As we continue our sermon series about what it means to live as “one another’s for the sake of Christ”, I want to share a story with you.
The devil . . . stick with me here . . . the devil once advertised his tools for sale. On the date of the sale, the tools were spread out on a table . . . hatred, envy, jealousy, deceit, lying, pride, and so on . . . each was marked with a price.
Set apart from the rest was a harmless looking tool, well-worn and rusted, yet it was priced very high.
One curious customer asked, “What’s this tool?”
“Well, that’s discouragement,” replied the devil.
“Why have you priced it so high?”, the customer asked.
“Because it is more useful to me than the others. With discouragement, I can pry open and get inside a person’s heart. Once inside, I can shut them down and make them do whatever I want.”
Though a fable, this story does emphasize the damage that discouragement can do to the heart of a person. Discouragement can make the greatest person ineffective. It can choke growth. It brings progress to a standstill. And it can ruin churches because when we are discouraged we don’t step out in faith; we don’t trust God. In discouragement, we can stumble back into old destructive habits.
That’s why we are told over and over in the New Testament to encourage one another.
- In 1 Thes. 4:18 we’re told to encourage each other with scripture.
- In Titus 1:9 Paul says that the church’s elders are to encourage others by sound doctrine.
- 3:13 calls us to make encouragement a consistent and constant part of our lives because it’s not just on Sundays we need encouragement.
- 10:25 reminds us that one of the core purposes of the church is mutual encouragement.
But this morning I want to challenge us in the same way that Paul does in 1 Thess. 5:11. Let’s read our text together, “Encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
This text begins with the word, “therefore”. In other words, “In light of everything that I just told you”.
So, to understand what Paul is saying, we need to put it into context. Simply put, the church was freaking out about the second coming of Jesus. They had no idea when or how it would happen, and they were afraid that they would miss out.
Paul writes this letter to essentially tell them to relax, if you are a follower of Jesus, you have nothing to worry about, and then he says that they need to encourage one another with the message of the gospel.
The New Testament word for encourage means to “come alongside of, to stand with”
Jesus uses this same word in the gospel of John to describe the Holy Spirit. When Jesus called the Spirit the Comforter, He is saying that the Holy Spirit is the one who comes alongside us, and stands with us, and helps us to move on. That’s what encouragement does.
Then he says to build each other up. This phrase is associated with construction and as we know, construction takes a long time. It isn’t accomplished by a single action but requires many actions; design, laying foundation, stacking bricks, etc.
So also, believers need to engage in the ongoing process of building each other up and that is accomplished through encouragement.
I like how J.B. Phillips puts it in his paraphrase, “So go on cheering and strengthening one another.”
Imagine a church were everyone is your greatest cheerleader. They all believe you can do it and they’re ready to help make it happen. They’ve got your back when you stumble, and they celebrate with you when you succeed.
That’s the kind of church I want us to be.
So how can we as a church better come alongside one another?
Well, I’d like to tell you about a guy in scripture named Joseph, but no one calls him Joseph. He’s known by a nickname that the apostles gave him, Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. If there was ever anyone who had the gift of encouragement, it was this guy.
So, over the next few minutes, we’re going to look at some of these passages in Acts that tell the story of Barnabas to help us see what made everyone call him the son of encouragement and how his example will teach us how we can come alongside others and stand with them.
We first see Barnabas in the Jerusalem church in those earliest days following Pentecost. In Acts 4, we see a beautiful picture of what the church can be, when she is all that she should be.
Acts 4:32-37
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet.”
This wasn’t the first or only time that Barnabas did something like this. Notice that by the time he did this he was already known as the son of encouragement.
Now, Barnabas wasn’t the only one who sold property and used it to help the church, but apparently, from the fact that he is singled out here, he was a model that others followed.
Something that we will see several times is that he was the first to step out, the first to come forward, the first to offer acceptance, the first to jump in and help. That’s what encouragers do.
They’re willing to be the first. They won’t wait for someone else to do it first. But once they do it, then others are inspired to jump in as well.
Barnabas sells property and uses it to help the church. Others think, “Wow, what a wonderful thing, I’d like to do that too, and so they do.”
Luke was able to write that there were no needy persons among them, because there were people like Barnabas who jump started everyone into giving.
If you want to be an encourager, you need to be generous with your resources. This doesn’t mean you have to go out tomorrow and sell a house or a piece of property. But would we, if we needed to?
Often, it’s the small things; preparing a meal, loaning a car, giving a few dollars, or buying a couple bags of groceries. Sometimes though, God calls us to the bigger things. Buying a weeks’ worth of groceries, giving away a car, making a big donation.
The world tells us that we succeed by acquiring, owning, possessing, getting more and more, compounding our wealth. God says that we succeed, as Christians and as a church by giving and sharing. As Jesus himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
A second way that Barnabas came alongside people and stood with them is that he saw in them what God saw in them. We tend to look at people on the outside. We look at them according to their past, according to what they’ve done to us and for us.
God looks at people on the inside. He looks at their future, what they can become through Him and what He can do in them.
Encouragers see people the same way. They try to see in people what God sees in them. They look for the promise and the potential. They look beyond what is to what could be.
Barnabas does this several times in the book of Acts. He was among the first to accept Gentile Christians into the church. He welcomed them. He lived with them, worked with them. He equipped them for ministry. This is something most Jews would never do, but Barnabas did.
But perhaps the best example of this comes in Acts 9. Saul has just become a Christian. After a long history of persecuting Christians, throwing them into jail, of overseeing their executions, no one in the church wanted to get close to him. No one trusted him. No one thought of him yet as the great Apostle Paul called to be evangelist to the Gentiles. Look what Barnabas does.
Acts 9:26-28
“When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.”
This is just the beginning of what Barnabas does with Paul. Barnabas takes Paul with him to Antioch. He trains him as a minister of the gospel. He became the great Apostle Paul because Barnabas was willing to see in Him what God saw in him.
We need to come alongside people in the same way.
There is one more time in Acts that I want to draw your attention to where Barnabas really comes alongside someone and stands with them. This event shows us something very important about encouragement. It gives second chances. It doesn’t hold people’s failures against them. It is willing to extend a hand, help you back up, and give you a second chance.
When Paul and Barnabas went on their first missionary journey they took a young man with them named John Mark. John Mark was training for the ministry, but part way through the trip, John Mark quit and went back home.
Now Acts doesn’t tell us why John Mark left, but when Paul and Barnabas were getting ready to go on another mission’s trip, Paul definitely didn’t want to take John Mark again because he felt he had deserted their cause. But Barnabas was willing to give him another chance.
Acts 15:36-41
Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing." 37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
This is a serious disagreement that Paul and Barnabas have. Interestingly, Luke does not take sides or say who was right or wrong. Paul took Silas, and they had a very successful missionary journey.
Barnabas, staying true to his nature as a son of encouragement, took John Mark. Luke doesn’t follow this storyline in Acts, but we know his encouragement of John Mark and his willingness to give him a 2nd chance paid huge dividends.
John Mark proved his usefulness as a minister of the gospel. Listen to what Paul himself would request of Timothy many years later, “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry (2 Tim. 4:11).” What would have happened had Barnabas never given John Mark that 2nd chance? Think of the missed opportunity. Think of all that would have been lost.
The church should be the home of 2nd chances. Logos Dei Church must be a place where people with broken hearts, shattered dreams, failed attempts, and wrong turns can find a group of people who in the grace of God are willing to say, “Do over.”
This is what Barnabas did for people. This is what we can do for people. We all need to be sons and daughters of encouragement.
As we wrap up, I want to tell you about the top right-hand drawer of my desk. I call it the drawer of encouragement. In it, I keep letters and notes that have been sent to me over the past 23 years of ministry in Tampa. And each of these letters has a word of encouragement for me.
I can tell you that it is easy to get discouraged when you are trying to serve God. It’s easy to focus on your failures, short comings, and what if’s. It’s easy to get to the place where you just want to give up and walk away.
But when I get to those points in my life . . . which honestly, have been too often. I reach in to my top right-hand drawer and pull out a note or two. Although many of these were written years ago, they still bring me encouragement.
You guys, being an encourager can be as simple as writing a note and letting someone know that they matter in the eyes of God, and they matter to you.
So, go on cheering and strengthening one another because you never know what a difference that will make in the lives of one another as we strive to be and do what God has called us to.