We Have Been Called to the Ministry of Encouragement

Right on from time to time, someone in your life assumes the position of heavenly sandpaper.

They just know that they're the ones to smooth out your rough edges. This person is an expert at finding your faults, no matter how minute, focusing in on your fault or faults with laser-like precision. And their ministry towards you is one of disapproval, maybe even condemnation, leading to ill feelings. Of course, these people, this person in your life, and maybe there's more than one, is eminently qualified to criticize you since they are themselves perfect. They are without fault, and they take long walks on Lake Michigan, contemplating your inadequacies.

Fred and God holds all of us responsible for the words that we use. Excessive, critical words don't come from the heart of the wise. They don't come from God. I say excessive, critical words, words that bring harm. Now, there is a place for godly correction. We're going to hear some about that next Sabbath in the sermonette. There's a place for that, and a very good place for that, and we should have the attitude where we want to be properly corrected before God.

But I would like to point us in a different direction today. Let's go over to Acts 4. Acts 4. There's a gentleman here that you know, and I want to spotlight his life here for a moment.

Acts 4, verse 36.

And Joseph, who is also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus. So here we have a man whose name actually is Joseph, or Joseph, but the apostles, men who were not just any group of men, but men who were a wise group of men, empowered by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God, they call this man Barnabas, because he was such an encouraging individual, an encouraging individual. Let's go over to chapter 9 of Acts. Acts chapter 9. We see here in this chapter the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and all that takes place there. We're not going to read all of that. But after his conversion, he wanted to fellowship with God's people. Here in Acts chapter 9, verse 21.

Then all who heard it were amazed that this man had been converted, and said, is this not the one who destroys those who call on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose? So he might bring them bound to the chief priests.

So when Saul was first converted and wanted to come to church, come to services, people weren't real anxious about that, and rightfully so, in terms of what they knew of the man. Now, obviously, he had been deeply converted. There was no question about that, but the people didn't know that. They weren't there when he was being converted by God. We drop down to verse 26.

And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, now prior to this point, he had gone to Arabia. Jesus Christ had taught him for three and a half years the things he was going to teach in his letters and writings and sermons and so forth. And so this is a little bit down the road. And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him. It did not believe that he was a disciple. Again, a normal, natural reaction. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and he declared to them, the apostles, how he had seen the Lord on the road, and how he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.

So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. So what we have here is Barnabas, a man who was known for his encouragement, vouching for Saul of Tarsus, the one we would come to know as Paul, the apostle Paul. He vouched for him. When all were afraid, the son of encouragement stood shoulder to shoulder with Saul and said, this man we can trust him. God has worked a miracle in his life.

I'd like you now to turn over to Ephesians 4. I'm narrowing this down to get to the point I want to cover with you today. Ephesians 4. We've read this section of Scripture any number of times.

The beautiful thing about Scripture is that there are so many layers of understanding, correct understanding. We're not talking about heresy, but correct understanding. As we take a look at what we've got here, we can view this particular section, chapter 4 of Ephesians, verses 11 through 16. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. So here you've got various types of ministers, various types of ministries, how the ministry would serve God's people in the local congregations. And we drill down a little bit deeper in verse 12. What is the ministry to do? For the equipping of the saints.

That's one of the jobs that I have to help equip you. Now, I'm not the only one who does this. We've got other people who do this. You help in the process yourself. Certainly, God is primary in all of this with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. But, you know, the ministry, one of our jobs is to help equip you for the work of ministry. And a work there, if you're afraid of that word ministry, we're looking at something that just means service. The ministry is to help equip you for the work of service. For the edifying, for the building up of the body of Christ.

Till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man or a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So, we are here as a group of people in God's church. We are here to be learning how to serve and build one another up. Help one another to attain maturity as we're yielding to God the Father and Jesus Christ in our life. Verse 14, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. You know, as mature Christians, we know what the truth is.

We don't have to know every counterfeit because we know the truth. And if we know the truth when the counterfeits come, we understand that they're counterfeit because we know what the truth is. Verse 15, but speaking the truth in love, this is what we are to be doing, may grow up in all things unto him who is the head Christ. So here we're seeing what our goal is. You know, we're talking about growing to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

In verse 15, we are growing to be like Christ. But notice now we're going to look more at what our jobs are as members in the Chicago church and every one of God's churches that have ever existed. Verse 16, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by which every joint supplies.

There's something that we need individually to be doing. You are to be, and I am to be, supplying something to the body according to the effect of working by which every part does its share. What's your share? What's my share? We're going to talk about that today.

As you and I are doing what is effective to do our share, it's going to cause growth of the body for the edifying of itself and love. So, brethren, one of the things I want to cover today, or the thing I want to cover today, if you're taking notes and you want a statement that you could write across the top of your paper, it would be this. We have been called to the ministry of encouragement.

We have been called to the ministry of encouragement. And that's something each and every one of us can do. If you are good at it, you can get better at it. If you don't think you can do it, I would tend to disagree with you. I think it's a learned skill. And I think that with God's Holy Spirit, and we're going to get into it a little bit later, because you have God's Spirit and because God's Spirit is a comforting Spirit, then as God comforts us, it says we are to comfort others.

Okay? I think many times it's helpful for us as we're trying to learn something to look at contrasts. Let's take a look for a few minutes at what a critical spirit is. We're going to come to understand the heart of an encourager, the back end of the sermon. But right now, let's take a look at what we don't want to be, what we don't want to have. What is a critical spirit?

At Wimbledon in England, where they have the tennis tournaments, you've got a judge that will sit on the sidelines. He watches the competitors competing. It's his job to make sure that the rules are properly followed. If a ball is served outside the confines of the court, he yells foul or fault. Now, those judgment calls are appreciated because that individual has turned his right to be a judge at Wimbledon.

However, again, as I was making mention in the introduction to the message today, we've got people in our lives who love to feel they're sitting above us. They love to feel they can sit uninvited to criticize us. They feel that they can look at us and point a finger, a long bony finger, and say, you know, fault, fault, fault.

We don't want that. That's not where we want to be coming from. Romans chapter 14. Romans chapter 14. And in verse 10, Romans 14 verse 10, but why do you judge your brother or why do you show contempt for your brother? Now, God wants us to be able to discriminate between right and wrong. God wants us to make those kinds of judgment calls. But God doesn't want us to condemn one another. For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

You know, brethren, so many times in my life, I'm sure it's been true in your life. It's easy for us. First impressions, we can judge a book by its cover. But there's so many times in my life, as I have been thinking certain things about a person I've maybe just met or known a very short time, and I'm making these evaluations, sometimes I have to really take a step back and realize, you know something? Once I find out more about the person and their background and how they were brought up and what they've had to experience in life, so many times I've had to say to myself, as I step back, you know, if I had had their upbringing, I don't think I would be as good a person as they are with what they've had to go through.

And so it can be very enlightening for us to make sure we understand where a person's coming from before we make a lot of judgment calls. Now, what is an encouraging spirit? What is an encouraging spirit? You know, as children, we all want encouragement. You know, little kids, Daddy, Daddy, look what I just did. Mommy, Mommy, look what I can do now.

Look at the picture I just drew, and they bring you this picture of this blob, you know, all sorts of colors, and they want you to understand exactly what that thing is. And so you try your best. Well, is that an elephant? Or what is that? Oh, no, that's you, Daddy.

Well, maybe I was right to begin with. But we all need encouragement. We all need that. Mark Twain once said, I can live two months on a good compliment. I can live two months on a good compliment. Now, we're not talking about flattery. We're talking about good, solid encouragement, a compliment that is well deserved. The word encouragement, you can break that down. N means the cause to be. Encourage means confident. So when we encourage somebody, we're causing them to be confident. And, of course, we want to do that in the Lord. We want to do that in the Scriptures the proper way. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5.

You know, we were, Mr. Demurgeon, I think we were there earlier today, but let's go to verse 11. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 11.

1 Thessalonians, 5.11. Therefore, comfort. Therefore, comfort.

My margin has a little one next to what you go over there to the margin. It says, encourage. The word here is paraclesis. Paraclesis. It's from the family of words that we would use for paracletos, talking about the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. And so we are to comfort, we are to encourage each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. So, again, we have been called. We are a community, we should be, a community of encouragers. We should be able to come to services on any given Sabbath, and if we're down and feel down and out and blue, we can't wait to come to services because there could be any number of people who's going to engage us in conversation and going to help us and encourage us. I think I was remarking to one of our in-home studies, not here in Chicago or Beloit, but I've been in other church areas where I've told my wife I would love to come to services, and any given Sabbath, love to come to services and not be insulted.

Now, that's not happening here in Chicago and it's not happening in Beloit. It's happening in other places where it seems like every Sabbath somebody would say, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or you know, you just don't look very good today. Or, you know, you look worse than last week. Or, man, you know, I've gone through that and Mary's gone through that, and it's like the old cartoon. There's a man in bed and his wife is saying, you've got to get up and go to church. You've got to get up and go to church. He says, I don't want to go. She says, you've got to go. Why do I got to go? Because you're the pastor. Well, I could honestly say, and I'm not flattering you, but you here in Beloit, you don't do those sorts of things. You're a well-schooled, well-taught, well-educated group of people. Doesn't mean we're perfect here in Chicago, because nobody is.

I'm not. You're not. Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

2 Corinthians chapter 1. I made mention how the word paraclesis or paracletos, there's a family of words that are very similar in meaning, and we're going to see that here in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 3 and 4. The word for comfort, there are a number of ways that word can be translated, but one of the ways that word can be translated is encouragement. Encouragement. So let's read that accordingly. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and a God of all encouragement, who encourages us in all of our tribulation, that we may be able to encourage those who are in any trouble with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.

Fred, let's you and I take that really seriously. As we go closer and closer to the end of the age, as we all get older and older, as we sit around the table, and of course, now those of you are younger, you don't do this. Those of us who are older, we do it. What kind of gerotil do you take? You know? And what kind of cane did you buy? You know, your day is coming. Your day is coming. But we can be a family, a group of encouragers. John chapter 14.

John chapter 14, verses 26 and 27.

But the paracletus, the comforter, the Holy Spirit, verses 26 here, John 14, 26. But the comfort of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring your remembrance of all things I have said to you.

This is that same family of words that can be translated not only comforter, but encourager. God's Holy Spirit is an encouraging spirit. Satan's Spirit is a spirit of likes to criticize and condemn and find fault.

Now, again, in balance, there's a place for correction. But we don't want to beat people down. We want to build people up. That's our job as the church. One of our jobs. Verse 27.

Jesus Christ did because he was God in the flesh. He was a God of all comfort. And as I mentioned earlier, God uses the power of His Holy Spirit to comfort us. And since we as Christians have the indwelling presence of God's Holy Spirit, we are empowered to encourage others.

Again, many times we learn by contrasting. I had a number of these. I had to lessen the load. Otherwise, I'd point you to death. And we didn't want to do that. But the differences between a critical spirit and an encouraging spirit, I just have three of these here for you. Number one, a critical spirit focuses on the faults of others.

That's what a critical spirit does. But an encouraging spirit focuses on serving others at their point of need. An encouraging spirit focuses on serving others at their point of need. Where the other person may have criticized that point of need, the encourager goes right there and says, you know, there's some things we can do. There's some help that can be furnished.

Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians chapter 2 verses 3 and 4.

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, in humility, let each esteem others better than himself. Critical spirit won't do that. An encouraging spirit will. Let Eve to you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. That's what an encouraging spirit does. It looks out for the for how the other guy can be held, how the other guy can be served. Number two, differences between a critical and encouraging spirit. Number two, a critical spirit ridicules others. Whereas an encouraging spirit builds up others. An encouraging spirit builds up. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 24.

You know, the people who believe they're your heavenly sandpaper, they're going to smooth you out, they're going to knock off your rough edges.

They want, they look at you with a critical eye. And of course, they know so well.

They think they know so well. But notice what we see here in Hebrews chapter 10 and in verse 24. Hebrews 10, 24.

And let us consider one another to criticize. No. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Stir up love and good works. Notice the divergent directions these things are going. The critical spirit is heading down and out in a depressing spirit. It is a spirit of Satan, frankly. The encouraging spirit is trying to uplift, upbuild, and it's what God would have us to be doing. Number three, a critical spirit lacks mercy. A critical spirit lacks mercy toward other people. But an encouraging spirit responds with mercy. An encouraging spirit responds with mercy toward others. James chapter 2 verses 12 and 13. James chapter 2 verses 12 and 13. So speak, and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty, for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Are you known? Am I known? Are we known as merciful people? Now, you know, we had an interesting general conference of elders. We had various topics. We broke into little groups, subgroups of six or eight at a pop. We were talking about this whole idea of mercy. And one of the comments I made to the group, I said, you know, I've known too many people in my ministry who mistook permissiveness. Permissiveness for mercy. There's a big difference. We want to be merciful. We don't want to be permissive. We want to be merciful. We don't want to be permissive. There's an old saying, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Very true statement. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. So we want to be like Jesus Christ. We want to be like God the Father. They are the ultimate in terms of encouragers. We want the mind that is in them to be in us, Philippians 2, verse 5. Now, with that all being said as a basis for where I'm at now in the sermon, we want to take a look for the balance of the sermon at the characteristics of the heart of an encourager. If you're taking notes, if you have subheadings or I don't know how you do that in your notes, maybe in your notes you're talking about where you want to go for lunch.

They're showing that to the person sitting next to you.

But in my notes, I've got characteristics of the heart of an encourager.

And I didn't number these, so bear with me. An encourager has a humble heart, a heart that sees its own shortcomings. So many times, brethren, as I give various messages to you, you have probably already noticed, will continue to notice, that one of the things I discuss a great deal, I feel I need a great deal of this. You can determine how much you need, but I feel I need a great deal of humility. I realize that that is, to me, humility is one of the great building blocks. And if I don't have that, I'm not going to grow. And I want to grow. I want to please my father. I want to please my elder brother. I want to be of service to you. And if I'm some vain egotistical person, that's not going to happen. So an encourager, and if I want to be an encouraging person, I have to have a humble heart where I see my own shortcomings. I have to, before I can move forward to help anybody else, I need to know where I am at. I need to get my bearings. I need to recalibrate my thinking. So I'm in a proper frame of mind to be able to serve you. The more humble our heart is, the more we can serve.

And, of course, we want people to be pointed to our father. We want people to be pointed to Jesus Christ, our elder brother, not pointed toward us. Psalm 139. If you would turn there, Psalm 139. Again, I believe it's next Sabbath. We're hearing a sermonette about correction, if I'm understanding correctly. And that's certainly something that we need to take very personally. I think in the church, when we first came into church, we wanted correction. What do I know? I've just come out of the world. I need to understand what I need to be doing. And, of course, if you were like me when I first came to church, 18 years old, I went to Ambassador College the day after I went to my first Sabbath service. But I remember going at first Sabbath service in Detroit. Art Mercaro was speaking, and he talked about living life to the hilt. I can't remember what else Mr. Mercaro spoke about that day, but I remember that title, Living Life to the Hilt. He was the kind of guy who can really preach like that. But I remember coming into services and thinking, all these perfect people. The way they sing is perfect. The way they shake hands is perfect. The way they say goodbye is perfect. Everything's perfect. And, you know, back in the day, I think we strove more. I shouldn't say more, but that was something we talked about. You know, working on ourselves and being the people we should be. Today, I remember I gave a sermon here a few years ago at the feast, and Mr. Faye thanked me for giving the sermon. I thought, well, Bob, was I a little too correct? If he said, no, man, you were right there. That meant a lot to me. But too many times, we backpedal where we shouldn't be. Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties and see if there's any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting.

We want to be humble. We want to have a heart that sees where we need to be. And we want that kind of correction so we can be more like our father and elder brother. So an encourager has a humble heart. A second thing an encourager has is a compassionate heart. A compassionate heart. A heart that actively cares about others. You've probably heard the story. I don't know if it's an urban legend. I'm sure that it's happened someplace or other. Somebody came into services and people said, hey, how are you doing? And, well, my dog just died and I'd have to have an operation and blah blah blah blah blah. And the person just walks away. Well, have a good day! You know? Is that compassion? Were you really listening? Was the person really listening?

If we study closely into the life of Jesus Christ and we see just how compassionate he was, there's a story we went through. I don't have time to go through it here. A story went through in the book of Mark as we were going through the in-home studies and how the men were working so hard. They hardly had a chance to rest or to eat. And Christ said, you know, fellas, let's go by ourselves over here and get some R&R. And so they jumped in their boat and they went someplace, but the crowds followed them. And Christ said, well, we need to give them something to eat. And the disciples there were kind of cranky. They said, we're out in the wilderness. We've only got five loaves and two fishes. What do you think we're going to do with that? Christ said, you feed them.

They were getting a little cranky. They weren't being as compassionate as they should be, but Christ, as tired as he was, was compassionate. Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3.

Verse 12. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you must do, also must do. So here we're seeing the kind of language of compassion. Compassion. Verse 14. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, the bond of maturity. So an encourager has a compassionate heart. An encourager, brethren, also has an understanding heart, an understanding heart. We are fortunate that God has given us the Proverbs. He's given us the book of Ecclesiastes. You know, scripturally, we refer to those as wisdom literature. They are there for us if we don't have wisdom. The Bible talks about get wisdom. They're there for us to read, to study, to think about. And if we feel that we are lacking wisdom, take the book of Proverbs. Just read it like a novel. Just read it over and over and over again and then begin to meditate on each and every little proverb and the beauty that is there. When we want to have an understanding heart and we're dealing with people, we need to appreciate where they are, where they're coming from. A number of years ago, a fellow by the name of Gary Chapman wrote a book entitled The Five Love Languages. Some of you, I believe, probably a number of you have read that book, The Five Love Languages, The Secret to Love That Lasts. In his work, Chapman writes about five major, and I'm not saying this is the only number, but he writes about five major ways that people show love one toward another. And we're going to go through those in just a moment. But let's understand something. The way that I give love may not be the way that Mary receives love, and the way that Mary gives love may not be the way Randy receives love. So we all have to appreciate that even though we feel we're being loving to people, they may not see it that way. And so we need to have understanding where people are coming from. In Mr. Chapman's book, he lists those five love languages. One is gift giving. At the heart of love, from what he was saying, is the spirit of giving, giving symbols, tokens of our love. So you may have somebody who gives a lot to those he loves, or she gives a lot, because to their mind, that's what love is. We give. But maybe the person is receiving it doesn't quite see it that way. Another quality or type of love is giving quality time, what some people call FaceTime, where you give somebody your undivided attention.

And we've all known people, great people, but when you're talking to them, do they look you in the eye? Or are they looking over your left shoulder? And, you know, they're looking at everybody all around. You know, people who want quality time, FaceTime, they want eye contact. It shows you we're zeroing in on them. They mean I care if you give them anything. They want FaceTime.

A third type of love is words of affirmation, words that build up, words that encourage, like we're talking about today. Now, again, you can have an encourager who feels that everyone should be an encourager, and there's some truth to that, but, you know, maybe somebody is giving them gifts or giving them a lot of FaceTime, but they want encouragement. So maybe they don't feel as love. Their love mug, and we've all got them, right? We got our love mug. We want that love mug to be full. But if we aren't receiving it the way we feel, our love mug is empty from our perspective. The fourth type of love is acts of service, acts of devotion.

These are doing things that please the other person. Honey, I'm going to get to that honeydew list.

All those things you asked me to do around the house, those things are as good as done.

And the fifth, and a number of these, brethren, it's not just one or the other. Some of these you have in conjunction. You may have several of these, and the way you respond to love. Number five is physical touch. Physical touch, providing a sense of safety, providing a sense of security.

And if you're the kind of person where physical touch means a lot to you, and you'll say your relationship with your mate, and your mate is giving you lots of gifts, but very little way of touch, then you can feel that you've got an empty love mug. So again, we want to have a spirit, have a understanding heart. Let's go look at Proverbs chapter 20. Proverbs chapter 20 and verse five. Proverbs chapter 20 and verse five.

Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

A man of understanding will draw it out. So we want to be people with an understanding heart. Well, let's not just listen to the words. What's beneath the words? What's behind the words?

Moving on, an encourager has an appreciative heart.

An appreciative heart. Now, this one's kind of tough. None of them are easy, but this one's, I think, a little more tough. To have an appreciative heart means that you see the God-given worth in people. For some people, that's really hard to see.

Sometime down the road, I'm going to give a sermon here and then beloit on how to deal with difficult people in your life you must deal with. You know, your next-door neighbor. You can't get away from the next-door neighbor. They're the next-door neighbor. Maybe you're a boss or maybe you're a co-worker. A person is sitting in a cubicle next to you. A person is working on a line next to you. Whatever it is, there's somebody in your, perhaps there's somebody in your life that's really difficult and you've got to deal with them. I remember years ago when I first got out of Ambassador College, I was hired by a furniture company to be a office manager trainee. I thought, oh, that sounds good. It wasn't that good. But about a month into the job, the warehouse manager quit. And so the owner of the company, there's a small company, about 40 employees, said, Randy, we'd like you, if you wouldn't mind, you know, you're in shape. It looks like you can handle it. And back in those days, I was in shape. He said, we would like you to be the warehouse manager. A lot of physical labor. There were no high lows or anything like that. A lot of physical labor. I would have a crew of about, depending upon the time of the year, anywhere from four people to 12 people. Around the holidays, there was always a lot more. So I took the job as warehouse manager. I had that job for two years. Because it was considered more physical labor, more blue collar, I got an increase in pay at that particular company. Now, the office manager, because I got an increase of pay over her, couldn't stand the sight of me. And I remember she would just, whenever she would see me, she would be really cross or cranky. And if I happened to make a mistake on paperwork, she would walk out to the warehouse. Or if I came into the office, she would stand face to face with me and just scream at me. That went on for two years. Almost the whole two years I was there. She was a person who I had to deal with, and it was very upsetting every day. And I'll never forget, in all the prayers, God, please deliver me. The day I walked into the company and found out she had quit. Thank you. Thank you, God. Literally praying, thank you. Because it was, now, what I needed to do is see the God-given worth in her, in Gail. That was tough at that particular point. But a way of looking at that that helped me was that, you know, in our society, in our culture, worth is sometimes recognized by the price you pay for something. Jesus Christ paid for her and every human being. And every human being, at some point, will be called and have an opportunity to become a part of the family of God. And so, even though this person, at the time I knew them, was as hard to get along with as anything. And, you know, it was interesting, in that particular setting, the owner of the company, his name was Robert. Robert came to me one day in a warehouse and said, Randy, we don't know what Gail's issue is. We don't know why she hates you. All the rest of us love you. I said, Robert, you own the company. You can do something about this. And he just looked down and walked away. Thanks, Bob. So, but, you know, I had to come to realize that she had God given value. Look at Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, verses 6 and 7.

Luke chapter 12, verses 6 and 7. Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins, and not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. You know, our great God, who names all the celestial stars and various planets out there, by name, numbers, the hairs of our head. Remember the Scripture there, and I think it's 1 Peter 5, 7 in the Phillips, where it says that we are God's personal concern. We are God's personal concern. So, again, remember an encourager has an appreciative heart toward other people. Moving on, an encourager has a praising heart. And by praise, again, I'm not talking about flattery. I'm talking about accentuating the positive. We can accentuate the negative. Human nature loves to do that. Satan loves to do that. Satan loves to catch people when they're doing something that is a mistake or wrong.

But what we want to do is praise people. Give them a sincere compliment. Give them something, say something that's encouraging, uplifting, upbuilding, and where possible, when it refers to character. I appreciate the patience that you show. I appreciate the wisdom that you were exhibiting when you were dealing with this individual. I appreciate how the long suffering or whatever. We can praise physical things, but not everybody looks good, has attractive clothing, lives in a nice house, drives a nice car. But we can talk about the spiritual, people's integrity. Philippians 4, verse 8. You might go back and review Mike Shapizak's series on this particular verse. He's done a very nice job with that series.

Breaking it down for us, Philippians 4, verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatever things are pure, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure and lovely and good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And as we meditate on those things, what does this say? I'm not going to turn there, but in Matthew 12, 34. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if we're meditating on all these positive things, and remember, this is Paul speaking. He's not goody two-shoes. He's gone through all sorts of things in his life, all sorts of horrible trials. But he says, let's focus on this. And if we're focusing on this, then the good things are going to come out of our heart as we speak.

Moving forward, an encourager has a discerning heart, a discerning heart. And this is, brethren, where we go before God and we ask God, as Solomon did, help us to have discernment. Help us to be able to really understand people, understand what their needs are. We need to seek that kind of understanding.

When we seek to understand where people really are, and we're not shooting from the hip. You know, when you shoot from the hip, we're going to miss. We're going to have bad aim. We don't want to shoot from the hip. We're going to miss our target. But when we ask God for a discerning heart to encourage, then God's going to hear that prayer. Let's go back over, if you're not, if you're not moved from Philippians chapter 4. Let's look at verse 19. Philippians 4, 19.

And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Shall supply all your need. And so we go to our Father and say, Father, I have a need for discernment. I'm a member of your church. These are your children. I want to be a help to them. I want to serve them. I want to hold up their arms when they're tired. I want to help their life to be what all that it can be, from whatever it is you want me to give to them. I think God's going to hear that prayer. Lastly, number seven. An encourager has a wise heart, a wise heart, a heart that relies not on our thinking, but a heart that relies on God's the Word of God. You know, John 17, 17, your Word is truth. We talked about the Proverbs. We talked about Ecclesiastes. We could have added the book of Psalms in there and talk about how we read those over and over and how we'll garner wisdom. Maybe we just read a couple of Proverbs a day and really meditate as we're driving to work. We're thinking about the Proverbs we read just before we left the house. A wise heart will try to determine what God sees in every circumstance.

What does God see here? I might see this or that of the other, but then maybe I'm shooting from the hip and judging a book by its cover and all those negative things. We want to ask, what does God see in this person? Wisdom is the ability to look at life from God's point of view, from God's point of view. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 13.

1 Corinthians 2 verse 13. These things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches, notice man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. So yes, if we want a wise heart, we want that as a part of the toolbox. In our spiritual toolbox, we have to go to God for that.

I'd like to relate a story to you. The sermon is on its way to conclusion here, but I'd like to relate a story that happened many, many years ago. I'm told this was a true encounter, perhaps it's an urban legend, I don't know, but I was told it was a true story.

It's one man's recollection, a man who gave some encouragement and a man who received some encouragement, and the results. And I quote, When I decided to meet Babe Ruth and obtain an autograph from him, I couldn't have selected a more inappropriate time. It was a balmy evening in May of 1935. Earlier that day, the great home run slugger had struck out three times while playing for the Boston Braves against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The fans have booed him unmercifully. As I was to learn, he was feeling pretty low. I went to the Babe's Hotel in Pittsburgh that night and phoned him from the lobby. I collect autographs, I told him. Are you sure you want my autograph? He grunted. I assured him I most definitely did, so that Babe gave me his room number and invited me up. He told me the door was open. I should just walk in. When I entered the room, I was saddened to see the king of swat wearing an old blue robe lying on the Davenport, the picture of dejection. He was then 40 years old, and his career was just a matter of days before ending. He signed an autograph beneath his picture in my book and then looked up and said, I feel terrible. Not only did the fans boo me, but some idiot spat on me. I guess the cheap blankety-blank was mad because he paid to see me hit a home run.

The visitor said, I tried to console the big slugger by saying, forget today, tomorrow's another day. I have enough confidence in you to predict that tomorrow you'll be the hero of the game.

You really mean that kid, he said, sitting up? When I said that I did, he went, well, I'm going to autograph this baseball, too. It was used in batting practice. I went home that evening thinking about the babe and hoping that my prediction would come true. The next afternoon, I anxiously turned into the game and Babe Ruth was making a comeback. He hit three home runs, the second being the only ball ever hit over the right field, Grant's that at Forbes Field.

Those are home runs number 712, 713, and 714. The last in his career. The date was May 25, 1935. He retired eight days later.

Brethren, we can have the same kind of impact on one another. It's a matter of words. It's a matter of God's Spirit using you to use the words that you can help other people with. It's the job of the ministry to help us see these things. And I don't say I don't give this sermon because Chicago is not an encouraging church. You are an encouraging church. But I've used the analogy in the past just as a golf pro teams up other golf pros to improve his game. We all can improve our game. We all can be better in terms of encouragers. Let's be about our Father's business. Let's be encouragers.