I think that unfortunately most of us are familiar with MURPHY’S LAWS-those humorous lists of things that, according to some guy named Murphy, can and do go wrong in life. For example:
- The other line at COSTCO always moves faster than the one you are in.
- The chance of the bread falling with the peanut butter side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet it is falling toward.
- No matter how long or hard you shop for an item-after you’ve bought it, you will see it on sale somewhere else cheaper.
- Any tool dropped while fixing a car will roll underneath to the exact center of the car.
- The repairman will never have seen a model quite like yours before.
- According to Murphy, you will remember that you forgot to take out the trash when the garbage truck is two doors away.
There are even teen versions of Murphy’s pessimistic list. For example:
- The shortest distance between two classes never takes you near your locker.
- Even the most absent minded teachers never forget a test.
And then one other that my own adolescence taught me to be true:
- Planned dates cause pimples.
Now, we all CHUCKLE at these laws, but at the same time we WINCE a bit when we hear them because our own experiences have shown us that more often than not MURPHY is right. We live in a world in which BAD and usually WORSE happens to us all the time. And all this unfairness and pain-all these inevitable disappointments in life combine to make our world a very DISCOURAGING place.
Think about your own life. How many times do you feel DISCOURAGED on a typical day? Have you ever had a fellow commuter sit on his horn because you didn’t catch the light changing to green fast enough for his or her tastes? Has your boss ever given you a hard time for some trivial reason? This past week when you filled out your taxes, did it make you feel discouraged-thinking you’ll never get ahead?
As a Christian have you ever felt discouraged after a day of living in a fallen world where Godly morals seem to be nonexistent-where the nightly news makes you just want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over your head? I don’t think I’m being too pessimistic to say this but I imagine all of us are very familiar with situations and experiences like this. We have all experienced discouraging days-and we all know how BAD they make us feel. I mean, sometimes discouragement is like a barren wind off a lonely desert. It blows on us and something inside us begins to wilt. At other times it feels more like a chilling mist. Seeping through our pores, it numbs our spirit and fogs the path before us.
Well-since the pain of DIScouragement is in fact so prevalent in our world, as Christians it is vital that we learn how to practice, ENcouragement. In fact Hebrews 10:24-25 says, we MUST, …consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. We MUST NOT give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but we MUST ENCOURAGE one another and all the more as we see the Day approaching. I Thessalonians 5:11 puts it this way. Encourage one another and build each other up.
Now, please note-the structure of the Greek in both of these texts is not that of a gentle suggestion. God’s Word doesn’t say, Oh by the way, if you are a Christian it might be nice to throw in a little encouragement now and then. No, this is a command from our Heavenly Father. It is His will that CHRISTIANS practice the art of encouragement and that His churches be places where seldom is heard a discouraging word. Our little community here and tens of thousands of other communities like it around the world are called by God to be islands of encouragement where people can come and find help to deal with the pain that comes from living in this cruel world of ours. This needs to be a place where we find others who believe in us and urge us on toward godliness.
And you know, when Christians LEARN to obey God in this-they attract lost people like a magnet because encouragement IS such a rare thing. Ours IS a discouraging world where the theme of life seems to be putting people down and pointing out their faults. So people are just naturally drawn to places where the opposite is found.
Now-since encouragement is such an important thing, let’s begin by defining it. What exactly is encouragement? Well, the word literally means to put courage INTO someone. In conveys the idea of giving someone the emotional strength to go on-in spite of the MURPHY’S LAWS of life. Another thing…the word for ENCOURAGEMENT comes from the same GREEK root for the word HOLY SPIRIT. The actual GREEK is para kaleo – a combination of two words: para meaning along side. and the word kaleo meaning to call. So, just as the Holy Spirit comes ALONGSIDE to help us, we are CALLED ALONGSIDE to help or encourage each other.
This means that when we obey God and encourage each other, we come as close to the work of the Holy Spirit as anything we do in God’s family. I would go so far as to say that an individual is never more Christ-like than when full of compassion, they come alongside of those who are down, needy, discouraged, or forgotten and simply encourage them. Now there are lots of ways to do this…
1. …but…the simplest form of encouragement is VERBAL
This involves using our WORDS to put courage into someone. And all of us know how good it feels to have someone encourage us in this way as they say things to us like, I really believe you can do this-and do it well! or You did a great job! or I am really impressed with your attitude.
This summer our youth will participate in the World Changers project in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Now World Changers is basically a huge Habitat for Humanity project for Christian teens. At each project young people are divided into groups of 15-20, including a few adults who know what they are doing when it comes to construction, and they are given a house to build or repair. They work very hard all week long on these projects and are often on the job by 7AM, working until late in the afternoon. Steve, I think you’ll find out that enforcing lights out is usually not much of a problem at WORLD CHANGERS! Lights ON is when it gets tough.
Well, I am convinced that one thing that makes it possible for teens to do all this manual labor is a thing they call Encouragrams. You see, when you arrive on campus everyone is given a large envelope with their name on it and it is taped to a huge wall along with the envelopes of the rest of the teens. There are tables at this wall with pencils and little pieces of paper called Encouragrams and throughout the week teens use these little pieces of paper to write each other notes brief words of encouragement to a crew member or friend.
I can tell you by experience that it is wonderful to come in dead tired after 10 hours of manual labor in the summer heat to find a note that says something like, Keep up the good work! or I know you are tired, but I know you can handle it! or Your sweat encouraged me to do the same! Many years ago when I took Redland’s teens to WORLD CHANGERS the ENCOUROGRAM wall was the most frequented place on campus. People would rather go there than sleep or eat! And this is because all of us do indeed hunger for encouragement. As that old film star from yesteryear, Celeste Holme, once said, We LIVE by encouragement and we DIE without it, slowly, sadly, angrily.
I think we each have a minimum daily requirement of uplifting WORDS from others that we must hear if we are to endure the discouragement that comes from living in a fallen world. As Proverbs 18:21 says, The tongue has the power of life and death. And as Proverbs 15:4 puts it, The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life.
VERBAL encouragement is indeed an important thing for Christians to learn to practice.
But, there are other ways to practice the art of ENCOURAGEMENT and by looking at the life of our next MAN ON MISSION, we can see three of them. His name is BARNABAS and he must have been an expert when it comes to encouraging others because this nickname he was given by the disciples literally means, Son of Encouragement. Take your Bibles and turn with me now to ACTS 4:32-37 .
32 – All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
33 – With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.
34 – There were no needy persons among them, for from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales
35 – and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
36 – Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement),
37 – sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
In this chapter from his life Barnabas demonstrated that a 2nd way we can encourage each other is,
2. …with our MATERIAL resources.
You see, at this point in history the little church in Jerusalem was going through particularly discouraging times due to the persecution of the Jewish religious leaders. As I told you last Sunday, these evil men did not want the crowd of Jesus’ first followers to continue to grow. And one of the things they did to try and nip this movement in the bud so to speak was to find Christians and dismiss them from their jobs-depriving them of a way to make a living.
This of course caused many believers to have a tough time financially. Some were no doubt unable to pay their debts. Many were even going hungry. And at this moment-when insecurity was mounting among the believers-Barnabas went out and sold some property that he owned, and brought the money to the Apostles for them to use for the good of the people of the church. He said in effect, Here, take this and distribute it to those people who are in trouble and in need. I have more than enough. I want this surplus to find its way to those whose faithfulness to Jesus Christ has caused them to have less than they need.
Now, the Scripture says that Barnabas was from the island of Cyprus. It also says that he was a LEVITE which means he would have owned no land in Israel. So this land that he sold was probably on the island of Cyprus. And if it was, then his gift was lavish indeed. You see, to own land on Cyprus was like owning a city block in downtown San Francisco.
Well, Barnabas’ great generosity was VERY encouraging to that church. In fact it set off a kind of chain reaction. His gift encouraged others to do the same and the writer of Acts seems to suggest that Barnabas’ act of encouragement paved the way for one of the finest periods in the history of the church. For a while at least, no Christian was totally possessive or selfish about his or her wealth. They became a real brotherhood and gladly and generously made what resources they had available to each other according to need.
So you see, Barnabas’ life shows that you don’ t even have to be able to speak to be an encourager. You can PUT COURAGE INTO someone who needs it by simply sharing your material possessions with them. We frequently get thank you notes from people who have received help from the deacon’s benevolence fund-saying how ENCOURAGING those gifts were. I think one of the main reasons God has called us to Conway, New Hampshire is to encourage that little church with our financial gifts. You should have seen the looks on their faces when we took them that check last year to help them with their building fund.
Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that you have to be wealthy to encourage in this way. I mean, any kind of MATERIAL offering can have incredible encouraging power. These past few months I have heard Gladys McClain frequently tell me how encouraging it was to her for Redlanders to simply offer her rides to the hospital so she could be with Dick. I remember the Moxley’s telling how encouraging it was for them to have Redlanders bail out their flooded basement and mop of the mess a few years ago. Several of you have commented how much it helped to have people bring in meals when one of your children was born.
You see, the truth is that sometimes words just aren’t sufficient. I mean when people are hungry or in physical need, telling them I’ll be thinking about you. isn’t enough. As James 2:15-16 says, Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well-fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? So-if you want to prove MURPHY wrong-if you want to encourage someone, look for ways to do so by giving to meet their material needs.
Now take your Bibles and turn to Acts chapters 9 and 11 because if we do I think we’ll see a third way we can practice the art of encouragement.
Let’s begin by looking at verses 26-28 of chapter 9:
26 – When he (Saul) came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.
27 – But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles.
He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.
28 – So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
Flip over to Acts chapter 11 and follow along as I read verses 25-26
25 – Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,
26 – and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people.
The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
I hope you noticed that in this episode of his life Barnabas shows us that a third way to encourage people…
3. …is by seeing their God-given POTENTIAL and urging them to pursue it.
Let me remind you at this point that before Paul was PAUL THE APOSTLE, he was SAUL THE PERSECUTOR OF CHRISTIANS. Remember? SAUL had been one of the ring leaders of those who tormented the early church. But he had not satisfied himself with firing Christians. No, Saul had arrested them and had them whipped and imprisoned-he even collaborated in having Deacon Stephen stoned to death. He even got permission from the Jewish authorities to go to Damascus and halt the beginnings of the Christian movement there. But on that Damascus road, Saul ran head on into the risen Christ Himself, and discovered to his great astonishment that those he’d been persecuting were telling the truth that Jesus was in fact the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah.
And-as a result of that experience, Saul became a follower of Christ himself. He in essence changed sides. Now-of course Jesus’ followers were understandably terrified of Saul. So when he walked down the aisle, asking to join the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem, he wasn’t welcomed with open arms. Those Christians hated and distrusted Saul. And, I can understand their feelings. I mean, they thought this might be a subtle trick that Saul was playing, a ploy on his part to enable him to infiltrate the ranks of the church so that he might find out who was part of the movement and destroy it from the inside.
That old adage about a leopard not being able to change his spots must have entered the apostles’ minds when Saul showed up-claiming to be a Christian. And just as they were about to kick him out-at that crucial moment in Saul’s life, WHO should step in but Barnabas-Son of Encouragement-and begin to do his thing! He said in essence, You guys are wrong about Saul. He met our Lord on the Damascus road. He has placed his faith in Him. Saul has changed! I can vouch for him! At the risk of his own good reputation, Barnabas took this former persecutor and went around to all the Christians in Jerusalem and put the weight of his influence behind the credibility of this new convert.
A couple chapters later we read that the church was growing very quickly-so fast in fact that it was too big for the leaders to handle. They needed other leadership to rely on-and again Barnabas did his thing. He went and searched for Saul and brought him back to Antioch. He must have said something like, Saul, you have what it takes to be a leader in the church. In fact it is obvious to me that God has in fact designed you and gifted you for this task.
Barnabas saw Saul’s God-given potential and urged him to pursue it! And all you have to do to see what a far-reaching act this was, is to read the rest of the New Testament. Doing so shows that the church came withing a hair’s breath of losing the gifts of it’s finest missionary because, with all his determination, Paul couldn’t have done what he did, without the acceptance of the rest of the church and that acceptance would not have come if BARNABAS, the SON OF ENCOURAGEMENT hadn’t been willing to take a chance on what everybody else considered a risky possibility. He saw potential in Paul and acted on it.
You know, I think the world is divided into people who think the best of others and those who think the worst of others. And as Christians we are called to see GOD’S BEST in all people and urge them to pursue it. Think about it. There could be a PAUL or a PAULA here in our body-someone whom God has gifted to help us take the Gospel in places it has never gone before and all he or she needs is a Christian to nudge them toward that God-given potential.
Okay, turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 15:36-41 and look with me at one other form of encouragement that Barnabas teaches us.
36 – Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.
37 – Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them,
38 – but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphyliia and had not continued with them in the work.
39 – They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,
40 – but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
41 – He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
Did you deduce the kind of encouragement Barnabas displayed here? At this point in his life this godly man showed that one other way to encourage others is by helping them to understand that…
4. …God gives us SECOND chances.
Even if we sin-when we repent God forgives us and helps us to start over. This text records a time when Paul and Barnabas were preparing for another missionary journey. And Barnabas suggested that they take John Mark with them. Well, Paul disagreed. You see, on their first missionary journey, Mark had found the going too rough, and had turned back and deserted Paul and Barnabas. Because of this Paul felt that Mark wasn’t dependable and he said as much. But Barnabas stood by his guns-and so did Paul.
Well, the result of this sharp disagreement was that Paul and Barnabas decided to part company. And so Barnabas took John Mark himself and set out for Cyprus. This is the last we hear of Barnabas in the book of Acts-but it is not the last we hear of the results of his encouraging actions here in chapter 15. You see, years later, when Paul was old and in prison, and feeling somewhat discouraged himself, he wrote Timothy and said, When you come, please bring JOHN MARK with you, for he is useful to me. (I Timothy 4:12 ) John Mark got the message and went to Rome. He became his former critic’s colleague until his martyrdom and then John Mark worked alongside of the Apostle Peter, whom he used as the oral source of the FIRST gospel ever written-the Gospel According to Mark.
Think of it! How many countless millions have been led to follow Jesus because they read of His footsteps in this Gospel. If tradition serves us well, John Mark went on to become the founder and bishop of the church in Alexandria, North Africa. And John Mark was able to do all this because Barnabas encouraged him by helping him to see that God does give us second chances. The amazing fruit of John Mark’s life was the result of the power of this form of encouragement, expressed through a Christian who believed that with God’s help we CAN start over.
Have you ever wished you could have another chance-that the slate could be wiped clean? Have you ever day-dreamed and thought, If I could go back in time and re-live my life again, I wouldn’t do this and I wouldn’t do this or this…etc. I think we all have….because sin is never as good as it seems it will be. It always hurts to disobey God….and so, when we do, we long for one more chance. Louisa Tarkengton has written a poem that expresses this yearning. It’s words go like this:
I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Begin Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,
And never be put on again.
I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Begin Again.
Now, MURPHY would say, there is no such place. You can’t begin again. You sin…you pay. That’s the law. But the good news of the Gospel is Someone has paid. When Jesus Christ died on Calvary’s Cross, He took the punishment for all our sins on Himself. Jesus made it possible for God to forgive us…to wipe the slate clean and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In fact God waits-yearns for sinners to turn from our sin and ask for His forgiveness and restoration. I like how John Ortberg puts it. He says, If there is one way that human beings consistently underestimate God’s love, it is perhaps His loving longing to forgive. And…that is ENCOURAGING! God does allow U-Turns in life. This is what Barnabas must have told young John Mark. You failed, but if you ask Him, God will forgive you and give you another chance. He’ll help you to start over.
A few years ago Christian psychologist, LARRY CRABB startled his colleagues at a convention by saying that in his opinion, all the hurting people of the world-all those men and women and boys and girls discouraged from the MURPHY’S LAWS of life-didn’t need to pay the cost of seeing a psychologist to receive therapy as much as you would think. He said that what they really needed was the love and care of a Christian community-that their greatest need in essence was for brothers and sisters in the Lord who would encourage them. I tend to agree because I talk to hurting people all the time-lonely people whose main problem is they are starving for ENCOURAGING relationships. I meet adults all the time who remind me of my own awkward teen years when I wanted so desperately to be accepted and affirmed by my peers. Last week I charged our deacons-and this week I charge you-to obey God and practice the art of encouragement-to use your WORDS and MATERIAL RESOURCES to boost the spirits of the hurting people that are all around us. I charge you to rely on God’s power and look deeply at people, seeing their God-given potential and pushing them toward it. I charge you to come along side sinful people and help them see that if they repent of their sin they can start over. I charge us all to rely on the power of God’s Holy Spirit and make this a place where seldom is heard a discouraging word.
As we sing our closing hymn if you have a public decision to make, I ENCOURAGE you to make it by walking the aisle and sharing that decision with me.