke 15.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I include the people who've wandered away and have gotten themselves lost, the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son, those whom everyone else excludes.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have a wife who's been a school counselor and presently principal of a school, and we talk about this a lot.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's involved in this a lot.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of educated people in education school system here.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had so many hands last.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So raise your hand if you're part of the school system, a teacher, anything at a school.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you've probably come across this poem.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: My wife loves it.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Kids who are different, these are the people you include.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Here's to the kids who are different, the kids who don't always get A's, kids who have ears twice the size of their peers and noses that go on for days.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here's to the kids who are different, the kids they call crazy or dumb, the kids who don't fit with the guts and the grit, who dance to a different drum.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's to the kids who are different, the kids with a mischievous streak.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: For when they have grown, as history's shown, it's their difference that makes them unique.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Pull a barnabas move.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the gift of inclusion.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But how about if they refuse to be included?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: How about if they're prickly loners?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love the poem by Edwin Markham?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: He drew a circle that shut me out.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: But love and I had the wit to win.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: We drew a circle that took him in.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: You go after them patiently.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love the name of this camp, Camp Barnabas.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Our church has been involved in this camp.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have a nephew who found his Abe, who found his wife at this camp, Camp Barnabas.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: A camp composed, kids of all ages who are oftentimes outcasts.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: But people who make a Barnabas move.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Give those kids the gift of inclusion.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: You never know, right?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: When one kind act or one word of encouragement will change a life forever.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And every one of you, I think, can name someone who put their thumbprint on you.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: For me, his name was Dave.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was an athlete.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: He was a college athlete when I was an absolute nobody, a dork, a dweeb, a little kid.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you have somebody who did that for you.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: You had someone who did that for you, someone who took you under their wing, a barnabas who gave you the gift of inclusion.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's a risk, yeah?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's two big risks to becoming a barnabas, making a barnabas.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: One is that you'll, one is that you'll you'll become an outcast yourself.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you sort of go after the ugly guy or the ugly girl or the outcast or that, you know, the converted Muslim or whatever and try to bring them in, chances, you know, they may just push you out, too.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: They may say, we don't want you anymore if you're gonna force them into the circle.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: The other danger is, I think, uh, just as common, and that is that you might not be excluded, but you might be suckered.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because big shaggy dogs that bring stuff home, you know, that includes stuff, sometimes they bring stuff home that turns out not to be as sweet-smelling as they thought.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you can bring someone into the circle, and you find out they're really not all you promised that they'd be.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas was taking a chance, bringing him in.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's true, Saul could have been taking names, you know, so that he could go after them later.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: But Barnabas took that chance, and God says, you know what?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've taken a chance on you.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes I've been taken advantage of, but I've still got open arms.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've still got an open ore, open door.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still bringing you in.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you've taken advantage of me.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Take that chance.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Back in Portland, Oregon, I picked up the Oregon in and told about a fifty story about a 15-year-old girl named Kayla.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I won't mention her last name.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Kayla was, the story went, had a reputation in her high school being promiscuous.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, she apparently succeeded, got herself pregnant, quit school.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: But her um her high school counselor just would not let it in there.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: High school counselor made her a special project.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Her high school counselor called her and went by her house repeatedly, and finally, finally talked her into coming back to school for the sake of your child, coming back to school, for the sake of your child, get a degree.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Helped her get a degree, and I thought, that's that's that's a a girl, a grown girl who made a barnabas move who gave Kayla the gift, priceless gift of inclusion.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Once, and Hank will remember this, Cleve Blair came up here on stage, and we were interviewing him and so forth, and and it was astounding what he said.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I need to tell you that all I am, I owe to my big brother.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I grew up out here in the country, and I was really a nobody, and I was kind of I was weak.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was just average intelligence, I was not cool, I was extremely painfully shy.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: My big brother, he was popular and he was a good athlete, and he was funny, and and in high school he won student most voted most likely to succeed, and everybody liked Earl, not me.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't always get along, he said.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: When he became a Christian in high school, I was really angry.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was really angry at him for becoming a Christian.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said, My agoraphobia, Cleve said, my agorob, my my fear of crowds got so bad in high school, I just quit.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just went home, I said I'm not going to school again.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of big brothers, you know, at that point would just say, What?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, gonna be a jerk, you can stay home, gonna ruin your life?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's your choice.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, not Earl.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Earl went to the principal and he talked about me, and he got brought the books home, and he helped me and the tests too, until he got me through, got me my GED.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: By that time, he was uh he was a successful engineering student at KU.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, he he made me get in the car one day after I got my GED, and he drove me to KU and he took me into the engineering school, and he took me into the dean's office and told the dean about me.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the dean said, Well, if you're Earl's brother, yeah, we'll let you in.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Cleef said, Everything I am today, I owe to this guy next to me, I owe to my big brother.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Earl made a barnabas move over and over again on his little brother.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: He gave him the gift of inclusion.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Some years ago, a brilliant, a brilliant poet, a songwriter, um wrote a remarkable set of words and decided to include it in a hymn called Rescue the Perishing.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Except that this stanza was not about perishing spiritually, it was really about perishing emotionally.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And those words go like this: down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that only grace can restore.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, cords that were broken will vibrate once more.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do that.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can rescue the perishing.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can come alongside someone who's broken down and excluded and left out, and you can give them the gift of inclusion.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's only one person in the whole Bible who's called good.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: One time somebody came to Jesus and said, uh, Jesus, you are such a good man, and Jesus said, No, no, no, no, no.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't call me good.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Only God is good.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, God calls one person in the Bible good.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Who would that be?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who could that be?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Must be Abraham, maybe, maybe Moses, David, Daniel, Peter, Paul.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, the one person in the whole Bible who's called good is a guy named Joe.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: A guy named Joe.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's his real name, but of course that's not what everybody called him.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody called him Barnabas.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Barnabas, encourager, was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Pull a Barnabas move on somebody this week.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the gift of inclusion.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray and go to the table.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, who, when we were aliens and enemies, brought us close to the death of your son.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: He hung on the cross, and in his body and in his blood, he took our sins, died in our place, and in so doing embraced us and brought us inside the family.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.