Encouragement

All of us probably have people in the Bible that we sort of look on as heroes. You know, you look at... David's always a hero among young men, you know, because he... Here he is. He stands up to Goliath. He becomes king, you know, his story and all. But you know, when you think of people who stood up to empires, Esther comes to mind, you know, by herself and to stand up to an empire. And you just think of all the stories of the people. I know I have people that I... I do like David because the warrior poet is interesting, who became a king. Paul is interesting to me. You just look at all the different people in the Bible, men and women, that we can look on as sort of heroes. There is one person in the New Testament that I've always really just looked up to that's not seemingly a major person in the New Testament. He shows up, you know, in a few places where he does things. He's known for what he did, and he's known for who he was. It's remarkable the positive things said about this man in the New Testament. And he ended up being a mentor to people like Mark and Paul. So, I mean, he had a profound impact on the early New Testament church. I haven't talked about this person for a long time. I started to look at my notes. You know, when was the last time I said... made this person a major person in a sermon I was giving? And it was nine years ago. I've mentioned it a few times, but it's been a long time since I've looked at the life of this person. And the reason why is because I've had a number of people ask me to give a sermon about encouragement. How do we receive encouragement? And how do we give encouragement? And, you know, life can be just such a heavy load sometimes. We just... we need encouragement. So, this sermon is about a person in the Bible who is best known for his encouragement. He encouraged people, and what we can learn from that. Let's go to Acts 4. Acts 4. And verse 33.

So, of course, this is after Jesus' resurrection, the early church forums, and it's beginning to have a major impact on Jerusalem and the surrounding area. And it says, in verse 33, that out of Hebrew, Okay, so here's a person, and this is happening often in the church at this point, they're selling parts of their land. Some are selling all of their lands or their houses, properties, and they're bringing this money to the apostles because the church had grown at such an extent so fast they didn't have the resources to take care of everybody. They didn't have the resources to take care of the congregation. And so, here's a man who is so encouraging that he gets a nickname. Now, we know this man through the New Testament, Barnabas. That's actually not his name. That's the nickname they gave to him. The son of encouragement. The person that always seems to lift everybody else up. The person who always seems to know what to say and how to handle things. He's the son of encouragement. Now, in English, the word encourage is an interesting word. It's the opposite of discourage. To be discouraged means you have no courage. You're without courage. You're without hope. You're without a future. You just give up. So, you're discouraged. Now, we've all experienced discouragement before. Where there's problems in life and issues that go on. Sometimes you're just exhausted. There just seems to be nothing left in the tank and you're sort of just discouraged. You don't know how to move forward. You don't know what to do. You don't know how to handle the problem. Sometimes you just want to run and hide. You just don't want to leave the house. Encourage means to actually give somebody courage and hope. You give them courage and hope that they did not have. This man, and we'll look at some of the things that are said about him, maybe the actions he does in the New Testament, and why he is called the son of encouragement. That he spread encouragement wherever he went and how he interacted with people. What I want to do, first of all, is talk about encouragement as a spiritual issue.

This seems like, well, this is sort of a lightweight sermon here. We need to discuss some doctrine or different things. This is actually a very important teaching, especially in the New Testament, in terms of how the congregation is to interact with each other. This has to do with a basic concept of Christian living is encouragement. As we go through this, you're going to see how important this is. But it starts with the real premise that there are times in life, in this physical state, because of the lives we live, because we live in the fallen world, because of our own issues and problems and trials, that we lack the courage and the hope, and we struggle with the ability to move on. We need encouragement. So if we start and understand this is a spiritual issue, the first place we start is, what is God's role in encouraging us? What we tend to do sometimes is only see God in the, oh well, you know, that he's upset with me, or we almost seem in a negative sense. He's looking down on us, and it's very negative. Now, I talked about grace last week and showed how grace is so important. It's interesting, I've had a number of questions about that sermon, that we're going to have another sermon on that subject here sometime in the next month or so. But when we look at this, we're talking about how does God see us, and how does God want to help deal with us and help us deal with our lack of courage? Well, we feel like I can't go on. We feel like there's no hope. It's interesting what Jesus tells his disciples in John 14. Let's go to John 14. And in verse 15, and this is where Jesus is telling his disciples what's going to happen as that evening went on and the next day, because this was before he was going to be killed. So he's trying to explain to them a whole lot of spiritual issues that they're obviously not getting some of what he's saying, because of some of the things they said and did later. But he says here, verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father. He says, I'm going to personally ask the Father to do this. And he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. Now, here's talking about how God's Spirit is going to come into them so that God would abide in them forever. He also would later say that he, Christ, would abide in us forever. So this helper is going to come. And it's going to be from God. And we know from the New Testament, further on, it's from Christ himself too. And this helper, this relationship with God through this power that comes from God, does something. Now, the word there in Greek, parakletos, it can be translated helper. It can be translated counselor. Sometimes it's translated comforter. And all of those English words are captured in the Greek word. In other words, God was going, he was going to pray and God was going to give us something from him that would act as a counselor and act as a comforter to us and a helper to us.

This tells us something about God when we are without courage.

God says, I will give you what you do not have. I will give you a helper, a comforter, a counselor, a guide. Verse 17 says, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and shall be in you. And then notice this next statement, I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. Now, Jesus specifically is saying, he will come to us. God the Father comes to us through the Spirit and Christ will come to us through the Spirit and we will not be orphans. Much of the time we go through life as orphans. Where do we belong? Sometimes you come from just a broken society. Sometimes you come from broken homes. Sometimes you can't. Which is broken. We gave a sermon on broken here a few weeks ago, right? And so we feel like orphans. As orphans, where do we get our help from? And Jesus emphasizes here to those who truly follow him, he's going to go to the Father and ask, and the Father is going to give us his Spirit so that we will not remain discouraged. There is an encouragement that comes from God. And whenever we talk about the spiritual aspect of encouragement, we have to understand it starts there. God by nature is an encourager. God by nature looks at us at once the best for us. God by nature looks at us and says, I wish to make you my child. That's his motivation. Hey, I talked about that in the grace sermon. That's what he's motivated. He is motivated to take his creation and create eternal children from these human specimens that he's created. So he wants to encourage and help and guide and counsel us to reach that end.

And that doesn't mean just giving us knowledge. He has to give us courage. He has to help give us faith. He has to help give us insight for these things to happen. So we start with God is by nature an encourager. Barnabas is called the son of encouragement.

Paraclesis, which means encouragement there, is very similar to the word that was translated helper in John. They're actually related words because he brings this encouragement as the son. That's interesting why we'd call him the son. God is the great encourager.

And Barnabas was such an encourager, they named him the son of encouragement. Like this, I mean, the son of what? I mean, his attribute that he has comes from God.

Encouragement comes from God, and we need to humbly ask for it. We need to humbly struggle with God for it. You know, sometimes to receive comfort and encouragement from God is a long prayer into the night, isn't it? Sometimes to receive encouragement and help from God is fasting. Sometimes it's struggling for days or weeks or months.

As we struggle with what it is to be human, when sometimes the only help can come from God, and then we receive it. That's why Paul said at one point that he had received the peace that surpasses understanding. There's this, I don't understand the peace I got because it came from God. Paul recognized, I didn't make this peace up I received. He received a peace that came from God. So we start with an understanding that we have to go to God, and there we receive what we don't have. We have to go to God and ask for encouragement, the courage to go on, the will to go on, the understanding of what we're going through, the faith that maintained the path that we're on.

And when we receive that, something interesting happens. And this is what is the example of Barnabas. When we receive encouragement from God, we're supposed to pass that on to others. We're going to read that. When we receive something from God, it's not just something for us to own. We're actually supposed to, something happens in our lives where we pass that on to others. Now there's two ways that we, when we receive help from God, encouragement from God, that we can begin to pass that on to others. First one way is found in 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

2 Corinthians 2. Paul starts this letter with a traditional greeting, and then he jumps right into, which Paul tends to do, a good thing. Now sometimes he doesn't, you know, but here he tries to encourage in the first parts of his letters. In verse 3 he says, Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. We know he is the God of creation. We know that he is the God of power and glory. We know he's the power or the God that sends out the Holy Spirit. We know we have the Father and we have the Son Jesus Christ. We know God is, hates evil. We know God that he punishes evil. We know all these things, but how often do we think of God as the God of all comfort?

He's the one who can give us the help when we are discouraged. And there's lots of words we use for for those different emotions related, but different, you know, discouragement can have a different root cause from, of say, depression, but all these things are related, right? God is the source of comfort. He is the God of comfort. He's the God of armies. He's the God of the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the God of all, the God who gave the law. Okay. One of the phrases used to explain him is the God of comfort. So this has to be important. The God of comfort. Who covers us in all of our tribulations. He doesn't say who takes away all of our tribulations. He says he encourages us in all of our tribulations. I'm pushing 70, and there's something I'm finally figuring out. He's never going to take away all the tribulations.

That's not the way this works. He says, but I will get you through them and I will help them, and I will encourage you. I will give you the help you need and the courage you need to face what happens. Now, here's what's interesting. So God comforts us in our tribulations, and then he says what it's supposed to produce in us once we receive this help from God. That we may be able to cover those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. This is an active thing between us and God and others.

If we receive comfort and help from God, if we receive encouragement from God, this helps us be able to do what? Pass that on to others. We're going to be reading here about important issues in this subject of how we are supposed to act towards each other in the congregation. And what we read through this, every scripture we're reading has to do with congregations. Yes, we can help in the world, but the emphasis here is among those in the church who have been encouraged by God, and how that actually shapes aspects of our relationships with each other. He says, verse 5, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. He says we know that being a Christian has its trials and problems, but the comfort, the consolation, comes from Christ. Now, if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation. Here's what he tells the church. He's talking about himself and the other ministers that were working with him. If now we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings, which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. He tells the church that he is a minister, those like him, go through trials in order to help bring them to salvation, so that they can go through trials to help others come to salvation. This whole thing is about if God helps you, the result is you will help somebody else. And he's specifically in the church. Verse 7, And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the suffering, you will also partake of the consolation, because you do suffer as a Christian, or just as a human being. You know, if you're not a Christian, you suffer.

You just suffer without God. His point is that if you're suffering and God's helping you, you are partakers, then, of the comfort that comes from God, and you give it to other people. So we are to comfort one another because we're receiving comfort from God. We are to encourage each other, and that's why Barnabas is the son of encouragement. He got it from God. He got it from God. It was a gift. I mean, there's nobody else in the New Testament or the Old Testament called the son of encouragement.

God developed that in him, and he used it. And we're going to see how he used it so many ways. You know, it's the work he had to do in life was the son of encouragement. That was his work that he did for God. The second thing, okay, the first thing is if we're comforted, we have to comfort. So we start with, we have to receive this encouragement from God, this peace, this comfort. And when we receive it, it doesn't just go on forever, does it? It helps us through the day, or the week, or whatever. And then we face the next trial, or the same trial that just seems to never go away. But the comfort comes to keep us going. They help comes, and it gives us the ability to help others. But the other thing we do is we are to exhort each other. Let's look at Romans 12.

Exhort is an interesting word because it is quite different from comfort.

You know, when we talk of comfort, we're dealing with something that is retroactive. If you're comforting somebody, or it's because something bad has happened, right? You're comforting somebody because a friend died. You're comforting them because they lost a job. Or because they found that, you know, they just become very ill, and they're worried and upset because they're sick. You know, they just, they've lost something. Something has happened. And you're comforting them. So, comfort is retroactive. Something's already happened. Exhortation is different. Exhortation is about the future. And look what Paul says here in Romans 12, verse 6. Having that gift differing according to the grace that is given to us. So he says, okay, God gives us different gifts, but we should be all growing in these things and learning these things. And verse 8, he says, he who exhorts in exhortation. In other words, the person that this is being developed in as a special gift, all of us are supposed to have this, but some people have it more than others. It's like some people are just comforters more than others. You know, there's probably somebody you like to go to when you're really down because they'll help pick you up. Chris, it's also true that when we take the encouragers, they can keep encouraging people so much that they wear themselves out too. Sometimes they need encouragement. Everybody needs encouragement from time to time. So even encouragers sort of run out of gas and need help. But the people who exhort, they're always helping people see what God's doing in the future. Exhortation can include you're actually correcting somebody because you're trying to get them to see and move forward to what God is doing. You're moving them forward. So encouragement is dealing with the crisis, the problem, the issue, whatever it is that's happened to help the person. And then exhortation has to do with moving them forward.

And this is always spiritual. It's the great problem with so much of modern psychology. And I'm not against all psychology or psychiatry, but for the most part it is not spiritual. So it doesn't deal with the spiritual issue. And so what Paul say, or in Romans, what Paul's saying here is that, look, we understand that we encourage each other spiritually to a point and then we exhort each other to move forward. Any form of therapy that keeps you trapped where you are isn't what God wants. God wants forward movement. God really wants us to move forward. God wants us to get better. So yes, we look in the past, but we don't stay in the past. Or we don't stay in the present. We're exhorted to move, to always move forward. So when we talk about this concept of encouragement, you have both of these must happen, happen, comfort. And there's a time to give comfort. There's a time to give exhortation. The wisdom is to know when. And the wisdom is to know how. Because you can't comfort somebody or exhort someone if you're doing it in a wrong way or in a way that they're not prepared for. You know, oh, let me comfort you. No, I don't want you to comfort me. I want you to leave me alone, right? So sometimes our intentions are good, but this is the great thing about an encourager. The few people I've met that are true sons of encouragement, they know when and when not to do these things. They know how to deal with people where they are. So what are traits of encouragers? Well, we just looked at one with Barbas. They're doers. There's a need. I'll do it. We need some money. I'll sell something. And he just goes and does it. You know, we think about helping people a lot. We think about, you know, someone will call me and say, hey, you know, I'm having this difficulty. We'll talk for a while. Now hang up and say, I'm going to call them back. But you know what happens if I don't write it down immediately? The phone rings again and I pick it up. And about three calls later, I can't remember what the first call was. True encouragers had that off. I try to do it. They write down what the person asked for. Write that in there. Because they're coming back to it. We get caught up in the unimportant. Right? No. Yeah. Unimportant and urgent. We get caught up in the unimportant and urgent. And we're missing the importance. That happens to us all the time. True encouragers are a lot better in that than most of us are. They manage that better.

So they take care of the needs when they can.

So they're real doers. They don't just think about it. They do it. And encouragers also give with no strings attached.

Encouragers see somebody and think, you know what? I'm going to have them over for dinner after services. Because I think they could use some encouragement. And if the people never invite them back to their house, it doesn't bother them a bit. So they would always think, well, I did something. Maybe you should do something back. They don't think that way. Encouragers are all good. I encourage them. They went home and they thanked us and said, this was so good for them. The couple, you know, they left. Who can we do this for next week? They're not always caught up in what's in it for me. That's why in the middle of the story, we read this introduction of Barnabas. Right after that introduction of Barnabas, of him selling some of his lands and giving it to the church, we had Ananias and Sapphira. Ananias and Sapphira sold some of their property and gave it to the church for the help of the poor and the needy. That's a wonderful thing. But they did it for the wrong reason. Because when they presented it to Peter, if you remember the story, they said, this is, we've sold everything we own. We know we're just in poverty now. And he said, that's not true. You just sold a little piece of your land and you're just doing this because you want everybody to see you. They saw what the claim the Barnabas got. And so they were serving not to serve out of love. They were serving to receive some kind of glory and acclaim and to be held up as someone special. There's not too many times in the New Testament God actually killed somebody. He killed both of them. He wanted the church, this early church, to know if you're just in this for your own aggrandizement, you better just get another house of worship, you know, go worship Apollo or something, because that's not what happens here.

Barnabas, on the other hand, he just did it. You know, he didn't expect thanks. He didn't expect some kind of a claim. He didn't ask for a tax receipt. Of course, the Romans didn't issue tax receipts, right? He just did it. So that story that there's those things are sandwiched together are very important because here's one attitude that God is very happy with. And here's one He is not happy with. And yet their actions seem to be exactly the same. And yet those actions came from totally different views. It's also interesting that the courageurs don't get offended easily.

They tend to see people and say, wow, they need a lot of help. They just don't get offended that easily. They can, but another thing about encourageurs is that they tend to see people as where is God? Where is this person in with God? How is God working with this person? What we generally do as human beings, we look at other people and we look at all their bad things. So we look at other people with that person. They got this problem, that person, they have this problem, this person, that person, our problem. And we know all their problems. We know all their sins. We know everything about them. And that's how we're judging them. Encouragers don't. I'm not saying they ignore other people's sins, but they look at people in terms of what is God doing with them? And can I do something to help? Now I'll show you what I mean. Acts chapter 9. Saul, the one who became Paul, was persecuting Christians. Now let's put this in context. If you are a friend of Stephen, and a mob came up and they were, you know, shoving him around, calling him names, angry with him, because he said that Jesus was the Christ. And he, you know, he was, he had already been denounced now by the religious leaders around Jerusalem. And it's like, yeah, this is a bad man. And here you are a Christian and you're standing there watching this terrible thing. And you watch them take Stephen, your friend, and put him out into the center of this mob. And they all pick up stones and stoning to death. And there is Saul, obviously guiding the mob. He's giving them permission. He's the representative of the Sanhedrin. All he would have to do is say, stop, but he's not. He's actually supporting it. And he was organizing, you know, I don't know what to call him. I don't call him thugs, but he was organizing men who came from the Sanhedrin to arrest, beat up Christians, and haul them off to prison. So can you imagine that you've seen this Saul and he grabbed off your grandma and your grandpa and dragged them off to prison. You don't know where they are. You just know the prisons are terrible, terrible places where most people go to die. And that's what this man does. That's what he's famous for in Judea. And so then we have verse 26.

Saul has been contacted by the resurrected Jesus Christ.

And he realizes he was wrong. And now he goes around and he starts preaching that Christians are right and Jesus is the Messiah. Now he's not part of their church or anything, but he's gone from being the hit man, if you will, for the Sanhedrin to being, they're right.

And when Saul, verse 26, came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe he was a disciple. No, no, he just tried to infiltrate into the group so he could figure out who all the Christians are and have them arrested. You know, no one's going to let him come into a church. No one's going to introduce him to anybody in the church. And so he's being absolutely rejected by the church. Verse 27. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly in Damascus in the name of Jesus. So he was with them in Jerusalem coming in and going out. He was with them. The them, there's the disciples. Whose word did they take this?

Barnabas had such his reputation for doing what was right. It was so great. He convinced the disciples, the Christians in Jerusalem, that the man who was out trying to arrest them and kill them was actually now a Christian himself.

Now that's influence. Why would you believe that? You know, there's no proof otherwise except that his character of this encourager always trying to do and see what is God doing here. So it says in verse 29, and he, speaking of Paul or Saul at the time, spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenist, but they attempted to kill him. And when the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. The brethren, when the Sanhedrin now wanted to kill him, him, the brethren got him out, taking him down through Caesarea, which is interesting. It was the Roman administrative center of Judea. They take him through Caesarea. No Jews are going to riot there. There's an entire legion stationed in Caesarea, about 5,000 troops. So taking him there was like, okay, they can't riot here. The Romans didn't like riots. They would put up with riots. So they took him there and then got him out of the country. The brethren were doing that. The man who had been arresting them not that much long before. Once again, Barnabas just shows up in these places and has a profound effect on the creation of the church. Look at Acts 15. Acts 15.

It's interesting. It's Barnabas and Paul travel. After they travel around, after a while, it's Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas was the leader. He was the older man who mentored Paul. But after a while, Paul had become the leader and Barnabas was with him. And then this instance happens, which once again shows the character of Barnabas, this encourager. Verse 36. Then after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us go back to visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. Barnabas and Paul had gone around and started churches all over. And they had come back to Judea and Paul says, let's go back.

Let's go back to every city where we started a church and see how they're doing and if they're growing and even if they're still there. Now, Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. This Mark is the Mark who wrote the gospel of Mark. He was a very young man and he had actually gone on a trip with Paul and Barnabas at one time. So it says verse 38, but Paul insisted that they should not take with him with them the one who had departed from them in Phemphalia's and had not gone with them to do the work.

On one of the on this trip where they took young Mark with them, so you would have Barnabas mentoring Paul. That's what encouragers do. They mentor people. He mentors Paul. Now Barnabas says, no, we got to bring Mark along. We got to mentor him and Paul says, no, the young guy gave up on one home. Maybe he got homesick. Maybe he got physically sick. Maybe he just couldn't do the traveling. We don't know why he went back, but Paul says, no, I don't put up with guys who don't go the whole way.

Now this is typical Paul. If you read Paul's writings, by the way, he mellowed out as he got older. But this is just typical Paul in this early time, you know. No, no, no. The guy can't keep up with me. Time to go back home to mom. I don't want him. Okay. Barnabas, having that ability to see people and say, ask the question, what is God doing here?

Looked at Mark and said, no, Paul, God's doing something with this guy. He's doing something with this man, and you just can't throw him away. And Paul said, I'm not going to take him. Now there's something else about Barnabas that we have to know. As this encourager, he's always going to be, he's sort of gentle with people, but you didn't want to push him too hard. I mean, he stood up in front of the entire, all the apostles and disciples in Jerusalem and said, no, the man who's been trying to kill you is a man of God, and they believed him.

You know, he didn't stand there and just whipply like a whip. I think he's no, no, he got up and said, this is who he is. And he believed him. Now he looks at Paul and says, you're wrong, Paul, you're wrong. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Paul took Silas and he parted, and departed being commanded by the brethren to the grace of God.

Silas would become a very, another important person in the spreading of the church because he worked with Paul for many years. Mark would be mentored by Barnabas, end up with Paul again in the future, and end up writing the gospel of Mark. Pretty important work that Paul was willing to throw him away. Not Barnabas. Not Barnabas. By the way, Paul and Barnabas did not stay estranged from each other. You know? Okay, you go ahead, Paul. I'm going to take the young guy and work with him. Because we won't agree on this, so you go do that.

They get back together. I mean, that wasn't a kind of permanent break. It was just, we can't solve this. And Barnabas said, fine, let me have him. And we know what he did. Once again, it doesn't tell us everything that Barnabas did. We know all the things Paul did. It just, there's sentences about Barnabas. And Barnabas did this, and this good thing happened. And then he does this, and this good thing happens.

All through the Bible, that's what it all is about. And he's the son of encouragement. He's always looking at where is God taking this, and what good can we get from this? What can we learn from this? And the effects he had on others was pretty amazing. And it shows us something about encouragers. They naturally try to understand where people are coming from.

You know, if you want to encourage someone, sometimes it does no good to say, I know exactly how you feel, unless you know exactly how you feel, but they feel. I mean, I've sat down with people in the most horrible situations in life, and everything you can think of, and there's sometimes I've looked at them and said, I can only imagine how you feel, and had them say, there's no way to know until you're going through it. And I know. And we are able to have a conversation, because I don't know exactly.

I'm horrified by how it must feel. You know, you have a child that dies in some tragic situation, and you say, I can only imagine what that feels like, and it's horrifying. There's other times you can look at somebody and say, that's happened to me, I know how that feels.

And that's okay. That's that empathy is okay. I'm working on a sermon on empathy, because empathy is a character trait of a Christian. But when empathy, empathy has to be shaped by the character of God, natural human empathy is actually can be used for evil. Natural human empathy can become very bad. Now that doesn't seem possible, but that's what happens. We have to understand that empathy, like all other traits we have, must be shaped by God. And it's part of the well Christian problem we have today, is because it's an empathy that's not shaped by God. So we'll be, I'll be talking about that in a sermon here in the next couple of months. And courage is filled with passion and purpose to find out what God's doing and to be involved in it. Look at, well, let's just go to, let's try x11.

I have a lot more scriptures than I need to read here. x11. Yeah, here's something interesting about, just talking about once again how the people were scattered in verse 19. And the, many of the disciples of Jesus were only going to the Jews. They weren't going to the Gentiles. And then some of the leaders of the disciples said, no, no, we need to go to these Hellenists, these Greeks. So, verse 22, and the news of these things, that they, some people needed to go to the Greeks. The news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem. And who did they send? Oh, we got new people to deal with. Who would be good at dealing with new people? So, they sent Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. And when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad. So, now he finds these new people coming into the church and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. They are encouraged with the message of God by the man who the rest of the disciples and the apostles say, he's the one guy to go there. He'll interact with those people who understand them. I don't understand. I can hear Peter saying, I don't understand those people. So, they sent Barnabas. Verse 24, Luke adds something here. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.

You know, if it was Paul or Peter or some of the others, that would be half a page of how what he did. It's one sentence. Yeah, Barnabas was said, he's the right guy. All these people came into the church because he was a good man. So, what do we do to have more encouragement in the congregation? I mean, we see the importance here, and we looked at a individual that is known and is in the Bible and continued all through the development of the New Testament church. I mean, Paul was trained by him. Mark was trained by him. He was one of the first men to go to the Gentiles. He's just doing all these things. He helped build the church of Jerusalem and the first congregation there.

And it's just because he's the man who always sees what is God doing and treats people with that viewpoint. What is God doing here? You know, Mark may be a bit immature, but let me have him for a while. You know, going to these Gentiles, yeah, I can understand why some of the guys don't want to come up in Judaism. He had come up in Judaism. He was a Levite. He says, no, I can deal with him. And he does. I can work with him. I'll understand him. I'll teach him the truth. It'll be a little different than teaching a Jew, but I'll teach him. He had that remarkable ability. And in that, he comforted people and he exhorted people. He did both.

When you need comfort, you need help, you need exhortation, you need God to give you focus and direction. The first thing you have to do is go pray for it. And sometimes it doesn't happen right away. You pray for it. Sometimes you fast. Sometimes you struggle. Sometimes it's in the middle of the night and you may be praying for an hour. It's on your knees. Sometimes it's with tears. This is what it is to be a human and need God's encouragement. I have no courage left, God. There's nothing left in me. I can't move forward. I can't do things. What do I do? Once again, we can talk about depression. We can talk about all these different issues that come along. But we just look at here as how do we get courage to even keep going? And we start with God. You have to give me what I cannot have, what I do not have. And that's where it starts.

Then, if He gives you help, we've already read it a couple places so that you can do this to somebody else. Now, I have to say more women than men will say, I can go do that. But then there's a problem. They run up and say, I want to help you. In other words, I don't want to help you. But I can encourage you. I don't want your encouragement. The men are like, oh yeah, okay. Hey, you need some encouragement? Not really. Okay. And He may need some, but he's not going to tell you you need some, and you're not going to offer any. Right? So we just talk about something else. And I'm being a little facetious here, but you know what I mean. We do tend to handle some of these things quite different as men and women. So we have to understand the importance of doing it and how we do it and the sensitivity in which we approach somebody. Because remember, it's not just comfort. It's not just, oh, I'm sorry, let's cry together for a while. No, there's exhortation. We have to move forward. How do you move forward? And sometimes a person has to cry a lot before they can move forward. You know, you can't go in and tell people, look, a person, just buck up and move forward. They'll probably never talk to you for the rest of your life. That's not how this works either. That's the amazing thing about people who are encouragers. They know it's time not to say anything and they know it's time to say something. I watched today after services, two women, one woman said, yeah, I had a hard time this week at something. I don't know what it was. And the other woman walked over and gave her a hug. And she said, oh, I feel better.

I've never had a man do that.

It was a good thing. It was a good thing.

And it was exactly what I'm talking about. They weren't doing that because of what I talked about today. It was just natural to them, right? It was just a normal thing. I stand there, they did it, and walked on. And I see that, you know, every Sabbath I see some people do things like that. And I see men do that too. Men usually don't hug each other, but they will like put a hand on a shoulder, you know, man, I pray it for you, something like that. And it's the same thing. It's sharing. I get it. And I'll help where I can.

So let's, but we can't overdo it. And it's not easy. I mean, we've all been to the place we wish somebody would give us a hand. And we've all been someplace where we've said, I wish everybody would leave me alone.

But in a community where God's Spirit is, we are to be living when we receive encouragement from God. We become sensitive to being able to help somebody who needs it. So let's look at what Paul says in Romans 15. Romans 15. First one says, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. That literally could be translated. We heard strong ought to bear with the weakness of the weak. You can actually translate it that way. The weakness of the weak.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification, leading to something positive happening in their lives. For even Christ did not please himself, but it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through, now this is interesting, this idea of comfort and everything, that's not a big issue in the scripture, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

We receive hope and comfort in the scripture. You know, sometimes it's just somebody will be so despondent, don't know what to do, and you can simply say, you know, I've been there here, and he writes out a scripture and say, that helped me.

And it might be a week later the person reads it, reads the scripture, prays about it, and they receive help. See, we're passing it on. He says, now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus. We're back to, if you receive patience and comfort from the scripture, then we are to be like-minded and pass that on to each other who are in the family of God. We have to pass this on, which means you have to be wrestling with your issues, struggling with God, receive some help, and then when you see somebody else say, I get it. Sometimes you have to say, I get it. And it's not easy. But we do this. This is a whole new level because we're getting, we're moving into where we're being vulnerable with each other. I don't mean so vulnerable that you confess all your sins that we're not required to do that. Vulnerable to say, you know, man, this happened to me. And someone say, oh wow, I can imagine that that's tough. And sometimes that's enough. Sometimes I will pray for you. And you do. You do pray for them. And later, the next time you see me say, hey, I prayed for you. How's it going? It's that simple. It's that simple. It's that simple because it matters to each other. He continues with, that you may be like-minded and one mouth glorifying the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

One mind and one mouth reminds me of a band I used to listen to as a kid. They had a Ford section. And one time, another musician came up and said, your horn section is like it has one lung. In other words, it's so together. It's like it's one lung bawling all the horns at the same time. Okay. One mouth, we glorify God all at the same time. You know what? Sometimes it's easier for us to deal with not eating pork. Right? I eat pork's actually pretty easy. It's pretty disgusting.

I mean, I've watched people eat oysters and think, why in the world would you do that?

This is hard. This is being willing to say, I take a group of people here, and yeah, I don't break down all barriers. We're not supposed to do that. But I do a little opening of who I am, or if they open a little bit, I try to encourage. Instead of just saying, well, well, I didn't know you had a smoking problem. Oh, no, it's I opened up. What do I do? Let me, I don't know. Let's pray about it. You need to seek some help. Let's move forward. You exhort. I give comfort. Wow. God will help you through this. I've had my problems. God's helped me through that. Right? I just made that up. I know no one here that has a smoking problem, but there's about a five percent chance there is in a group this size. That doesn't mean we condone. It means we, we comfort, we encourage, we exhort. You got to move forward. You can die from that, right? Can I help? I knew a guy one time. That's what he did. I ran around, told a bunch of men he had a smoking problem. He said, if I want to pick up a cigarette, I'm calling one of you. And he did. And they'd chew him out. After about six months, he didn't smoke anymore because he had a bunch of friends in the churches. Chewed him out every time he called, but he called. He opened himself up. They responded. And look what exhortation took place. God moved the, the issue to where he wanted it to be. That sounds like something Barnabas would do. Ah, got a smoking problem. Who's your six best friends in the church? Go tell them and tell them they're going to be called. And if they smell smoke on you, they're going to chew you out. That's Barnabas. And then Barnabas would call the guy and say, you know, how in the world did that problem start and how you doing?

Now, if the person doesn't change on certain things, they, what they reap from that is terrible, right? We all reap terrible consequences. I'm just using that example because I've seen that one work by just involving people. And I'm sure it's not worked at times, you know, so I'm not saying that's the answer to the problem. I'm just giving you an example.

So here we have the understanding that we must pass on encouragement from God. Here's the, here's the thing about this that's so, it's so amazing and how God thinks. You know what happens the most, the moment you pass on encouragement and it has a good effect on the other person, your encouragement level jumps way up.

The moment you receive encouragement and pass it on to somebody else, your encouragement level with God jumps up. You actually get a benefit from it. It's a positive move forward. Then the last point I want to make is that if you need an encourager in your life, sometimes we need a person to talk to. Sometimes we need a person to interact with. If you need an encourager in your life, it's okay to ask for one. God's not offended. You're enough. You're God. But sometimes I just need somebody that I can get a hug from or I can just sit and have coffee with and talk. You say, well, why would, you know, do we need that as human beings? Yes, we do. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 7. Now, here's the problem, by the way. We have to be careful with human beings that we don't end up using them as nothing more than a sounding board that does not produce any good. You can have people that just share problems and never solve a problem. They just get together to talk about their problems, in which case it's never solved, which isn't exhortation. There may be temporary comfort, but it's just temporary. There's no long-term comfort because there's no exhortation. There's no change in what's causing the problem. 2 Corinthians 7 verse 5. Paul says, for indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest. So here's, he's saying, I was exhausted. Everybody with me was exhausted. They've been traveling around with these different churches and different problems. And everybody was exhausted. And, you know, he gets stoned in some city. I don't mean drink too much. I mean, people would actually stone him, right? He would go someplace and people would treat him bad, terrible things. I want to see if you were asleep. And I don't... that sort of bad joke just sort of went right over everybody's head. Few people look shocked, but everybody else is like, we're wrapping it up here. For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest. We were troubled in every side. On every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears. He said, outside the church, every place we went, there were conflicts. People hated to discover we were Christians. Inside the church was filled with fear and trepidation because of this persecution. Everything in life. He says, I was just exhausted. Nevertheless, God, who comforts the downcast, we're back to, nevertheless, God helps us when we're down, when we can't get up. And notice how God helped him. Comforted us by the coming of Titus. Titus was a younger minister he was working with, and he said, when I thought I was too exhausted to do anymore, God sent Titus, and we got some more work done. Things happened. It was good. He goes on and says he was also comforted by his message about how people were growing in other areas, other churches he went to. They were spiritually growing. That's what gave Paul his energy. There are people turning to God, and that's what crushed him at times when people would turn to God left and went back into paganism. It just crushed him.

He thanked God for Titus. There's a time and a place to say, God, please help me by sending me someone that will understand, but they won't let me get away with it either.

They will actually help me by making me see what I must do. Send me a Barnabas. So you're not asking, God, just send me somebody that'll commiserate with me. Send me a Barnabas. Someone who I know is going to understand, but at the same time, is going to say, okay, let's deal with the reality here so you can move forward. Consolation, comfort is the past. Moving here, exhortation is here. Moving here. Our last scripture, Isaiah, we all need encouragement. Every one of us. Encouragers need encouragement. As I said before, encouragers can burn themselves out because they carry a little bit of all the burdens that they deal with. And they have to realize they can't always do that.

But if everybody who receives help from God just looks around and says, who can I maybe call today? Or who can I see at church today that I haven't talked to for a while? I just go talk to them. And maybe, maybe they could use a little encouragement. Who can I pray for today that may need just some help? You know, and that's why we pray for the sick. It isn't just for healing. It's that God gives them help in the sickness that they have that causes pain or causes so much sometimes just discouragement. And here's a very interesting passage that we're going to end up with here. This is Isaiah 40 verse 28. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. God knows everything about us. There's nothing you're going through that God doesn't know. He knows everything. So don't hide anything from Him. He gives power to the weak. Through those who have no might, He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary. And the young men shall utterly fail. But those who wait on the Lord, those who seek His encouragement, wait for it, hope for it, struggle with for it. Don't give up. Shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. God is the great encourager. He promises that through the Holy Spirit He will give us that help that we need. Sometimes it seems like a long time coming, but it comes. And when it does, always remember this. When you receive help from God, He now expects you to look around and pass it on.