Sunday we begin our new sermon series focusing on Bible characters, our overall theme is: “They walked with God.” My focus will be on Barnabas – Son of encouragement.  A marathon runner said, “when I hit the 21st mile I lost all my strength – physically and mentally. There were plenty of people cheering me on from the sidelines but I still felt alone until my sister came out and ran alongside of me. She said, ” come on you can make it, I’ll run with you,” and she did! This is the sense we get from Barnabas, he didn’t just cheer people on from the sidelines, he put his running shoes on and ran the race with them. Lord, I thank you for those you brought alongside of me over these 80 plus years who insisted I could make it – may someone now be praying this same prayer about me!!