“An Encouraging Word”
Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On November 4, 2001
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.
II Thessalonians 1: 1-4
The apostle here is trying to speak a word of encouragement to the Christians gathered in the community of Thessalonica. Who here needs a word of encouragement? One or two hands. I thought there might be a couple.
A word of encouragement. He’s trying to build them up. He’s trying to give them courage. He’s trying to help them in a tough time. They are being persecuted for their faith. We think some of them were being tortured, some of them were being martyred, and they need encouragement, nurture. He’s using words to do it.
He’s encouraging them by praising them, by telling them what a wonderful job they are doing, being the community of Christ. We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters. You are doing such a great job at being the community of faith that I’m just always thanking God for you. Your faith is growing abundantly. And the love (this is a marvelous line about a Christian community) the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Isn’t that a great thing to be able to say about the church? For that matter, to be able to say about any gathering. The love of each one of you for one another is just increasing more and more, all the time. Therefore, we are boasting to all of the other churches about you for your steadfastness and your faith during the time of afflictions that you are undergoing. He’s trying to build them up. He’s trying to encourage them.
The word encourage is used more in the letters to the Thessalonians than in any other books in the Bible. These are letters of encouragement. In fact, with the exception of Deuteronomy, it’s used four times more, the word encourage, here in the letters to the Thessalonians, than in any other book of the Bible.
He’s trying to build them up. How about this verse from First Thessalonians 4:18… Therefore encourage one another with these words. Or the fifth chapter, around verse eleven…Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, as indeed you are doing. And later in the fifth chapter…Be at peace amongst yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, admonish the idlers, but encourage the faint hearted.
Who has extended the ministry of encouragement to you? Who, over the course of your life, has brought a word of encouragement to you when you needed building up? Who have you brought a word of encouragement to?
The love of every one of you for one another is increasing. What an encouraging thing to be able to say about a community, a community where many are hurting, indeed, are being persecuted. Sometimes adversity, catastrophe, can have that very effect in a community. It can cause the community to grow in love for one another. We’ve seen a little of that since September the eleventh, haven't we. The sense of unity and care that we’ve had in the United States. There’s something about the catastrophe that causes people to see with more clarity what’s valuable to them. What’s really important.
As we lose our focus, when we are not in the midst of catastrophe because we focus more on the things that are trivial or petty, like worrying about who took the white tablecloths out of the fellowship hall dining room, borrowed them, and did not return them pressed and folded to the cabinet where they are supposed to be kept. I want that person to come forward right now….
How do you encourage people? But you see, after the church has burned down, when the nation has been attacked, then suddenly petty things don’t seem as critical any more, and we often, after that kind of catastrophe, have a sense of what’s really important and how much we really care about each other. How much we really love each other.
I’ve mentioned to you all Richard Boyce, the pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Belmont, North Carolina. The educator there, Leslie McCloud, was involved in a terrible accident early in this year resulting in a terrible brain injury. Really, a debilitating one. Richard has e-mailed me and said, “You know, John, since Leslie’s accident, I’ve found all kinds of people in the congregation coming in and saying not only to me, but to one another, you know, there’s something I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time now, and since Leslie’s accident, I’ve learned that we’d better not wait to say these things to one another. We’d better speak these words of encouragement to each other while the Lord gives us time.”
Paul tries to encourage them here in verse eleven by saying, I’m always praying for you, and I’m sure that God will make you worthy of His call and will fulfill by his power every good work and resolve that has been begun in you. What an encouraging word that must be.
Everything that God started in you, J.D., I know that God is going to bring to completion.
I’m just sure that the good works, Paul, that God started in you long ago, God in God’s time is going to bring to completion.
Don’t you worry about it too much, Joyce, I know that God is going to be able to bring to finish what you sometimes may wonder if the Lord will ever be able to finish in your life. I’m praying for you about that, and I’m trusting in it.
There is a book on Christian doctrine that’s meant a lot to me, and there is a chapter in it on resurrection. There is one line in that chapter on resurrection that has really spoken to my faith in the last three years. I find myself using a paraphrase of this line with I lead memorial services or funerals. I often use it in the prayer of confession. And the line is this one: Eternal life, on the basis of New Testament hope, fulfills human existence. Historical existence, human decisions and the historical experiences that are embodied in the self are not annulled, neither are they simply judged. They are fulfilled by the power of God.
What that says to me is that when we give thanks to God for the resurrection, or the life to come, and for God sustaining the lives of some of those that we love in the life to come. We also can hear the good news that not only has God sustained their lives, but all the things in our relationships with them that we meant to bring to fulfillment and that we could never get around to doing, somehow in the resurrection, God is able to bring those purposes to fulfillment, also.
So that note, Campbell, that I should have written you after your confirmation class, telling you what a fine young man you were going to turn out to be. I know that while I may never have gotten around to it, somehow God’s going to bring that to completion in your life and in mine. And the time I should have told that person about how much their comfort meant to me, I know that somehow in God’s resurrection will be brought to fulfillment. And the grievance, the ax, the hatchet that I never could bury in that one relationship. Even though now they have gone to be with glory, I can believe in the resurrection God will bring that to fruition and to reconciliation, too.
Sometimes the encouragement comes just from the memory of saints around us. I am remembering one of the saints in the communion of witnesses around me this morning. I found myself thinking this week about Frances Hycke. Anybody here besides me remember Frances Hyke? What a great woman Frances Hycke was. She lived down San Jose a bit. She and her husband Joe were a part of this community for many years, and then as a widow, she continued here. Frances had a smile as big as Texas! Just a huge smile. Very often she would come out the door on Sundays and she would come up to me and, regardless of what I had done, whether it was bad work or passing work, she would come out and she’d take my hand and she’s say, “Now Son, it’s just going to be fine!” She’s give me that Texas smile. Every week, the same thing. “It’s just going to be fine!”
I hope she knows what an encouragement it was to me. And indeed, she was right. In God’s resurrection and in God’s purposes, it will be fine. And God will bring it to completion.
Who are you speaking a word of encouragement to? Who are you sharing the Gospel with? It’s Good News! It’s supposed to be encouraging with them. Who is sharing it with you?
The apostle Paul is a great encourager here. Think of all of the lines he uses. If there is anything excellent, if there is anything true, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things. In all things, God is able to work for the good with those who love Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? What a great encourager Paul was.
Sometimes you don’t even have to use words. I’m thinking of an encouraging moment I saw this week. Remember the second game, I think it was, in New York of the Series this week? When for the second night in a row, it went into the tenth inning. The Diamondbacks sent in this relief pitcher at the end to try and bring that victory home. A twenty-three–year-old Korean fellow named Kim, and this was his first time ever pitching in the World Series. He had a fast underhand curve ball that was fun to watch. On that second game in New York, for the second time in a row, in extra innings, he gave up a home run, and the Yankees reached over and pulled out of the fire the chestnut of that game. The crowd just went wild.
I remember watching that second game on television, and unbelievably seeing him give up that home run. It was such déjà vu from the night before, and with the thousands of fans there in Yankee Stadium and the millions of people looking at him across the world, I found myself standing and thinking, “Oh no! What a bonehead!” Just screaming that at him. And I was pulling for the Yankees. But it was just such an obvious error, it was painful. The camera focused in on his face, and he looked like he was going to cry. He was kind of stoic, but you could see the intense pain. In fact, he knelt down to the ground, if I remember. It brought him to his knees, almost. You remember that?
And then do you remember what happened next? I’m standing there hollering at him, and the Diamondback first baseman comes running across the field, and I just believe he didn’t speak very much Korean, and I know the Korean fellow didn’t speak very much English, because they said so. This first baseman comes running across the field and he hugs him. Just held him there. You know what the first baseman’s name is? Grace. Grace.
Who is encouraging you? Who are you encouraging in the name of Jesus Christ this week?
You know who is really good at the ministry of encouragement? Jesus was. Don’t you remember? Jesus just had a gift for this. Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. I will not leave you comfortless, I will not leave you orphaned. I will come again and bring you unto myself. I will be with you always. If you have faith, just faith as the grain of a mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains. Why do you worry about what you will wear or what you will eat or what you will drink? Consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you Solomon in all of his glory was not a rain like one of those. Don’t you know that the Lord who cares for them is also caring for your? Are not you worth more than one sparrow? And God knows when every one of them flies or falls.
And to the woman caught in adultery, Jesus leans down and writes in the dirt until those who bring her forward to have her stoned are gone, then he stands and he says to her these wonderfully encouraging words, Where are your condemners? Are they gone? They no longer condemn you? Then neither do I. Go, and sin no more.
Jesus was a great encourager. Who are you extending the ministry of encouragement to? Who is encouraging you in the name of Jesus Christ?
There has been a hymn that’s new to me, and I know it’s new to you. It’s just been in my head this week as I’ve learned it. I think it’s just a little song of encouragement. It’s not an old song, it’s kind of a new song. I’m not saying it’s a great song, I’m just saying it’s an encouraging song.
Now I know the Lord will encourage all beloved,
God will hear and answer from on high;
Not a word shall fail of the promises once made,
Nor the words of God’s victorious right hand.
I love this third verse. Now I know the Lord, the Lord, will encourage all beloved. I love to think that God is trying to encourage you. You are God’s beloved. God wants to encourage you. God hears you, and God will answer from on high. Not a word shall fail, not one word, of the promises once made, nor the words of God’s victorious right hand.
It’s going to be just fine.
© John T. DeBevoise, 2001
