Tag: Encouragement

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Priscilla & Aquila (Acts 18:23–28)

[Listen to an audio version here]

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on self-reliance explains that what is most unique about each person cannot be taught to that person. He writes:

Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

I think there is something to what he says. We all have a uniqueness that can blossom under the right circumstances.

However, in other ways, what Emerson says is not quite right. Shakespeare was part of a group of dramatists. He did not “go it alone.” Washington reflects the Virginia aristocracy. Scipio was the general who defeated Hannibal, but he defeated him by using strategies other Roman generals had thought of but not put into practice. He came from a family and a nation where the citizen trained for war. In other words, Scipio could not borrow his Scipionism from anyone else, but he also would not have been Scipio without a host of support characters.

This is not something we should take for granted. Many people have made a contribution to our lives, and we are what we are because of the general contribution of millions and the special contributions of a few.

In our passage, we have a beautiful example of this. We have a great man, Apollos, and we have the people who contributed to his life, a husband and wife team, Priscilla and Aquila. They provide a pattern and example of one way we can join what God is doing in bringing redemption and restoration to a fallen world.

The Mentee
In the book of Acts, we meet Apollos in the context of Paul’s third missionary journey. Apollos began his work during that time.

Apollos was Jewish, but his family leaned toward the Greeks or Hellenism. He is named after the Greek god Apollo! One reason for his Hellenism was that he was from Alexandria. Alexandria was a city founded by Alexander the Great. There was the ancient library that was one of the wonders of the world. There was a large Jewish community. There the Jews translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. It is not surprising that such a community would produce a learned man like Apollos, a Jew named after a Greek god.

Our text tells us that he knew the Scriptures thoroughly. He had also been instructed in the way of the Lord. The result was that “he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately . . .” The only problem was that he based all his teachings on the teaching of John the Baptist. He did not have the fuller teachings of Paul the Presbyterian (that’s a joke).

It seems like there were quite a few people who followed Jesus because of the teachings of John but had not yet encountered the fuller teachings of the Apostle. You can read about this in Acts 19.

Like the Apostle Paul, Apollos began to speak in the synagogues. He powerfully preached the way of Jesus.

The Mentors
Priscilla and Aquila were tent makers like Paul. They had left Rome because of persecution. They were able to take up their occupation in new places.

They must have been very impressed with Apollos. They must have been greatly encouraged to see this man with such gifts proclaiming Jesus.

However, they saw that he needed some help, some encouragement, and some guidance to be what God intended him to be and to do what God intended him to do. So, they invited him to their home.

That’s what we can do, too. We can reach out to those who need encouragement and guidance. We can share what we know. We can help them get where they are going faster.

It begins with a willingness to build a relationship. They invited him into their home. That’s where it always starts. It means that we take an interest in people first. The best mentors are those who are more interested in knowing the person they are mentoring than in imparting what they know. They help Apollos develop his Apollonism. They don’t turn him into Priscilla or Aquila.

As you think about this, don’t get too stuck on the “inviting him into their home” issue. The point is that they got together with Apollos. They reached out and connected with him. I know it’s somewhat challenging in our current context. However, we can get together with people. We can do it outside. We can wear masks. We can distance, if we are concerned. We can take the extra steps. If we’re in a group, it’s a lot harder, but it’s not impossible or even really that difficult. It just may be a little annoying or a little cold. People still need us, and we still need people!

When they got together, they “explained to him the way of God more adequately” (Acts 18:26). They explained to him most likely what had happened at Pentecost and helped him understand the power of the Holy Spirit. They shared what they knew.

That’s what we can do, too. Think about what you know, and share it. Make it known. The best context is getting involved the lives of people. If you feel like you connect well with someone, you can meet with them on a regular basis, every month, every week, or every day.

Where did Priscilla and Aquila get this idea of helping someone grow by spending time with them? It is all over the book of Acts. When Paul and Barnabas went on their missionary journeys, they took younger mentees with them whom they mentored. They shared their lives and their work. Three letters in the Bible are about this: 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. And where did they get the idea to do this? They got it from Jesus. He invested his life in 12 men, 11 of whom spread the Gospel all over the world.

So, who is your Apollos? Who are you inviting into your home, and to whom explaining the way of the Lord more adequately? Who are you helping to grow and learn? You may not be able to stand up and powerfully refute the opponents of Christianity, but you can encourage those who have such gifts. You can invite them into your homes. You can call them. You can encourage them. You can take them out for a meal. You can share what you have learned. That’s how you can participate in what God is doing in bringing restoration and redemption to a fallen world. You can get involved in encouraging others.

The Result
And what will be the result? You will make an impact. After receiving love and instruction from Priscilla and Aquila, he kept going, stronger than ever before. “When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed” (Acts 18:27).

He made a greater impact on others than Priscilla and Aquila ever did or could, but he could not have done it without Priscilla and Aquila. Those believers in Achaia were encouraged through Apollos who had been encouraged through Priscilla and Aquila.

You see, God is raising people up to do the work, but he wants you to join in His work of building people up. You just have to get the margin to get involved in people’s lives. That’s what it takes. When you do, you can make an impact.

We have seen in the book of Acts that God is willing to use anybody. He will take the person who has opposed him more than anyone else and turn them into His partner and friend in the work of redemption in the world. He will then use such people in a variety of ways. He will use those who are open to talking to someone new, like he did with Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. He will use those who are willing to meet other people’s needs like Tabitha did. He will use those who are willing to cross boundaries like the men from Cyprus and Cyrene did. He will use those who are willing to support the work of the kingdom of God like Lydia did. He will use those who those are willing to encourage the young person who is struggling to use his gifts like Priscilla and Aquila did.

We have a great example of this in our own congregation. Dennis and Shanna Fuller are a sort of Priscilla and Aquila. They have a great gift of connecting with young men and women and helping them know the way of the Lord more adequately. They have invited dozens and dozens of people into their “home” and helped them to be better equipped to serve the Lord.

One of those people who Dennis and Shanna helped was Alex Profitt. He came to Discipleship Focus where he met them. They connected, and they helped Alex, even after he left. They mentored him while he served as Young Life director in Massachusetts. When Dan Ott left this summer, they helped bring him down here. Now, he is encouraging those who are down here with the grace of the Lord, and he is helping them to know the way of the Lord. He is their Apollos.

That’s what we can do, too, if we will get involved with people. Jordan Peterson remarked, “People need so little encouragement.” He was amazed at how such a little bit of encouragement can help people go a long way. That’s the gift we can give, not only in the work of creation, but in God’s work of redeeming the world and bring restoration and wholeness to it. We just have to step out in faith and join Him by getting involved in the lives of people. God will do the rest, and we will be amazed at the results. Amen.

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You Are God’s Workmanship (A Sermon on Eph. 2:10)

[Listen to an audio version here]

I began 2020 on a sabbatical in Myrtle Beach. Looking back, I’m extremely thankful that I did so because this year has been a doozy! We’ve all dealt with so many things and had to adapt in so many ways. We’ve had to try and get a handle on what’s going on. We’ve missed parties, milestones, and vacations. We’ve had financial setbacks. We’ve have had funerals that we could not attend. I talked to someone recently who finally made the difficult decision to put their Mother in assisted living . . . in February! They just saw her in person for the first time since March! Besides all this, we have the concerns over COVID itself. People I know have lost parents and important people in their lives to COVID. The struggle is real.

As I talk to people in a variety of churches, ministry workers had to figure out how to make church and ministry work without buildings or in-person meetings. One church hasn’t met because the place where they met does not allow large gatherings. Going back to in-person meetings has helped, but it required a lot of adjustments. And . . . not everyone liked the adjustments. Some thought they were too strict. Others thought they weren’t strict enough. Has anyone noticed that COVID has been controversial? It’s a good thing that we’ll have a vaccine soon, and the controversy will be over.

In the midst of all this, people have got to find a way to function. I want to suggest to you today that this passage and many like it gives us a firm foundation in the midst of a mass of confusion. It provides the stability that can enable us to function well in any difficulty.

What we need in the midst of all this anxiety is to go back to the basics. And when I say basics, I mean basics, like you can see color, you can feel, you can touch. You can understand what you see and praise your Creator. You are accepted. You are loved. You are forgiven. And, you are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. That’s what our passage teaches us today.

The Context
Ephesians is such a beautiful letter that it would do us good not to write or speak about it all. Instead, we could simply read it and then offer our praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That is the purpose of the letter: praise to our gracious Father.

The letter discloses the Father’s glorious and wise purpose to us. It is to bring all things in heaven and earth together under one head, Jesus Christ. This is God’s plan, and He will bring it about according to His great wisdom and power, just as He works out all things according to His great purpose and power. He then calls those who have submitted to Jesus Christ to do everything in their power to conform themselves and others to the reign and grace of Jesus Christ.

This, of course, does not mean that it is simply our effort. This is a book about grace, God’s gift. God’s gift has given Christ for us, and the Holy Spirit works God’s gifts and grace within us. In the verses prior to Eph. 2:10, we read as powerful an expression of this as you will find in the Scriptures, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.”

But—though we are not saved by works; we are most certainly saved unto good works. That’s what our passage says. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. It’s not by works but unto good works; not because we were holy but because He chose us in Him to be holy. Good works don’t precede being justified, but they certainly follow in the one who has been justified.

This was God’s purpose for us—to make a people zealous for good works. He prepared them in advance for us to do them. This means that we were destined to be God’s workers. As Paul says in Eph. 1:4, we were chosen to be holy not because we were holy. We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The Encouragement
A few years ago, I started using a Scriptural phrase that to encourage my children with God’s promises to them. It was taken from Song of Solomon. It was, “You are the beloved’s, and His desire is for you.” Whenever I could, I began to share this with them. I still say it to this day. This phrase would help them and encourage them. I remember one time when one of my daughters was upset, my wife said, “You are the beloved’s, and His desire is for you.” Her frustration began to dissipate immediately, and a smile came to her face.

I also have a son, and I quickly realized that telling him, “You are the beloved’s, and His desire is for you” would not affect him in quite the same way. He would acknowledge its truth and accept it, but it would not touch his heart in the same way that it did my girls. I’ll be honest here. The same was true for me. That’s when I realized I needed to use this passage, “You are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” God wants to do something significant through you. That doesn’t change, no matter what.

The message of God’s love is indeed a powerful one, but the Gospel is broader than that. God not only offers us love; He offers us friendship. He not only loves us; He also likes us. God not only accept us; He wants to use us. We are His workmanship.

If we begin our explanation of the Gospel with the doctrine creation, then we will see that God created us to do good works, significant things that bless ourselves and others and glorify God. Understanding that God created us for good works, we can understand that God restores us to good works in salvation, which is precisely what our text says.

Once we get this, a whole host of the benefits of the Gospel and its promises are opened to us. God is our friend who makes known to us what He is doing. He is our companion who wants to work alongside us in His mission to the world. We are co-workers with God. God makes us holy, meaning, we are set aside for His service. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

The Confirmation
Now, how do we know that God wants to use us? God has given us all ample opportunity to see how He values us and wants to use us. He has already used us in a variety of ways. He has used us to serve and work in the world. He has used us to build families. He has used us to build community. He has used us to make our homes beautiful in ways that bless the community. He has used us in all sorts of small ways to contribute to the well-being of the world.

He has also used you in innumerable ways in the work of redemption. You have supported the work of the church with your money and time. You have taught your children the things of God. You have loved your neighbors. You have built friendships that encourage people. You have taught Sunday School classes and contributed to small groups. You have cooperated in the work of missions, as our men’s group did when they went to the MNA Warehouse.

All these things are evidence of God’s good work in us and that He values us and wants to use us. We should not downplay these good works. We sometimes are guilty of false humility. Humility, says theologian Josef Piper, is an estimation of ourselves according to truth, and that is almost all there is to it. We should acknowledge our sins and failings, but we should not be afraid to acknowledge that we have done good things as well, giving ultimate credit to the grace of God.

Few people have praised the value of good works more than Martin Luther. Listen very carefully to these words:

We teach that to reconcile God, to make righteous, to blot out sin, is so high and great and glorious a work that alone Christ, the Son of God could do it and that this is indeed such a pure, special, peculiar work of the one true God and His grace that our works are nothing and can do nothing. But that good works should be nothing or be worth only a penny, who ever heard of such a thing, or who could teach such a thing except the lying mouth of the devil? I would not give up one of my sermons, not one of my lectures, not one of my treatises, not one of my Lord’s Prayers, nay, whatever small work I have ever done or am doing, for all the riches of the world (Cited in Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 3:59–60.

Luther saw that the Christian was really God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

The second way that we know that God wants to use us is the Gospel promises, like the one we are considering today. We have to admit that we can make the mistake of confusing our good works as evidence of God’s value of us with seeing good works as the basis of God’s value of us. If we do that, then they will fall apart. We always have to go back to God’s free acceptance of us in Jesus Christ as the our most ultimate foundation.

We can easily wrongly estimate our value when we’ve failed or sinned. It’s at such times that we tend to think we are worthless or that God doesn’t want to use us. But that’s not true. However much we’ve failed or sinned, we are still God’s workmanship. He still wants to use us today to do significant things that bless ourselves and others and glorify God. That doesn’t change based on how well or poorly we do. God’s value of us remains the same.

At these and many other times, we need to go back again and again to this basic foundation: You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do.

Dear friends, that’s a Gospel foundation that will get you through the tough times. That’s a Gospel foundation that will get you through failure. That’s a Gospel foundation that will get you through COVID. That’s a Gospel foundation that will get you through this election. That’s a Gospel foundation that is a resource for a lifetime of ministry wherever the Lord may lead you. Amen.

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How We Grow (1 Thessalonians 2:1-13)

[Listen to an audio version here]

If you are going to be successful at anything, you need two things. You need the right messages, and you need the right messengers. You need principles, and you need people. You also need practice, but I want to focus on the first two based on our text.

Now, these are not categories that are specific to our salvation. This is true in a variety of areas of life. Think of learning to play football. You need the right messages that tell you the rules, the plays, and the skills. However, you need the right messenger. You need a coach to teach you and remind you of the messages. If you are to improve in any area, you need clear messages and good messengers.

When God recreates us into His image, the way He grows us is no different. He uses messages to change us, and He uses messengers to communicate those messages. The point here is rather simple. If we want to grow, even in the midst of our suffering, we need the right messages and the right messengers. Those are the two points of this sermon.

The Right Message
The words we hear, and the messages we receive shape our hearts and lives. The stories we tell ourselves are the foundation of our character. Messages like “the future is bleak,” “you will never amount to anything,” “no one will like you,” “you are strange,” or “you shouldn’t have to suffer,” shape our character and our mindset.

If we want to change our character, then we will need different messages. Every attempt to grow a human being from the beginning of the world to today is fundamentally about new messages.

The Thessalonian Christians had received a new message, the good news about Jesus Christ and the restoration of human beings in Him. This was the Gospel.

In our passage it is called the Word of God. The reason it is called the Word of God is because it is exactly what God wants to communicate to us. Some people wonder how the Word of God can be written by humans. Here is the answer: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).

So, the message was not a message from any mere human. It was a message from God Himself. “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). They accepted an entirely different message from God about their lives.

Now notice something here. He thanks God that they received this word. Why? Because it is the Holy Spirit who works faith in our hearts. No one will believe except by the power of the Holy Spirit. The joy with which we receive the message is a gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s what we confessed together in the The Heidelberg Catechism:

Q. It is through faith alone that we share in Christ and all his benefits: where then does that faith come from? A. The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.

It’s important to see, though, that in the first movement of faith, we are wholly passive; in the continuing work of faith, we are active. We must exercise faith. When we exercise faith in the Word, then the Word is at work. The message from God works into our lives as we exercise faith in it. It is “indeed at work in you who believe,” as Paul says.

How does this happen? Well, first we need to know the message. However, it’s not enough to have heard it once and let it pass through our ears. We need to meditate on it in our hearts. What does that look like?

Consider: what if our parents don’t seem to approve of us? What if they abandoned us at an early age? What if our spouse is displeased with us? What if our children don’t like us? It can make us think that we are worthless. The message of God’s Word says something different, you are accepted, valued, and loved by God.

To make this message, the message of the love of God, the dominant factor that shapes our lives, we have to listen to it constantly and accept it into our hearts. We have to apply it to our lives and our thoughts. This is what it means for the word to be at work in us.

Let me add one more thing here. You need to have some time set aside to do this. If you want to hear from God, you have to make time for Him. This requires a habit and a regular time. It will not happen by accident. I encourage you to set aside a specific time each day in which you can hear the Lord: at morning, at lunch, at a break, or before you go to bed. Anything that is really good in this life comes through consistent work. A transformative relationship with the Lord is no different.

But God does not leave us merely with His message. He also brings messengers into our lives. He brings us into a community of friends.

The Right Messengers
A few years ago, on one particular month, I was preaching on relationships in the life of Jesus. One of my sermons was, “Relationships Are Hard,” based on some of Jesus’ difficult experiences with relationships.

One Sunday after that sermon, I was struggling with a relationship myself. I came into the River Plantation Conference Center where we meet, and one person there could tell that things weren’t right. He asked me how I was doing, I told him, “I had some negative interactions with some people, and I’m struggling with that, to be honest.”

He looked at me and said with compassion, “Relationships are hard.” Hearing the words that I had preached from someone else enabled me to hear them in a way that I would not have been able to otherwise. This messenger brought a message that put things back into perspective, and the light began to dawn for me.

We often underestimate the importance of the messengers. But if you think about it, what is it that people struggle with more than anything? It’s not just bad messages. The bad messages get their force from the messengers. Maybe it was a friend who turned on you. Maybe it was a parent who was always critical. Maybe it was a child who wants nothing to do with you. These messengers have a powerful force in our lives.

If your life has been dominated by the wrong messages from a messenger like this, then you will need new messengers who will deliver a more helpful message. You will also need to gain awareness of the messages you learned and re-think the truth of those messages for yourself. You will need new messages.

For the Thessalonians, that community began with the messengers who brought the message from God, Paul and Silas. Paul also wrote this letter. He was the messenger of God’s message to the Thessalonian believers.

Paul sums up what his relationship with them was like in this letter. He told the Thessalonians that he was, “encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12).

The design of the church is to be a messenger communicating the Word of God in practical ways to people. When people are down, they encourage them. When they are struggling, they comfort them. When they forget the promises of God, they remind them. When they become sluggish, they urge them forward. This is the work of the church.

It is interesting to note that the Apostle Paul describes himself as acting like the entire family. He was like a child in his transparency. He was like a mother who nurtured them. He was like a father who encouraged and challenged them. All these metaphors give us fruit for meditation. We can take different roles in our relationships at different times, according to the need.

The heart of it is this. You need people who comfort you, but you also need people who challenge you. If you go to people who simply affirm you, then they are not the messengers you need. You need people who will challenge you. If you go to people who simply point out what you are doing wrong or could do better, then you will you will get wrongly discouraged. You need encouragement and comfort as well as the challenge to live lives worthy of the kingdom of God.

The importance of messengers applies to us in two different directions. The first is that we need good messengers in our lives. We need people who will care for us, encourage us, and challenge us.

To get people into our live like this, we often need to take the initiative, especially in our modern world. To get people in our lives like this also takes time. Just like meditating on the message, it takes an investment. Relationships are not built overnight.

The second direction we need to take the importance of messengers is based on what the Apostle Paul says throughout this letter. The Apostle Paul had to leave this congregation. This did not mean that they were without the resources of good messengers. They would have to be this for each other. “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11).

We need to be encouraged, but we need to move out in encouragement toward others. Now as I look at our church, I can say, just as the Apostle Paul said, you are in fact doing this. You are speaking into people’s lives. You are messengers. You just need to be more aware and do so more and more.

Conclusion
So, my friends, there is growth in suffering, big and small suffering. The Word of God, the message of God, supplies a foundation for joy that transcends our suffering. It is a foundation on which we can build our lives. The Holy Spirit produces joy through His Word that enables us to continue moving forward. It can give us a faith that makes us able to stand in trials and not be unsettled by them.

And so we will grow. We will move forward, but we will do it not alone but together. God uses a group of friends to enable us to grow. It is God’s messengers delivering His wonderful messages that enables us to grow and remain ever green in the changing seasons of life.

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Photo by Kev Costello on Unsplash