003. Encourage Others

Saturday Blessings, may your day be full of Peace and Joy.

Over the years I have spent a fair bit of my church time in what I would probably call liberal churches that have been a bit loose on following Bible standards. I didn’t fit in that well because I wanted to follow the Bible more closely and I not only wanted to go to church to remember God’s Sabbath day, but I also wanted to keep it holy.

I wanted to keep it holy as the Bible teaches, but at church, my friends would come up to me and talk about all kinds of non-Sabbath things and I found it difficult to keep God’s wonderful day according to my understanding of the way the Bible asked me to keep it. -----  So I stopped  going to church for several years.

I stayed home, spent a lot of time in my Bible and in prayer and sang lots of praise and worship songs.

My deep desire was to develop a much stronger relationship with Jesus and our wonderful heavenly Father. But, I was missing fellowship with others.  So one day I decided to visit your church here, because I was told it was a conservative church.

Pastor Darrin and Dudley and Mary and Ray and Marlene and just about all of you folk put your arms around me and encouraged me. I felt so blessed.

Friends, on this journey of life down here, sometimes we get a bit discouraged about different things that happen.  I’m not going to ask you why you sometimes get discouraged, but I’d like you to raise your hand if it does happen to you from time to time.  (raised hands).   I’m joining you!  with two hands!

Out of my thankfulness to you wonderful people, I want to be an encourager to you too, just as you are to me.

With this in mind, I’ve titled the message today,

ENCOURAGE  OTHERS

I want to put up three brief passages from our Bibles, onto the screen.  The first one is where Paul is speaking.

Corinthians 7:5-7 

v5 “For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side.  Outside were conflicts, inside were fears.

v6 Nevertheless God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus,

v7 and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was comforted in you, when he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more.”

And then a bit further over to Timothy 1.  It’s Paul writing again, this time from the dungeon under Rome.   This time he’s writing to his young friend Timothy.

Timothy 1:15-18

v15  “This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

v16   The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain;

v17   but when he arrived in Rome, he sought me out very zealously and found me.

v18   The Lord grant to him that he might find mercy from the Lord in that Day – and you know very well how many ways he ministered to me at Ephesus.”

And then a few pages earlier to ----  

Thessalonians 5:11

“Therefore comfort each other and edify one another  (the dictionary tells me that ‘edify’ means ‘build up, lift one another up, encourage one another, especially in a moral or spiritual way’)  just as you also are doing.”

So there it is ---  “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another.”

OK.  Now …

All Christians experience discouragement.

In the middle of Paul's charge to Timothy, Paul begins to reminisce. He begins to think of some unpleasant memories, and in them he names two individuals, Phygellus and Hermogenes, people who at one time were close friends of Paul but now had deserted him. I wonder why he singled them out. After all, he had just said, "All those in Asia have turned away from me."

For some reason he selects two of them and names them. ----  Perhaps it was because they were at Ephesus, and he wants Timothy to beware of them. Perhaps it was because at one time they were close, intimate friends, and their departure hurt him more. At any rate, it must have hurt Paul. And he calls them by name when he lists them as deserters from the cause.

Then he balances that unpleasant memory by pointing to Onesiphorus, also a little-known disciple.  Onesiphorus had come to the great city of Rome and, at no small risk to himself, had searched diligently until he had found the apostle Paul. He'd come to see him. And he'd not only come on one occasion, but he had gone repeatedly to that dungeon.   

So Paul declared, ----

"He often refreshed me." (Or as one translator has it,)

"His visits were like a breath of fresh air." (Or,)

"His visits were like a tonic to me." (Or as Moffatt’s translation of the Bible describes it,)

"Many a time he braced me up."

The apostle needed to be braced up. He was feeling down. ----

"All who are in Asia have deserted me."

Sometimes we use a specific term for Paul's problem.  It’s not in the medical dictionary, but it’s a descriptive term, ----  

Paul had the ‘mully-grubs’.

He was really down.  Today, the medical industry has given it a new name called  ----DEPRESSION and they sell you some drugs to make it feel like it’s gone away.

You know this wasn't the first time Paul had been down. He was down also when he wrote that severe letter to the church people in Corinth – the Corinthians, when he found out about the immorality in that church and wrote them a severe letter. Paul was always putting himself in a position where he would get really down and need a boost. ------

So the apostle Paul had the mully-grubs. He was down. He got down fairly often.

How did Paul say it while he was waiting there at Macedonia? He said, ---- 

"We didn't have any rest. We were troubled on every side.  Outside were conflicts and inside were fears.”

That's telling it like it is, Paul.

You see, he'd preached one of those sermons that preachers don't enjoy preaching (though our people think we do). He'd confronted them with the demands of the gospel, and he had said in ----

Corinthians

"Christ calls us to holy living, and you aren't living holy lives." 

He laid it on the line.  You can read it in 1 Corinthians.  And then he waited around to see how in the world they were going to take the message. He had sent Titus over to check to see whether or not he would ever be welcome in that church again.

We know those sermons. We don't like to preach them, but we have to if we're going to be faithful to God’s Word.  So we do it now and again. --

Phillip Brooks (said) 

“There are two people you need to avoid: the timid surgeon and the timid preacher; neither will do you any good.” ----

When Paul saw what he needed to say, he said it, and then he was eaten alive by all the fears and the doubts about how the church people would take it.  ----

So we’ve looked at the fact that all Christians experience discouragement. ----  Now we’re going to see that  ----

God uses imperfect people to encourage others.

So Paul prayed for a miracle there in Macedonia. He prayed for a miracle, and in walked the man Titus. Isn't it amazing? He's looking for something spectacular, and in walks Titus. Paul says, ---

"The God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus."

Aren't you amazed that the Lord can use ordinary imperfect people like you and me?  He really can make us encouragers who can speak to others who are down, who are terribly discouraged. -----

You and I are disciples of Jesus.  I think about those first twelve disciples He had. They understood practically everything Jesus tried to say. And yet I shudder to think how it would have been for Him if He had not had them. I was proud of them, as you are, that time when most of the other people left Jesus, when He started talking about the cross and the troubles and trials that were coming.  Yes, many turned away.

Jesus said to those remaining,  ---

"What about you?  Are you going too?"

And His disciples replied, ----

"No, Lord. No. You have the words of eternal life. We're going to stick with You."  ----

-----   When Jesus came towards the end of His life, He was looking at that cross. I believe there was a strong note of gratitude in His voice when He said in ----

Luke 22:28 

"You are those who have continued with Me in My trials."

Maybe they didn't know how to say it, but just being there, they gave Him some encouragement. 

----When He went to the Garden of Gethsemane, He went hoping for two things:     He went to get encouragement from His heavenly Father, and He went to get encouragement from His disciples. We know they slept, but they hadn't always slept. Sometimes they were there, now and again they came through. I shudder to think what His life would have been like without their encouragement. ------

--------  I think too about Jacob, how he cheated his brother Esau.  You can read about it from Genesis 25 and on.   Esau was pretty angry about that so Jacob ran; he escaped with his very life.  After some years away, and after rearing a large family, Jacob came back to his home country of Canaan where Esau was still living.

Jacob didn't leave his father-in-law feeling too kindly toward him either. In fact his father-in-law Laban was the slippery character who made Jacob work twice as long to get the woman he wanted.  Nevertheless Jacob wasn’t too straight either.   

Then Jacob had that wonderful experience by the brook Jabbok, when he was really converted  ---  really came to know God.   But he still had to face Esau the next morning; the brother he has wronged so long ago.    He went out there, and he sent ahead of him that huge peace offering to Esau, all those hundreds of sheep and goats and cows and bulls, and camels and donkeys.  

When Esau sees him, he runs, falls on his neck, and hugs him and kisses him. And he says, "What do all these animals mean?"

Jacob says, "It's to gain favour from you."

"My brother, I have enough," says Esau. "My brother, I have enough." 

And a greatly relieved Jacob, says in ----

Genesis 33:10 

"Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God." 

------   You mean because someone we've wronged has been given grace to forgive us, and to call us ‘Brother’ after we've been anything but a brother, ----  do you mean they can see in our face, the face of God?

Jacob said, "Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God."  Jacob was so happy.  He was so encouraged.  ----

---  So with that thought in mind, we’re going to see that … 

God-given encouragement changes lives.

-------   William Hinson was a preacher who took some time off to go back to a theological college for an advanced degree.    He was one of the oldest people in the class. And there was another older man there who had also served in a church for some time. He sat on the other side of the lecture room from William.   The two older men didn't relate too well, I suppose, to the younger students because the two pastors had their own agenda, their own reasons for being there.  They were there to learn, and achieve, and get out and back to their churches again as soon as possible.  So they didn't have too much in common with the younger students.  ----

---  One day, William went over to see this other man, who happened to be a black man (he was the only black person in the class). At the end of the class, William said to him, "How about having lunch today?"

He said, “Fine.  Where do you want to go?”

William said, “Well, let’s try the cafeteria.”

They went to the cafeteria and enjoyed lunch and began to talk about their churches. The black preacher served in one of the largest predominantly black Baptist churches in America.   They began to talk about their work. And out of that talk grew a friendship, so that for the rest of their stay at the college, they spent a lot of time together.  

Toward the end of their study time, the black preacher invited William to go home with him one weekend to preach in his church.  He gladly accepted the invitation.   It was a great church. William was waiting for his turn to get up to preach, and the black preacher said something in his introduction of William that choked him up so much he found it difficult to continue.

He said to the congregation, "I want you to know that I set a deadline on the day I met this man. I told God that morning that if I didn't meet someone that day who said hello to me and wanted to spend some time with me, wanted to be my friend, then I was giving up my education. I was coming back home."

And William got all choked up, because what he had done was such a small gesture, it was nothing. ---

"Let's have lunch together." 

That’s all he said.   And out of it he not only found one of the best friends he ever had, but God used that invitation, unknown to William, as a word of encouragement to him in a time of bleak despair. Isn't it amazing that God can let an ordinary imperfect person like you and me, be an encouragement to others? -------

-----   I remember a story about the passenger train that comes in on a fairly high track into downtown Chicago.   Delphine has ridden on this very train.  It’s called ‘the elevated train’ because it comes in on a high track.  A young man was riding that train day after day as a commuter.   As the train slowed up for the station where he got off each day, he could look through an open curtain into a room of a nearby building and see a woman lying in a bed. She was there day after day, for a long time, obviously quite ill. He began to get interested in her since he saw her every day. Finally, he determined to find out her name. He discovered her address, and he wrote her a card, assuring her that he was praying for her recovery. He signed it,  ‘The young man on the elevated.’

A few weeks later, he pulled into the station on the train, and he looked through that window, and the bed was empty. Instead, there was a huge sign: ----

GOD BLESS YOU, MY FRIEND ON THE ELEVATED!  

----   You know, ----

Many times, the difference between health and illness is a word of grace - a word of encouragement - a caring gesture from someone who embodies the very spirit of Him who is the ultimate encourager. 

People are waiting, and isn't it fantastic that God can use people like us to do that?  Throughout history, God has always used ordinary people like you and me to encourage others.  -------

I think about David Livingstone when he climbed into the pulpit of a little church in Scotland.    He'd honed his sermon.    He'd prepared it so very well. He wanted to be a great preacher. He wanted to give his life on the mission field.    And when he got up to preach that night, he flapped his wings, but he couldn't get off the runway.   He tried, but finally he forgot his sermon altogether; so he apologized to the people and left in great shame.  ----

---  But Robert Moffat, the famous missionary, was there. And Moffat came up to him after the service and said, ----

"You can be a great and wonderful servant of God. Why don't you go to medical school?"   

-----   Well he did.  -----  Today you can't mention Africa without thinking about David Livingstone.  But what would have happened that day to David Livingstone without the encouraging word of Robert Moffat? -----

---  And what would have happened to Paul without Silas?   They’d just been flogged and beaten and cast into prison.  Silas helped Paul to sing at midnight in the prison. ------   You think Paul could have sung a solo under those conditions?    Silas helped him sing at midnight.    You and I need that support too.   Many other people in the community need our support as well.  You’ve probably heard me say it before, …

If we treat everyone as if they are hurting, we’ll be treating nearly everyone the right way.

Friends, remember that saying this week for every person you come across at the shops and work and school and on the telephone.   ----   You and I may not be saints in the Bible spotlight;  but we can be saints in the shadows. “I thank the Lord for Silas’s.”    If we didn't have people like Silas, if we didn't have a support system, we couldn't maintain our ‘happy faces’ , because we all get the mully-grubs.   It's a universal problem.

So here’s one of those verses we started with today. ---  

Timothy 1:15-18

v15  “This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

v16   The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain;

v17   but when he arrived in Rome, he sought me out very zealously and found me.

v18   The Lord grant to him that he might find mercy from the Lord in that Day (that’s the day when Jesus comes back again) – and you know very well how many ways he ministered to me at Ephesus.”  --

---  One scholar said that Paul's statement, "All who are in Asia deserted me," should not be read literally, that instead it is the sweeping assertion of a depressed man: ----  "Everybody, everybody, everyone is gone!" Paul needed an encourager.  

Sure Paul, you may have lost Phygellus, but you've got Onesiphorus. You may have to lose Hermogenes, but you have Timothy. -----  Without encouragers like that, we lose our perspective. We can't stand up to life. Even Jesus, our Lord, got down.   What did He mean when He said in ---

Matthew 26:38

"My soul is exceedingly sorrowful…."?   ------

Friends, we can thank God for those people in our lives who come as a breath of fresh air, as encouragers, who come into our lives just when we need them, and who are willing to pay the cost, to pay the price of putting themselves out, to be something for somebody else.

It costs something to put ourselves out, but oh my, where would we be if people had not put themselves out for us?

-----  We spoke earlier about a preacher by the name of William Hinson.   He conducted the funeral service for a man who had left elaborate instructions concerning his funeral.  One of the requests was that his coffin was to be buried in such a way that he was facing the church where fifty years earlier he had met Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.

William had met that man many years earlier through the man’s 10-year-old son. His 10-year-old son came to hear the new associate pastor. William Hinson was 18 years old when he took that church assignment. He was preaching his second sermon.   The 10-yr-old son was swinging his feet in the front pew. William was trying to remember his sermon and the kid was swinging his feet, and mucked up his preaching.  After a while he forgot what he wanted to say, so he quit preaching and had the people stand for the prayer at the end.

After the service, the 10-yr-old came up to William and he said, ---

"Brother William, how about coming to our house and having lunch?"   

Well, he went home with him, and met his family.  Straight after that episode, William went off to Bible college.  ----

--- A couple of weeks later he went to his mailbox, and pulled out a letter that rattled.  He opened it, and out fell a handful of coins;  fifty-seven cents.  And inside the envelope was a little letter from that boy. ----

"Dear Brother William, I'm sending you my egg money to help you go to school to learn to be a better preacher."

William had remembered where the boy’s father worked. He called him and said, "Mr. Morris, how can I send this money back? I can't keep it."

The boy’s father said, “I have news for you.  You have to keep it.”

“What do you mean?”

"I mean, he's taking better care of those chickens than he ever has in his whole life. He's sending you every cent of his profit, and he has publicly stated his intention to send you his egg money for as long as you go to school." He added, "If you send it back, you'll break his heart."

Well, for a few years he helped William go to the Bible college so he could become a better preacher.    Some years later this boy, now a man, flew over in his private plane to check on his investment in William Hinson.   God blessed that boy in business and he has since sent hundreds of people to Bible college.

For William Hinson, there came a time when he got that little boy's letter, that he didn't laugh; instead, he'd go back to his room and get on his knees and say, ---

"O God, help me to be worthy of that little boy's sacrifice." 

And suddenly, C level grades weren't good enough anymore. And just getting by didn't cut it for him. There was coming up within him a rising desire for excellence, which he had never known before. And at the root of it all was a little boy who was laying down everything for him, and William couldn't stop him.  He just had to respond to it. ----------

You know friends,

Jesus Christ was like that little boy.   Jesus laid everything down for all of us. 

He invested everything in us.  

We couldn't stop Him.   

He's the supreme encourager.   

He builds us up.   

He believes in us even when we don't believe in ourselves.   

We can't stop Him.   

We can't reverse what He did on the cross.       

We can only respond.

So friends, like Jesus encouraged us, we need to do as Jesus did and encourage others.

Thessalonians 5:11  RSV    

"Therefore, encourage one another, and build one another up, just-as-you-are doing."

Friends, please read this verse every day this week, and this month, and this year, until Jesus comes.

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Please stand with me as we pray.

Friends, if you have been blessed and challenged by this message, then please take time now to send it on to your friends.

To God be the Glory!