Accelerating Christianity - growing and causing others to grow on!
Here’s the BIG question that shapes this sermon this morning -
On the whole, are you a “giver or taker” in this world?
Everyone of us is either making an emotional deposit or a withdrawal when we interact with others, aren’t we? Some people just suck the oxygen out of the room when they are around for a minute... others walk away and we feel energized! This happens on all levels of interaction!
Before I talk about being an accelerating Believer, let’s review quickly the concept of AAA Christianity!
Authentic, Accepting, and Accelerating
Authentic Christianity - We must commit ourselves to being authentic in our faith. Jesus warned time and time again of the possibility of turning our faith into a performance designed to impress other people. When we are real, we gain trust and we earn credibility to speak to our world and when we are honest to God, He is able to meet our needs, forgive our sins, and love us to wholeness!
Accepting Christianity – is loving, marked by deep humility, and willing to be transparent about both success and failure. It does not divide and criticize. Instead, accepting Christianity seeks to serve and in that service lifts up Jesus.
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TEXT - Hebrews 10: 19-25 Pew Bible page 1873
In last weeks TPE (1/11/2009) Dr. George Wood related the story of “Mr. Wonderful.”
Pastor Bruce Larson had a son who was a happy kid, energetic, and a joy. Then, at age 6, the little boy started to compulsively suck his thumb. Nothing could make him stop. Finally, his parents nick-named him - Thumbsucker, with the hope that the name would shame him enough to stop sucking his thumb. Instead the little boy’s anxiety deepened. He became a sad little guy, shoulders hunched, eyes to the ground - a picture of misery!
As Bruce prayed for his son, he sensed that God wanted him to change his approach to the boy. He reminded the father about unconditional love and then Bruce says he sensed God speaking this to him: “I did not give you a thumbsucker. I gave you a wonderful little boy and I want you to call him that.”
Larson and his wife never called their son Thumbsucker again. Instead, they called him Mr. Wonderful! In a very short time, he stopped sucking his thumb and returned to being the happy child he had been before!
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I will not take the time to ‘unpack’ that whole passage, but the reasoning is basically this -
Christ opened up a direct line of communication to God for each and every one of us.
We can walk right up to God to find all the resources we need to deal with life.
With such rich resources at hand, we should live liberally, generously, and encourage each other
to higher and greater achievements for God’s glory!
Re-read. v. 24-25
There are two action phrases in those two verses each describing a different way that you and fulfill the command to bring out the best in our fellow Believers, ways that we help them to accelerate, to grow on in Christ.
The first is ‘spur one another on.’
The KJV uses the word, “provoke.”
It’s not a nice word in the original text of the Bible, NT Greek. It is a word that means to ‘irritate, or to contend with another sharply.’ We might say, ‘get in your face!’
If we really love each other, we won’t accept lazy, half-hearted, or insincere expressions of faith from those we love. We will challenge each other to do the best possible, to be holy.
“But, Pastor Jerry, how can we be encouragers if we are provoking one another?”
If you’ve ever been involved in a competitive sport, you know the importance of having someone who gets in your face, who won’t accept your excuses, who drives you to excel!
Ill.- When Sean was in high school, he played basketball. Normally, I don’t care a thing about that sport. Unlike Pastor Steve who plays it, coaches it, and loves it; to me it’s a boring game in which only the last minute or so seem to matter! But, when Sean was on the court, I loved to attend games and was known to cheer him on loudly from the bleachers!
If we really love those who are living alongside of us, if we are involved with each other, we’re going to have an interest in seeing them reach higher, live better, and live for God’s glory.
Back to Hebrews 10....
The second word in our text that describes the way we bring out the best in others is
‘encourage one another.’ It has a very different connotation. The NT Greek is one that means “to come alongside of another to offer support when they need assistance.” It is the same root word that is a name that Jesus gave to the Holy Spirit, when He called Him, The Comforter.
Sometimes what we need is a kick in the seat of the pants or someone in our face like a good coach! And, sometimes, we desperately need someone to just remind us that we matter. Who doesn’t appreciate a sincere word of affirmation, an arm around shoulders, or someone who prays with us or for us!
ill- In my center desk drawer, I keep the cards and notes that this congregation gave to me in October for Pastor Appreciation Day. Every now and then, when the problems and pressures of life are starting to get to me, I take some of them out and read them again. Yes, there is encouragement in those words of love and affirmation!
Jesus knew the power of affirmation! He met a fisherman in whom He saw great potential, but He also saw insecurity and a tendency to shoot from the hip! As Simon matured, one day Jesus looked at him and said, “Your new name is Peter!” If we wrote it today, here’s how we would say it: “You’re a rock, Simon, so I’m going to call you, Peter. Guys meet Rocky!”
When we see others with the eyes of Jesus, we will wisely know when they need to be affirmed. We will take delight expressing our hope that they can successfully complete the work that God has called them to do. We will help them shoulder their burdens, even as Jesus helps us shoulder our burden.
There is a short letter in the Bible that is packed full of encouragement. It is just 25 verses, a single page in most Bibles, but accelerating Believers will find it rich with help in becoming a person who helps others to grow on in Christ. It is Paul’s personal letter to Philemon that became part of the Holy Scripture.
You can find it in your Pew Bible on page 1860.
Here’s the story behind the letter. While Paul was in the city of Colosse, a man named Philemon had come to Christ a church was started in his house. He had a household servant named Onesimus, who ran away from Colosse to Rome. While Paul was in prison in Rome, he somehow met Onesimus. The runaway servant became a Christian and a good friend to Paul, helping him in many ways.
Onesimus needed to go back to Colosse and settle his debt to Philemon. Paul wrote a letter to his friend and sent with Onesimus.
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What stands out to me as much as anything in this letter is how Paul deals with a very sensitive issue in such a gentle way. He models a kind of encouragement that I want to offer to others!
As a church leader and as a spiritual father to Philemon, Paul could have written in an authoritative voice, demanding that Philemon act in a specific way, but he does not! Instead, he speaks truthfully and invites his friend to act in a certain way towards his errant slave.
Some of us mistakenly think that to be an encourager, we must always concern ourselves with ‘good feelings’ and make sure that we never say anything that is hard, unpleasant, or honest! But that is not what Paul does in this letter. His concern is greater than helping Philemon to feel good about himself. He wants to urge Philemon to act in a way that pleases God for Paul knows what we all need to know -
the way we truly find self-esteem is to align ourselves with God’s purposes and gain His approval of our way of life!
Look at Paul’s method and learn.
1. He expresses his interest in Philemon as a person!
Paul uses very personal language in this letter. He does not speak of himself as an apostle. He calls himself, “an old man... a prisoner of Christ Jesus.” He calls Philemon, his “partner” and a “brother.”
Encouragers are not phony flatterers who use empty praise to gain compliance!
ill. - Several years ago, Bev and I met a car salesman who paid us all kinds of personal attention until the moment we signed the sales contract, and then he lost interest in us. We weren’t persons, we were just a paycheck!
Do you see others as persons or as tools to use to accomplish your agenda?
Real encouragers love people, they don’t use them.
2. He affirms the good things he has heard about his faith.
If you are about to encourage someone in the sense of ‘provoking’ them to good works, as I spoke of a few moments, you would be wise to take note of their positive accomplishments first! Also, by taking note of the successes, the accomplishments of others, we gain their trust.
I don’t know anyone who does not desire to be useful and worthy. If we only correct, we diminish a person’s self of worth, but if we note what they do, how they do it, and provide honest feedback, our very words let them know that we consider them a person who is useful and worthy.
3. He makes his appeal from love.
Love is always a much more powerful motivating factor than force! Force produces quicker results, but love produces lasting results. In the church, we are always tempted to use our positions of authority to ‘force’ others to do what we want them to do, but if we do, we will likely only win the battle even as we lose the war.
Some of you have heard me make this observation before. If so, bear with me!
Ill. - A common mistake that parent make is to use the appeal to force first when trying to make their kids comply with their wishes. Yes, a parent is in authority over his child, by God’s design, but a child cannot just be pounded into submission by harsh words or threats of harm! If that is way a father trains his son, that child will almost certainly reject his father’s ways and training as soon as he is old enough to stand on his own two feet. However, if a father builds a relationship of love with that son, he creates a strong desire for obedience in his son.
Believer, we need to build strong ties of love to one another. This love will provide a strong motivation to work together, for each of us to set aside our own convenience and/or preferences for the sake of the Body of Christ. 4. He “sees” a positive result and creates ‘vision’ for Philemon.
Encouragers help us with vision! They see as God sees, what can be, not just what is. Some of the most discouraging words in the world are
‘I always knew you would turn out to be a failure.’ Or
‘You are as worthless as .....’ Or
‘You will never amount to anything because ...’
Sometimes it is true that a person is a total failure, that they mess up - and we cannot ignore the truth. But, even as we confront, we can help them see a new vision of life as God does!
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God desires that the church be a place of possibilities, not limitations!
He has given you and me the gifts of His Spirit so that we can live inter-connected lives that build His kingdom and bring Him glory. We need to be encouragers, not in competition, but learning to cooperate for the greater good. In Galatians, Paul writes:
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life.
Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence:
Love others as you love yourself.
That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness.
Are you an accelerating Christian - growing and encouraging others to grow?
Washington Assembly must never become a place where people are made into slaves, jammed into boxes, and
forced to conform to some set of expectations that we have turned into ‘the’ definition of Christianity!
"Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. " (Hebrews 10:23-25, The Message)
Amen.
Jerry D. Scott, 2009