Life Together: Encourage One Another

These days there is a growing trend of “spiritual but not religious.” Another way of saying it is: “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” While I agree that I hear from God in different (sometimes unusual) ways, and often while I’m running alone, that is only one small segment of my spiritual life.  The truth is those who think they can live the Christian life apart from others are simply deluded.  I’ve heard an illustration that fits; a pastor went to the home of a church member who hadn’t been to worship in a while, one of the “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian” crowd.  The man invited the pastor in, and they went and sat in front of the fireplace. Silently, the pastor took the fireplace poker and pulled a hot coal out of the fire and onto the hearth.  As they watched, it slowly changed from red hot to white to black as it cooled off.  Without saying a word, the pastor again took the poker and slid the coal back into the fire.  Immediately it glowed red-hot again.

Anecdotes and illustrations aside, though God calls individuals (just look at the Apostle Paul’s conversion if you want a good example), God’s purpose is calling a group of people to be His.  When God spoke to Abram, He didn’t just say, “Hey, I want you to leave your family and follow me.”  He told Abram, “I will make you into a great nation.” (Genesis 12:2a).  He went on to tell him, “All peoples on earth will be blessed trough you.” (Genesis 12:3b).  If you’ve been through the Progress of Redemption Class, you know that God’s purpose has always been about a people, not just a person.  All of this stems from the fact that God isn’t a loner.  God is always in community.  Even before the creation of humanity, God was Three-in-One, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. 

So one of our biggest tasks is to learn to live in community with one another.  Thankfully the Bible has a lot to say about community.  This week we’re going to start a series called Life Together in which we discover some of the “one another” statements in the Bible. 

Now, many of you know that I spend a lot of prayer time running.  Or a lot of my running time in prayer.  Some of you see me running – there are some of you I see more often than others.  You might not know that I love to run an easy run on Sunday morning; I’ll put the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir on my iPod and get my praise on while I’m running; that always puts me in the mood for worship! 

About a year ago, some friends introduced me to a running website called dailymile.com.  I didn’t really want to join – I wasn’t training for anything in particular; I was just running and would run 5K races whenever I felt like it, but on a whim, I tried out the site… I started making friends with other runners and getting to meet up with some of them for group runs.  On one of the runs, my friend Greg decided I needed a nickname, so he dubbed me, “Rev. Run” – so I changed my profile name.  What I expected to get when I went to that website was to have somewhere to log my miles, but I found something else.  I found encouragement.  I honestly don’t get all that much encouragement from non-runners who can’t believe that I would run double-digit mileage or who yell out “Run, Forrest, Run” (honestly, do you think you’re the first one to yell that to a runner?).  But it sure is encouraging to hear from other runners and to talk about things like pace and marathon strategy and fueling and stories that only other runners would appreciate.  It’s because of this affirmation that I’ve decided I can (and should) run another marathon.

Here’s the tough part; I’ve often felt more affirmation and encouragement from my online friends at dailymile.com than I generally receive from the church.  Part of the problem is that sometimes we church people seem a little unclear about our roles and our purpose. 

The Apostle Paul reminded the church in Thessalonica about their salvation through Jesus Christ, who died for us so that we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:10-11).  Though the church was suffering through persecution and temptation, Paul recognized that they were encouraging one another.  The kind of encouragement that the Thessalonian church was doing was the kind that builds each other up. 

You might be surprised at the number of church people who believe their God-given role is “the Complainer.” No matter what’s going on, no matter how great things are, you can find something to complain about.  And, yes, the Complainer has been around for a long time.  In Numbers 11, the Israelites have left Sinai, and the people began to complain. Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them, his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. (Numbers 11:1)  Is there any question as to how God feels about complaining?

I’ve said it before, and no doubt I’ll say it again: God despises gossip.  Telling “concerned information” is not godly.  It is not holy.  It is poison, and it’s one of the ugliest sins in a church, especially in a small town.  We give God a black eye and a bad name when we gossip and when we allow gossip.  My mom always told me if I didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  That goes doubly for you who are tempted to gossip.  Use these litmus tests if you are tempted to tell something about someone else: 1. Have you verified the information with the person in the story?  In other words, do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s true?  2. Do you have permission to tell the information?  If both of these criteria aren’t met, don’t tell.  If someone says to you, “I probably shouldn’t tell you…” just cut them off by agreeing, “No, you probably shouldn’t.” Gossip doesn’t have to be untrue, but it’s just as wrong and hurtful, even when the information is true. And don’t come in couching your gossip as a prayer request. If it’s gossip, it doesn’t belong in the mouths of Christians at all.

We know complaining and gossip aren’t encouraging; what does it look like to build someone up?  The first thing that has to happen to build someone up is you have to notice them.  That might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s the first step to encouraging someone.  Two weeks ago I was at my high school reunion, and I met lots of new people.  Not just spouses, but people I can’t remember ever meeting before. Some of you graduated in classes of 50 people or less, so it might seem strange to not know someone, but there were 500 in my class.  Unfortunately that meant that there were people you just didn’t know – and people you never noticed.  There were some people who were easily noticed – and some who went out of their way to be noticed.  But there are others who aren’t so easily noticed.  I know that some people don’t want to be noticed; they want to come in and check us out, but here’s the thing: I’d rather us err on the side of being too friendly than not friendly at all.

This doesn’t just mean we should notice newcomers to our services; we need to notice one another.  It can be hard to get an accurate picture of exactly who is here and who isn’t here from week to week – that’s why we’re asking you to sign the attendance pads.  Honestly, it can help you out of the uncomfortable position of not knowing someone’s name and having to ask it, even though you’ve been sitting in the same row for years.  Just look in the attendance pad as it is passed back down the row.  Or you can go all “Mission Impossible” and sneak back in and look where someone else was sitting…  

This brings me to an important point.  The most beautiful word in any language is the sound of your own name.  So learn people’s names!  This is vitally important to encouragement; it’s an important early step to affirming and caring for someone.  I’m really not very good with names, so I’ve had to work really hard to learn names. It helps to use the names multiple times in the conversation and to even make an association that will help you remember.

Learn facts about people; it’s really affirming when people ask relevant questions –when Sherry Moyer asks about my mom’s health, that’s a reminder that she cares.  Listen to people.  Actually pay attention to them.  Follow up when they’ve shared something with you.  If they’ve shared a prayer request, ask them about it.

In the past month, I’ve had a couple people tell me that they just didn’t feel like they had any connection to the church, and that they weren’t being encouraged at all – they felt like they were out on their own.  I’ll remind you that connection goes two ways – if you don’t take advantage of any of the opportunities that we have and just expect everyone to know you and encourage you, it doesn’t usually work that way.  As it is, however, most of us can use a little work on encouraging one another.  One thing I’d like to highlight is that encouragement is not just something we do on Sunday morning.  It’s hard to make it through all the people we’d love to greet and reconnect with if we only see each other on Sunday mornings!  I’ve figured out that there are some people only want to have church on Sunday.  Don’t encroach on my week.  The problem is that when Sunday does come around, many of you haven’t seen each other for a week, and we only have so much time during the greeting time and there’s no way to catch up with your friends, let alone new people.  What would happen if we all committed to calling someone this week to check up on them?  Maybe writing an encouraging note to someone? You might never know how your words affect someone, how one simple encouraging statement might be exactly what someone needs.

Sometimes we have a misconception about what encouragement actually is.  Many of us grew up with our parents telling us that we could be anything we want to be.  When I was in 7^th grade I tried out for the basketball team (along with pretty much every other boy in the class).  I thought I might just be the next NBA star – I had a wicked hook shot that always worked against my brother in the driveway.  Guess what: On the last day of tryouts, I got cut.  It was pretty devastating to me, but honestly I didn’t need someone encouraging me by saying, “The coach doesn’t know what he’s doing.  You should be on that team.” Real encouragement might have been directing me toward another activity where my skills and talents could shine.  Or showing me some basketball skills I could work on through the year to maybe make the 8^th grade team.

    

In his letter to Titus (Titus 1:9), Paul writes: Encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.  This is important, because often people, wanting to be encouraging, end up saying things that aren’t true (or helpful).  It drives me nuts when I hear someone being “encouraged” that the reason they’re still sick or poor is because they aren’t praying enough. Or when someone important dies and some of your “well-meaning” friends say things like “God needed her more than we did” or “I guess God needed another angel” or other clichés.

If you want to know how to encourage someone with sound doctrine, you’ve got to know sound doctrine.  Try encouraging people with scripture.  Here are some affirmations that Pastor Perry Noble posted to his blog:

1.      I believe there is more God given potential in you than you realize. Ephesians 2:10: We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

2.      I believe God has a plan for your life… one that He is revealing in steps because if He revealed it all at once our minds would explode. I Corinthians 2:9 No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.

3.      I believe that you can do exactly what God has equipped and empowered you to do. Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

4.      I believe God uses ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. Acts 4:13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus.

The goal of encouraging can be seen in Hebrews 10:24-25: Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

These two verses are awesome.  It starts out “Let us consider how” – meaning there isn’t just one way to encourage.  Some of you are really creative – figure out unique and special ways to encourage someone. 

Then we move on to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” If your encouragement just serves to stroke someone’s ego, it’s worthless.  The goal is to spur each other on to love and good deeds.  When Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”(Matthew 22:37, 39) – the author of the letter to the Hebrews sums it up as “love and good deeds.”  So our goal isn’t just to love God and love neighbor; it’s also to help others love God and love neighbor.

To continue in Hebrews 10, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” is directly contrasted to “let us encourage one another.” You can’t encourage one another if you’re not meeting together. Plain and simple.  The people who have been the most encouraging to me are the ones who have intentionally been in the closest proximity to me.  In New Knoxville, I met with four other pastors every week for encouragement and accountability. It was really encouraging to meet with them… but without meeting together like we did, we never would have given each other permission to speak truth into our lives.  And let me say something about cultural context of this verse: we often think of it as “keep coming to church” but in the early church, they were meeting together every day, both in the Temple courts and in each other’s homes.  That’s why the author of the letter to the Hebrews can say Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sins’s deceitfulness.  (Hebrews 3:13)

The last thing I want to leave you with is this: encouragement is not always easy.  There are people who just don’t take encouragement well.  When I started working with a youth group in Chicago, there was one kid who was just hard.  We were playing basketball, and he was pretty good, and I told him so.  His response: “So?” So I made it my goal to say something nice to him every week.  I never got a positive response.  But encouraging one another isn’t just our path to making someone act the way we want them to.  We encourage one another because God tells us to.  That’s all we need to know.  God tells us… our job is obedience.

Don’t wait to encourage someone.  None of us is promised tomorrow; we’ve only got today.  Some of you don’t like assignments, but doing Life Together requires more commitment than just listening to a message on Sunday, so you have an assignment.  Your assignment is to encourage someone different every day this week.  You can be creative in how you do so; you can use social media, letters, the phone, skywriters, whatever.  I’ll ask you to pray over this assignment; you might find that God leads you to specific people who need His touch through you.