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Heritage Academy

Dee Casper

Believe All Things

Oh Father, thank you for the privilege to be able to break the bread of life with the young people this evening.

I pray that you would be present in a mighty and powerful way, that you would not only be amongst us, but that the Spirit of Jesus would be within us.

Keep me from getting in your way this evening.

And I pray that you would do something wonderful through the text of Scripture and I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

How many people know of a guy named Barnabas?

I'm gonna give you a 30, 000-foot view of the influence that this guy had on people's lives.

This message is entitled Believe All Things.

Our basic goal is basically to talk about the power of believing in the people that you invest in and the people around you.

What if the very person that you're afraid of disappointing the most, God, actually believed in you?

What if the very person that you're just terrified of disappointing because you're weak, you're a failure, you don't do what you want to do.

What if that very person that you're terrified of disappointing believes in you?

What if he saw things in you that you didn't see in you?

What if he saw gifts and value in you that you didn't see in you?

And There's an example of someone in scripture who treated people that way, and his name is Barnabas.

Barnabas, and how many people have heard of the apostle Paul?

Yeah, so Paul, whenever he was first converted, he tried to go and meet with the disciples in Jerusalem, and they said, no, absolutely not, because they didn't believe that he was actually converted.

And so Barnabas goes to bat for the guy and says, no, this guy is the real deal.

What I love about this is that Barnabas didn't look at Paul and treat him like the person that he used to be.

The church was treating Paul like he used to be and based upon his past behavior, but Barnabas saw the man's heart and treated him as he could be and as he saw that his heart had been changed to be.

How many people have been in that situation that you decided to get serious for Jesus and no 1 took you seriously and it hurt you?

Because you were already taking a step and being 1 of those Jesus people when you weren't before and then everybody around you says, it won't last.

Yeah, Paul, the Apostle Paul, the greatest missionary our church has ever known, he's been there.

He knows exactly what it's like to get hate from the brethren.

And so it wasn't hate, but they didn't believe him.

Barnabas, when he was doing work in Antioch, he decided, you know what, I need help in this work that I'm doing here and you say there's nobody better for me to take with me than Paul.

And Ellen White even goes so far as to say this about that very thing.

She says, Paul's labors at Antioch in association with Barnabas strengthened him in his conviction that the Lord had called him to do a special work to reach the Gentile world.

The Apostle Paul, because Barnabas believed in him the first time and decided to take him on this missionary journey, by him taking that extra step and taking a risk, by the way, What if Paul wasn't for real?

And she says that because Barnabas gave him that chance, Paul became more convinced of his call to reach the Gentile world.

Now question, did Paul reach the Gentile world?

In Acts chapter 17 and verse 6 it says, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here to Paul turned the world upside down for the gospel of Jesus Christ Why Because somebody was willing to believe in him when he didn't seem like he was all that.

When all they had as far as a resume for him was all of his failures.

And yet Barnabas took a risk and stuck his neck out for this guy in front of the church, and he did it again in Antioch in an infant church that he's investing in and Paul thrived.

Because someone was willing to believe in him and invest in him during that time and he gave him opportunities to fail and he thrived.

Do not assume that the people around you can't do something because they used to be bad at something.

Don't assume that somebody can't be a Christian because they used to be a bad person.

You have no idea how much harm you're doing to somebody when you put that unbelief into their life.

He instilled belief into Paul, and Paul went on to change the world.

He did the very same thing for John Mark, by the way, and I don't have time to go into that.

Basically, they went on a missionary journey.

He's the guy who wrote the gospel of Mark, and the dude bailed on them.

He chickened out on a mission trip and left.

And so in Acts chapter 15, Paul and Barnabas, Paul says, hey, now that the Jerusalem Council has been decided, they say circumcision isn't mandated, they go back out.

Paul says, let's go visit the people we used to be investing in and just see how they're doing to keep investing in them.

And Barnabas says, yeah and let's bring John Mark.

Now if you're paying attention, Paul should not have that type of response because someone believed in him when no 1 else did.

So the division, it says, was so strong between the 2 of them that they parted ways.

And Barnabas and John Mark went 1 direction, and Paul and Silas went another direction.

And then at the end of 2nd Timothy chapter 4 he says, and I want you to bring Mark, bring Mark because he's useful to me for ministry.

Paul at the end of his life, the last letter he writes in the Bible, though he lived a little bit longer than that, in the end of that book he says, and bring Mark with you because he's useful to me for ministry.

Now I find that interesting because he was not valuable to him for ministry in Acts chapter 15, but he is now.

Because Barnabas kept believing in him and because he believed in him, he became more than he was.

And he began to be someone who actually succeeded in ministry.

He actually was an understudy of Peter and went on to write the Gospel of Mark, the first gospel written in the Bible, chronologically.

Matthew's first, the way it's all arranged, but Mark with the first 1 chronologically.

So there's great power in believing in people.

Barnabas believed in 2 folks who went on to make a huge impact on the world.

The gospel of Mark that was written to a church in the midst of persecution and discouragement, and in Paul, who went on to change the entire world.

Now, this premise of belief is absolutely powerful when you realize this.

Matt Parra is a guy who was the associate director at Arise whenever I went, and in 2011, he preached a sermon at ASI called Why Should You Believe in You, was the name of it.

Why Should You Believe in You, Watch It If You Can.

Louis Torres is the guy who started Mission College of Evangelism.

He's also the guy that started ASI Youth for Jesus.

Matt was a heroin addict in Orlando, Florida whenever this happened.

His mom started going to the ASI Youth for Jesus meetings.

David Asher was preaching, and she wants him to come to the meetings.

And he says, He says he'll go because he figures the odds of his mom forgetting are greater than his mom leaving him alone if he doesn't go.

And so to his utter chagrin, she remembers, she invites him, he goes, but he doesn't want to be there.

She's going through the baptismal classes and Matt has to sit there because she's his ride.

And Louis Torres strolls up to him and says, got like this slick back hair, looks like a guy from the fifties.

And he says, son, I'm so happy to see that you're going to be rebaptized.

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Believe All Things

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