Encouraged by the Word

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Our computers quit working today, and he said, "Can you fix them?" Hey, everyone. Can you hear me on Facebook? I'm kind of watching on my computer here, and it should have shifted away from the opening graphic to us, so we'll see if we can make this work. Might have to refresh. This was a little trouble we were having a little bit on Sunday because we do the live feed outside for folks who are wanting to sit there and, for whatever reason, my computer kept restarting. Oh, looks like we are good to go. So, all right, let's go ahead and have a word of prayer, and then we'll do a little bit of housekeeping, and then we'll be just jumping right into it. Father in heaven, thank you for your church, for your word. Just be with us tonight as we gather to consider how your word encourages us.

May you just be with us, be with our church, be with our nation, be with our communities. We just ask that you would watch over us and bring peace to our world. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So a little bit of housekeeping as we get started. So tonight we're doing a little bit of a test. We've got folks who would like to be able to participate with us online, and so we're going to try to make that work. And so this is not our final arrangement if you're here with us for seating. It's just what we were able to come up with at the last minute because the air conditioner upstairs had replaced all the thermostat batteries, and the temperature went through the roof. So we're going to just kind of test things out tonight. We're also, for our live stream on Sunday,

there was a major app update in some of the software we used to stream, and so this gives us an ability to kind of test that instead of having Greg try to figure it out halfway through the sermon on Sunday. So we just want, like we have been for, I guess, the last couple months, kind of adapt as we go along. And so tonight we're going to do kind of a little bit more of a devotional thought. We'll be in Romans, the 15th chapter, after a bit of introduction. So that's where we're heading. That's where we're going. But starting next Wednesday night, I want to go to 2 Peter. I kind of like to move back and forth between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In 2000, I think it was 2016, I preached through 1 Peter.

I ended up at least at the end of 2016. I don't remember exactly when we started. It could have been like 2014 for the way these things kind of go on and on sometimes. And so we're going to start 2 Peter next Wednesday night. And so we have ordered, about a week ago, we ordered those Scripture journals. So if you like to use those, you're welcome to, or you want to bring your own Bible, that's fine as well. If you're watching with us and you're far away, we have a couple extras. So if you want to, send me a message with your address, and we have two or three that we can send out to you. So that's kind of the plan for where we're going. And so we'll go ahead and dive into our lesson tonight. Next week we'll move into a little bit more discussion,

and back and forth, and kind of figure out how to make this work. So, some days, at least for me, are a little bit discouraging. Sometimes it seems like nothing goes right. Like, tonight we were all set up. I was feeling like I was, you know, didn't have any of that last-minute stress before we go, and everything seemed to be working fine and great. Ran and got coffee, because that's what I normally do on Wednesday night. I came back, and it was like 78 degrees upstairs. All the batteries and the thermostats were out. We placed them, and they were just barely starting to kick back on. And so at the last minute, we're moving down. And on top of that, when I was getting ready for church earlier, I caught myself shaving. Like, it was just all the little discouragements, kind of all at once.

We live in what seems to be, a lot of times, a discouraging time. We have a pandemic that canceled and changed our plans. A lot of things got put on hold. And then if you've paid any attention in terms of just like etymology, we had murder hornets in Washington State. Jerome can give you a great documentary about murder hornets if you want to talk to him about that. And then now we are in a season of injustice and unrest, and you sprinkle in a bunch of political controversy. And it just seems like things are pretty discouraging a lot of days. In fact, I saw something this past week. It's a guy who wakes up, looks out the window and goes, "All right, what chapter of the Book of Revelations are we in this morning?" Because it seems like every day just brings some kind of difficulty or struggle or calamity.

And one of the things that happens when we get discouraged is a lot of times we just sort of shut down. And this has happened, I think, with all of our kids at one point or another where we're, when they're really little, and we decide that, you know, getting ambitious, we're gonna go on a walk, and they walk really well, sometimes a lot farther than you think. And then they get tired, and what happens? They just sort of sit down. And for us, when we become discouraged, that's kind of what happens. We tend to just sort of sit down. And we stop moving, and we stop walking. And so we need encouragement. And I want us just to consider that a little bit tonight before we move into 2 Peter and are encouraged specifically by Peter's letter.

I want to sort of walk through sort of an overview of biblical encouragement as we begin. And these all sort of overlap. I got like five individual ways we see encouragement throughout Scripture. But they all kind of overlap and fit together. So if you think of like a woven basket and the structure of that basket and how it fits and holds together. That's how biblical encouragement is. And so one of the first things we see with biblical encouragement is that we are encouraged by others. And if you're interested, one of the first places you find this is in the book of Deuteronomy. God is speaking to Moses, and he's speaking about what's going to happen next to the Israelites. And he says, "Joshua is going to be the one who comes up." And in Deuteronomy 1:38, he says, "Joshua, son of Nun."

Who's the guy in the Bible who doesn't have a dad? Joshua, son of Nun. I'll just give you guys a minute. He stands before you. He shall enter. And then he says, "Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it." Speaking about the promised land. And then again in Deuteronomy chapter 3, he says, "But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see." And it seems like Joshua is a guy who needs to be encouraged. Joshua chapter 1, those first nine verses, three times, God comes to Joshua and says, "Be strong and courageous," sort of over and over again. And one of the things I think we learned from Joshua is that, first of all, it's okay to need encouragement,

it's okay to be discouraged, and that we need that encouragement, but also that encouragement isn't, needing encouragement isn't necessarily a weakness. And so this theme of being encouraged by God's people continues throughout Scripture. And one of the clearest places we see this is in the book of Acts. If you go through the book of Acts and write about encouragement or exhortation, sort of underline all of those sort of over and over. One of my favorites is Barnabas. He's the son of encouragement, the guy who is sent to encourage the first Gentile Christians in Antioch. He's the guy who goes and gets Paul, encourages him to become part of ministry. And it's interesting, Barnabas is an encouraging guy, and throughout the book of Acts you find God's people encouraging one another. In fact, in Acts 13, Paul is in the synagogue and they say, "Hey, do you have a word of encouragement for everybody?"

And so here's a guy who's actually encouraged to encourage the church. So you find throughout Scripture that we are called to encourage one another. And so one of my favorites is in Hebrews, the 10th chapter, and I'll go ahead and read this one. It says, "Let us hold fast to our confession of hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and to good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of son, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." And the purpose here of encouragement is that you and I get discouraged, and we need one another. We need our brothers and sisters in Christ to gather around us and encourage us. And in fact, there's another picture in this verse of encouragement.

It says, "Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good deeds." And the Greek word there literally means to poke something with a sharp stick. So if you've ever had to move cows along, and you've got to kind of poke them and prod them, you know, it says here literally that sometimes Christians, we've got to poke each other with a sharp stick. And so I know my brother is watching on the live stream, so just an FYI, it's in the Bible. I get to poke him with a sharp stick later. It's right there in Hebrews. But the picture here is that God's people have to be encouraging of one another. And one of the things that I would say about that is that you and I are to be encouragers to each other,

but we also have to allow ourselves to be encouraged. Sometimes we have sort of this lone ranger mentality, right? I don't need anybody. I don't need any help. I can do it by myself. You know, my 18-month-old has the same attitude, and it ends in disaster. And the same is true for us as Christians, that if we try to go this alone, it ends badly. The second way we see sort of encouragement in Scripture is encouraged by circumstances or events. We've all experienced this. There's something that happens to us that encourages us. I remember our first drive-in service, which was a nightmare, technically. Everybody starts driving in, and we hadn't all seen each other for a while, and everybody was excited to see each other. And it was just an encouraging, encouraging event. In Acts chapter 15, there's this controversy in the church over Gentiles and Jewish customs and what should we do.

And so the Jerusalem Council, the first church council, gets together. They meet. They come to a decision. They send out a letter to the church. In Acts 15, it says Paul and Barnabas went down to Antioch, back to that place where Barnabas worked so hard to encourage. Gathering the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And so they rejoiced for a couple of reasons. One is because the content of the letter encouraged them. That their Christians in Jerusalem were encouraging, but also because of these events. There was uncertainty about are Gentiles in or are they out? How do they fit with Jewish Christians? And these events, because of the Jerusalem Council, bring encouragement. Or in 2 Corinthians 8, if you start at the very beginning of that chapter, the picture of the giving of all of these churches to the Christians who are starving in Jerusalem.

That event is seen as an encouragement. And you kind of see how it all sort of fits together. That not only you're encouraged with people, but some of those things those people do encourage us. And then my favorite - this is I think my favorite way of encouragement in Scripture - is encouraged by naps and food. So we've talked about this the last couple weeks about Elijah after he goes head-to-head with the prophets of Baal. And he gets really discouraged, and he ends up in the wilderness under a tree and says, "I'm no better than my fathers. God just killed me." God sends the angel. What does the angel do? Gives him some food, he takes a nap, and then God talks to him. Sometimes we need food and a nap. If you get tired, you get grumpy. If you get hungry, you get grumpy.

And so one of the ways we're encouraged is nap and a snack. In the beginning of the Gospels, when Jesus is in the wilderness, he fasts for 40 days. He goes head-to-head with Satan. And then it says, "The angels came and ministered to him." Now we don't know what that ministry involved or included. I imagine some of it was a ministry of faith. Some of it was a ministry of fellowship, of being together with somebody who was there to encourage you. But I imagine some of that was the physical nourishment of not eating for 40 days and the provision of food. Or in Acts chapter 27, Paul is in the middle of a shipwreck. Things are not going well. And the 14th day of this storm, it says this in Acts 27, Paul urged them to all take some food, saying,

"Today is the 14th day that you have continued in suspense, and without food, having taken nothing. Therefore, I urge you, take some food, for it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you." And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all, broke it and began to eat, and they were encouraged and ate some food themselves. So you see encouragement coming in a couple different ways. One is that the people are encouraged by Paul's words and his prayer, but they're also encouraged to eat something. And one of the things that I found, especially in those difficult areas where you're at the hospital with someone, and you've been there for 10 hours, and the circumstances is difficult,

and it's mournful, usually I try to say, "Hey, let's go get something to eat." Not because anybody feels hungry, but because sometimes in the midst of that struggle, you just need something to eat. And so there's a physical component to encouragement. So we've sort of seen that the body of Christians gathered together, God's people. We've seen we encourage by events. We see that we can be encouraged by physical needs being met, specifically sleep and food. And we can be encouraged by the character of God. Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 18 says that, "So by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope that is set before us." And the author of Hebrews says that because of God's truthfulness,

we can be encouraged that He keeps His promise because of His nature and His character. Philippians 2 talks about any encouragement in Christ. And this isn't just explicitly spelled out, but throughout Scripture when we see the attributes of God. One of his great sermons from Spurgeon is a sermon on the immutability of God. And what that means is God's unchanging nature. And he uses the verse from the Old Testament that, you know, because God does not change, you, O Israel, are not consumed. And especially that introduction, those first couple paragraphs, as he talks about how we consider who God is and what He has done, and how that's a balm to our soul, and it strengthens us, and it expands our mind, and it makes us humble, that we are encouraged by understanding and getting a glimpse of the character of God. And so, if you want to look that up later,

that's just, if you just go to Google and say, "Spurgeon immutability of God," it pops right up there as the number one result, and you can read through that sermon. Now, what I want us to talk about, it's a lot of introduction, is being encouraged by the Word of God. And so, in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul talks about the return of God, about the return of Jesus, and he looks at the church, and he says, "Encourage one another with these words, with these words that I have written to you." And in Romans 15, and starting in verse 4, it just says, "For what was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope." And so, Paul's letters are often divided into sort of two sections. And so you have, a lot of times you have a theology section,

where he gives us the foundation and the why, and then you have the practicality section, where he tells you how to take that theology and apply it. And these two things are not separate, because in all of Paul's theological writings, he is intensely practical. In all of his practical writings, he's also intensely theological. And so you sort of have this focus of, we're going to focus on theology with the practicality coming because of that. And then we have, I'm going to focus on the practicality, based on this foundation of good theology. And so they're woven together. And so in this section of Romans, we are in a section where Paul is practically applying some of the things that he has talked about. And in this case, specifically, how Christians relate to one another. Whether that's in terms of judgment, whether that's in terms of

some are okay eating food sacrificed to idols, some people aren't. How do you deal with the stronger Christian? How do you deal with the weaker Christian? How do you live together peacefully? And in chapter 15, he talks about bearing with the failings of the weak, that those who are stronger in the faith sometimes will have to limit what they say and how they behave because there are other Christians who are weaker, and he does so by pointing to the example of Christ. And he'll say this in verse 3: "For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproach of those who reproached you fell on me." And this is a quote from the 69th Psalm about Christ taking on reproach, which is hugely practical for us today, especially when we tend to disagree and argue with one another, and we live in a very argumentative culture.

The idea of bearing with one another and treating one another gently, and the stronger taking care of the weak. And so Paul says, "Here's the Old Testament basis for what I just said." And then he sort of has this little note, which is where we are this evening, verse 4. Because he said, "Why are you going back to the Psalms?" And Paul says this, "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of Scriptures we might have hope." And so he said, "Paul, why are you quoting the Psalms?" And so he says, "Here's why." Because they instruct us, they help us endure, and they give us encouragement that leads us ultimately to hope. And so the first thing you see is that Scripture instructs. I don't know about you, but I'm really impatient when it comes to growing stuff.

Rachel's parents brought us a few tomato plants. We haven't actually moved them to pots yet. We've just been kind of watering them, keeping them alive, and they're about this tall. And I'm still going, "Any tomatoes yet? Any tomatoes yet?" Our girls planted a bunch of cucumbers because they wanted to make pickles. So we got pickling cucumbers, and they wrote on their little pots, you know, Evelyn's pickle pot, Penelope's pickle pot, and they planted their pickles. And every day it's like, "Are they pickles? Are they pickles?" And we're just barely getting sprouts, and we're waiting impatiently for pickles. And the same is true sometimes, I think, with our lives in terms of how we view encouragement from Scripture and how we view spiritual growth. We want it, and we want it right now. It's like the old joke about the guy who prays for patience, says, "God, give me patience and give it to me right now."

That's sort of how we are when it comes to encouragement. Paul doesn't start, notice he doesn't start this with encouragement. He starts it with instruction, to hear what Scripture teaches, to seek to understand Scripture, to sit under the teaching of Scripture. That if we first want to be encouraged by Scripture, we must seek to know and understand Scripture. That if we are struggling in our encouragement as Christians, and we come to the Word of God, we have to spend time in it to find that encouragement. The second thing, he says, is the endurance and the encouragement of Scripture. And these two things just sort of go hand in hand with one another. You want endurance? You need to be encouraged. If you're encouraged, you will ultimately endure. And endurance is a picture of keeping going when things get rough.

And so Rachel's been, I asked her if I could say this, she's been riding her bike pretty regularly, like five, seven miles at a time. And so I think it was last week she said, "I'm going to go for a bike ride." And so she heads out and she goes out here, down through Shenandoah's campus, through the park, down Cincinnati Road, back through the subdivision, a whole lot of miles. And what she said when she got back, she said, "I didn't realize how many hills there were." You never realize that until you're either riding a bike or running, how hilly the terrain actually is. On that last hill coming up Sesame Road, I was going to call you and just be like, "Hey, get the van, get the kids, come pick me up." Right? Because it's a giant hill. It's a busy road and it's a tough place, but she endured.

That's the picture of endurance is that we keep going even when things are difficult. And then you have this word encouragement. And the word encouragement here literally means to come alongside. The root of it is very similar to the word used for the Holy Spirit. Maybe you've heard this, the paraclete, the one who comes alongside. This word for encouragement is a picture of coming alongside. So sometimes when the kids are really, really tired and they get ready to go to bed, you can sit and you can command and instruct and say, "Do this, do this." And then it's kind of go... it's kind of flopped there. But what happens if you come alongside and say, "Let me help you get to bed," right? It's a whole different attitude, a different demeanor. And what Paul says is the things written in Scripture, these things written in the former times,

they were written for our instruction, but also that we would endure and be encouraged, that Scripture comes alongside of us when we're struggling and we're tired and we say, "I can't go anymore," and we just want to slump down and fall over. The Word of God comes alongside and helps us to move along. And so what you find is that he says that ultimately this ends in hope. And we want to understand that the Christian life isn't just grit your teeth and kind of slog through the difficulties and hopefully make it to the finish line, but it's about hope and the joy that comes from that hope. And so this Scripture instructs, it says, "Go to the Word of God for your instruction, for your endurance, for your encouragement, ultimately resulting in hope." And I'll just give you sort of one example, not from Scripture, but from church history. And there was a guy by the name of Henry Martin, and he ends up being a missionary to India, Persia, and then ultimately Arabia.

And this is in the early 1800s, so it's not like today where if we want to be a missionary, we get on an airplane and in 12 hours we can be just about anywhere in the world with all of our modern conveniences and modern tools. So when he leaves England, he has to do so by ship. He gets to India. Things do not go well. One of the guys who had been there for a long time sees this young missionary shows up, and so he preaches a sermon. And the text of the sermon was literally Henry Martin, how you're terrible, how everything about you is terrible. In fact, at the end he accuses him of seeking only to gratify his self-sufficiency, his pride, and his uncharitableness. So can you imagine, you're traveling thousands of miles from home, at great difficulty, at great expense.

You get there, you sit in church, and the sermon is about how this guy who's been there for a lot of years doesn't like you. That has to be discouraging. In addition, he suffers greatly health-wise, and he's constantly struggling with his health. And so he goes on to have a short but fruitful ministry, and the question is, how does he do that? And this is from his journal. He says, "In the multitude of my troubled thoughts, I still saw there is a strong consolation in the hope that is set before us. Let men do their worst, let me be torn to pieces, and my dear Lydia torn from me." I forgot to mention that he left his fiancée at home, hoping to one day return and marry her. "Or let me labor for fifty years amidst scorn, never seeing one soul converted, still it shall not be worse for my soul in eternity, nor worse for it in time.

Though the heathen rage and the English people imagine a vain thing, the Lord Jesus, who controls all events, is my friend, my master, my God, and my all." And so he fights the battle of discouragement and hopelessness by turning to these truths that are found in God's word. That Jesus is my friend, my master, my God, my all. That he is the portion of my soul. He is the one who restores my soul. He's the one who strengthens me. And through the encouragement of Scripture, he seeks to minister. The thing about him is he does not minister for very long. He dies at the age of 31, never reunited with his fiancee, Lydia. But before he does, he has a translation of the Bible that he does in India. He translates the New Testament in Psalms in Persia. And he goes on from there to Arabia, and he has the first Arabic translation of the Bible.

And then dies at 31, not ever returning home. But he does so, and his witness is powerful because he ultimately found his encouragement in the truths that were in God's Word. And so in the midst of feeling alone, even in the midst of people who were supposed to encourage him, he gets to church and they preach a sermon against him. He finds encouragement in the truth that is in God's Word. We're not alone. There is help. There is strength. And we see it in numerous ways through Scripture, whether that's our brothers and sisters in Christ, sometimes, as we learned tonight. Whether that is events that encourage us, whether that's sometimes needing to take care of our physical needs, sleep and food, or turning to the character and nature of God, or running to His Word.

So I want to go to the very next verse because it's interesting that Paul says some of the same things kind of just over again. But in a different way. So remember verse 4, "For whatever was written in the former days was written for our instruction through endurance and through encouragement of the Scriptures that we might have hope." And then he says this, and he actually prays. Look what he says, "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus." So you see what Paul does? He prays for the very thing he instructs them to turn to the Word of God for. He says in the Word of God, it instructs you, it encourages you, it brings you to hope, it helps you endure.

But he says ultimately the source of that is God, and he prays that this would be present in the life of the Roman Christians. So I'm going to go ahead and pray, and then we'll stop the stream, and then we can spend a little time talking together. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for allowing us to meet together for a few minutes this evening. Thank you for your Word. May we be encouraged by our brothers and sisters in Christ. May we be encouraged as we see you working in the events of this world and moving things according to your purpose, even in the midst of difficulty and unrest and struggle and conflict, to know that there are things that are intended for evil that you ultimately use for good. Help us to seek to be encouraged by how you meet our physical needs, whether that's sleep or food. Help us to be encouraged by your nature and your character as we see that and study that and seek to understand that. Help us to be people of your Word, encouraged and enduring and keeping going even when it is difficult. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

So just a reminder for those of you watching, next week we're going to start 2nd Peter. It's a short letter, so if you want to read through it, you can read through it pretty quickly, become familiar with it, start getting an eye on what we'll be discussing. We'll move from where I kind of talked a lot this week to the coming weeks. We'll do a little bit more discussion, some back and forth questions, thoughts, all those kind of different things. We also have some... We'll have Scripture journals available this Sunday if you want one of those. Additionally, if you're watching, we have two or three that we can send out if you would like one of those. So...