The Work of Encouragement

All right, good morning. Glad to see you all. Glad you're here. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started. Father, we give you thanks. Thanks for another opportunity to be here, Lord, to spend some time in your word, to lift praise to you, to glorify you. We ask your blessing upon this time, Lord. Help us to lift a joyful noise and let your word go

out with power. Give us ears to hear and hearts to receive it. In Jesus' name, amen. What you've done for us, Lord, thank you for the new life we have. You guys can go and have a seat if you like. For that unmerited favor, Lord, that we don't deserve, but you give freely. Amen. My sorrow and dead in my sin. Lost without hope. No place to begin. Your love made was redeemed.

Praise him. Praise him. God, we just thank you for the new life that we have in you, Lord, for the freedom that we have in you. We thank you that death and sin were arrested. Lord, we thank you for how good you are to us. Lord, this morning, we just offer praise to you. We thank you.

I just want to take a moment and just thank you for your goodness. Thank you for how good and faithful you are to us, Lord.

Lord, even when we've not been faithful, you are. You're always faithful and you're always good to us, Lord.

And all my life you have been faithful. So, so, so God, we're safe and so.

Lord, again, we just thank you for how good you are to us. Thank you for how faithful you are, Lord. And as we continue praising you this morning, Lord, just thank you for the victory that we have in you, Lord. And we just thank you for the victory that we have in you, Lord. Thank you for the victories that we've seen in our lives. And we thank you for the victories that are to come.

Lord God, we know that you're coming again. And we know with you will come victory over sin and death once and for all. Praise the Lord. We thank you for another opportunity to just lift praise to you, Father. You're worthy of all of our praise. Worthy of all of our thanks. You're worthy of all glory and honor. And Lord, this morning, I pray that as Pastor Ryan comes,

that you would overflow him with your Holy Spirit, with your gift of teaching. Give him the words to speak. And give us ears to hear and hearts to receive that word. Father, we ask your blessing upon this time. And bless the kids at the other end of the hall, Lord. And bless those teachers, Lord. We thank you for them. We thank you for those little ones. Father, we love you and we praise you.

We thank you. And all God's people said? Amen. Amen. Let's take some time and greet one another.

Good morning. If you could begin to find your seat. We'll grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A handful of things to take note of in your bulletin. As always, the things on the left-hand side that go on throughout the week. Bible studies, home groups going on.

Over in the middle section of your bulletin, a reminder that every Sunday evening, through the time of the election, we're going to have a time of intercessory prayer. Down at the other end of the hall at 6 o'clock on Sunday evenings. So take note of that. And we'd love to have you come join us. Men, we have a breakfast coming up this Saturday, October the 19th.

So come join us for that. Eat a little food. Talk about Jesus. Really spend some good time together. Ladies, there is a Make It and Take It Women's Fellowship Gathering. Some sort of artsy-crafty thing of some sort that you guys are going to be doing. That I know you ladies love. So, uh... That's going to be November the 2nd. It's one of those events with Robin Tackett.

And I am told that there is a QR code hanging by the ladies' restroom. Is that where it is? And that you can scan so that you can get signed up for that. So ladies, take note of that and get signed up. It ought to be a great time together. A couple of other reminders. Agape Fruits. We're starting that ministry back up in November. If you're interested in either getting involved in that ministry.

Or if you are interested in providing. For that ministry. Making donations. All of that info is on the table out there. By where you picked up your bulletin. And then Operation Christmas Child. Again, there's more boxes that are out there. That can be picked up. Empty boxes that you can fill and bring back. And that time is coming quickly. The date for that is November the 17th.

And then one thing that is not in there. I sent it out this morning. If you still are interested in going and helping with some of the recovery. Relief, disaster relief that's going on. Ross and Jana are leading a group on November the 6th. To go out to Valdosta, Georgia. To do some work with hurricane relief out there. If you are interested in going to that.

I know that they still have some spots available. If you're interested, visit with Ross and Jana after the service. And if finances would keep you from doing that. Visit with Ross and Jana after service. And we'll see what we can do. If the Lord's landed on your heart to go. We want to do whatever we can to. To help you get there. So that we can serve these folks.

Okay, and then I have two other things not in your bulletin. So first, if I could have Lily come up. Lily is one of my FCA officers here in Arc City. And she's going to make an announcement about an event coming up this week. Okay, yeah. So I'm one of the leaders for our FCA group at Arc City High School. And we've been planning a pretty big event over the last few months, really.

And we're pretty excited about it. It's going to be next Wednesday at 6 o'clock. It's the football stadium at Arc City. And what it is, it's called Fields of Faith. It's kind of a nationwide thing they do all over. And we're hosting it at Arc City. So we're going to have schools from Wichita to Ponca. And we're going to have a worship night and a sermon from Pastor Branson.

And then we're having Chick-fil-A sponsor it. As well as a lot of door prizes that have been sponsored by some local places around Arc City. And everyone's invited. We love to see just everyone. Bring your kids. Bring your grandkids. Anyone. Anyone is welcome, really. It starts at 6 o'clock. And, yeah, we're pretty excited about it. We've been praying about it for a long time.

And God's really been working and just getting people to come with us. So we'd love to see everybody there.

Thank you, Lily. Okay. And then I have invited Kurt Freeland from Habitat for Humanity to come share with us. We don't just want to reach out across the world. We want to be able to reach out in our own community. And so he's going to share about some of the need. And you're going to watch that video in just a second. About some of the need that we have for help with that here in the community.

Mr. Nichols, thank you very much. I'm here today to make you aware that our Habitat Housing Ministry here in Arc, Kansas City, we're in need of additional volunteers to help. And in various capacities on the board and the building of the homes, our Habitat Housing Affiliate is an international affiliate that was founded in 1976. And it's been in operation in Arc, Kansas City since 2000.

And every year. We build one new home for a family in need of better housing. And it's all done by the partner families that we select. They help build their own home. And then they have a mortgage that they repay over a 20-year period. It's no interest. And so anyway. To kind of show you the beneficial effects of this, we've got four families that we have on a video.

It's on our website, arccityhabitat.org. And so if you, our contact information is on the website. So if you are interested, then we'd like to hear from you. So, okay. So if we can. Roll the video.

Beds, and they're all teenagers. So you can imagine how that is. My son was sleeping in the living room on the couch. And then, of course, my husband and I had our bedroom. So when we got chosen for this opportunity, it was definitely a dream come true. And being able to be a part of the whole building process and doing it together as a family really just put everything into perspective and made it a reality.

So picking the paint. Colors was actually one of the best times because I never got to do that before. So I was kind of like a kid in a candy store getting to pick everything out for the cabinets. We had three or four choices to choose from fixtures and lights and everything. That was kind of just whatever we wanted. You know, there was a price range that we had to stay in.

I think my husband just kind of told me you get to do the interior part of it. So, like I said, that was the best part for me. Getting to just. Yeah. Do the paint, pick out the fixtures and everything like that for the home. I've heard a lot about Habitat, and we just started looking into it. I heard it was a good program and help out families. So we decided to apply.

It did take us, you know, a few tries before we were eligible. The first thing in my mind is like, we're never going to get a Habitat home. I'm pretty sure there was people out there that needed, you know, a house more than we needed. We were excited. We were blessed. Our previous house, it was in pretty bad shape. Bathtub was always leaking water through the basement.

Being a homeowner comes with more responsibilities. So with Habitat, they put them through some finance class. So, you know, help you manage your money and make better decisions as well. So. I really didn't. Know anything about it. So she came home one day and said, there's this Habitat, let's apply for it. And I was kind of like, it won't happen for us. So it's, I don't even really want to be bothered with it.

And she kind of just pressed the issue. And so we ended up applying and now we're here. I was excited, but then I guess just as, as normal human flesh is, it was kind of like that attitude of, I won't believe it until I see it. When we broke ground and the work began, then it was just like, okay, this is a reality. Man, it really wasn't a whole lot of a justice.

It was relaxing because it was something better. It was a huge upgrade. So it was just more comfort. We have six children. And so the house that we were living in, it only had three bedrooms. And so we had three kids that, well, two of them were sleeping on a cot behind the couch. And then the other one was sleeping on the couch. And our other home, it was, I mean, it was torn down.

We had some windows that were broken. I remember snow sometimes would come in during the wintertime. And it just wasn't an ideal situation. I would say the main upgrade obviously was the bathrooms. We had one bathroom essentially that would work all the time. The other one, it just gave us problems all the time. And then we had window air. So at the other house, it was still hot all the time.

So then when we came here and we had central heat and air, so it was just way more comfortable. Prior to Habitat, my wife and I, we professed to be Christians. But to be honest, we weren't really living that out. I would say we were lukewarm Christians to be. At best. And so when we got this blessing of this home, it really forced us to realize the true blessing of Christ and what he's done in our lives.

And because of that, we were more intentional about pursuing a relationship with him and making him center of our life. And so that's where we are now. We find people every year, my wife and I, and we tell them about Habitat and what it's done to change our life. I would say Habitat really changed our identity. You know, like what we believed about ourselves.

And identity dictates behavior. And so because of that, we began to act differently and behave differently. We help other married couples that are having problems. We do marriage counselings. We do all kinds of stuff. So just, it really centered us and focused us on Christ even more. We're originally from California. We moved out here. And as you can imagine, everything's totally different to where we're from.

But we were really welcome. And in the beginning, the kids were the ones that were really excited. Me. And mom were really nervous and scared. It was really hard moving the kids from one state to another. We knew it was the best thing for us, though, because it does provide stability, you know, with the changing. We got to meet new people in town, stable people.

They just became part of the community, really. Yeah, we've been here since. Happy. It did improve our lives, and I'm sure it improved a lot of others. But I know I feel more comfortable as a dad being able to say, we got a house. It gives me more confidence to take on the world, you know, to take on any challenges. The kids are happy. I would really like everybody to consider helping or being even a small part of Habitat for Humanity,

because there are people out there that with good hearts and really, really love their community, but just find it difficult to stay. And in the future, I'm sure they will make a good impact in the community. There are people out there. I'm grateful for Habitat. I will continue to be a part of it, probably the rest of my life.

All right. Thank you, Kurt, for sharing that with us. And are you going to be around after service for a little bit to talk to people? You'll leave information back there. Okay, there'll be information in the back if you're interested. And so also Jeff and Elaine Phillips are real involved with that, too. So if you have questions, you can talk to them as well.

So, okay. For our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 13. Psalm 13. Looking at the New American Standard for this part so that we all sound the same. If you need a copy of the New American Standard, there should be one in a row around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 13, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

I will read the odd verses. If you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 13 for the choir director, a Psalm of David. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul? Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God.

Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death. And my enemy will say, I have overcome him. And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in your loving kindness. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has. I will sing to the Lord because he has. I will sing to the Lord because he has. I will sing to the Lord because he has.

I will sing to the Lord because he has. I will sing to the Lord because he has. And Father, we do praise you for how good you've been to us. And that you always hear us when we pray. And that you always speak to us through your word. And so, Lord, do that work in our hearts today. Father, bring us near to you. Teach us what you would have us to learn. And help us to grow in the way that your Holy Spirit sees fit.

In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. And if you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 3. 1 Thessalonians. Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 sort of ends the last of the really personal portion of 1 Thessalonians. In chapter 1, we looked at the work of the gospel. And we saw what the gospel was able to do in the lives of the Thessalonian church. And how it changed the people. How they turned from idols to serve the living and the true God. In chapter 2, we saw Paul defend his ministry as he talked about the work of the minister.

And we pulled some principles that we all could learn from. About being ministers to the people that are around us. And as we come to chapter 3, we will see the work of encouragement. The work of encouragement. And so we pick up in verse 1 of chapter 3. And this is what it says. Therefore, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone.

And we sent Timothy, our brother, God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith. So that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. For indeed, when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction. And so it came to pass, as you know.

For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith. For fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain. But now that Timothy has come to you. And has brought us good news of your faith and love. And that you always think kindly of us. Longing to see us just as we long to see you. For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction, we were comforted about you through your faith.

For now we really live if you stand firm in the Lord. For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account. And we thank you for all the things that you have done for us. And we thank you for all the things that you have done for us. As we night and day keep praying earnestly that we may see your face.

And may complete what is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you. And may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another. And for all people just as we also do for you. So that he may establish your hearts without blame in holiness. Before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Now, as we look at this chapter, there's two things that we're going to see. We're going to see the problem of discouragement. And of course, we're also going to see the work of encouragement. Just so you kind of know the story of how all of this took place. Remember, Paul had started that church in Thessalonica. Was there a very short time, but was forced to leave because of the pressure of persecution that had taken place.

And so he moved on to a couple of other cities. But he moved on from Athens by himself to Corinth. Because he was so concerned about the Thessalonian believers that he sent Timothy back to check on them. To see exactly how things were going for that young church that was dealing with so much affliction. And so, of course, what took place is that Timothy arrived back in Corinth with news that the Thessalonian church was not only surviving.

It was thriving and it was growing and it was a loving church. And so Paul pens this letter of 1 Thessalonians. Well, it was discouragement. It was discouragement that sort of brought about his need to send Timothy to the people. His need to send Timothy to that Thessalonian church. And so as I was looking at this, I saw that Paul points out three things about discouragement.

And I think that there are three things that we can tend to be discouraged about as well. And so I would like to, as we talk about this problem of discouragement, look at these three major causes of discouragement in our lives. The first cause is that discouragement comes through separation. Discouragement comes through separation. Remember in verse 17 of chapter 2, Paul said that we were taken away from you.

And we said that that phrase in the Greek, taken away, actually speaks of a child that is bereaved of their parents. And so what he speaks of there is an intense amount of discouragement about the fact that he was not able to remain in Thessalonica. His separation from that church caused him great pain. And then he goes on in verse 1 to say, When we could endure it.

No longer. In other words, when we could bear the pain no longer, I had to send Timothy to you. So that I could see how you were doing because he was enduring a great deal of separation anxiety from being separate from that Thessalonian church. And he knew that the potential was there. That the guy that started the church was gone. And perhaps they were experiencing discouragement also from that aspect of separation.

But you know, we all deal with that same kind of discouragement when it comes to separation. And have you noticed that over the past few years, separation seems to have really become a part of who we are as human beings. Isolation has become a part of who we are as human beings. I don't know how many times I've walked into a room that's full of 5, 10, 15 people.

And you walk into that room of all those people together. And you know what each one of them is doing? Each one of them is looking at their phone. No one's talking to each other. They're all watching videos on their phone. Most of them have headphones on it. And there's this isolation that takes place. Amongst us, not only that, but several years ago, we were told we had to isolate from each other.

As a matter of fact, even when we came back together, they told us you can come back together, but you still have to stay so far apart. And I'd like to act like this is just a modern problem, but we know it's not just a modern problem. As a matter of fact, separation and isolation is a problem that we have dealt with as human beings since the very two first human beings lived on the earth. Do you remember right after Adam and Eve sinned?

You remember right after Adam and Eve sinned? They hid themselves from God and they covered themselves with fig leaves. Why? Because they wanted to separate and they wanted to isolate themselves. Why did they want to separate and isolate themselves? Because they were ashamed of what they had done. And that reminds us of a truth about our sin nature. Our sin nature forces us or causes us to isolate ourselves from everyone else.

Because we don't want anyone to know what the real answer is. We don't want anyone to know what the real us looks like. We don't want anyone to know what the real us thinks like or talks like. Because ultimately we're ashamed of who we are because of that sin nature that dwells on the inside of us. That actually is a part of the redemption that takes place in our lives.

Because that redemption ultimately redeems not only our soul, reuniting us with God, but that redemption takes place with our bodies and reuniting us with each other. Part of growing in Christ is learning to let down the wall. And stop isolating ourselves. But do you realize that since the pandemic, depression has skyrocketed in our culture? Suicide has skyrocketed in our culture.

Why? Because we taught everyone that the best thing that you can do is separate from everyone else. And since that's already our natural tendency, we took that separation, we took that isolation, and we ran with it. And now we live in a culture. We live in a culture that is so discouraged and so depressed because we don't get together anymore. People don't gather together anymore and we have separated ourselves.

And that separation always brings about discouragement. That's why when you leave church, you're usually pretty happy about it, right? Because you've gathered together with other people. Because you've gathered with other believers and you have mutually encouraged each other. But he says that first thing that brings discouragement into our lives is separation.

And you know what can happen to us? What happens when the first hard thing comes into your life? You think, I just need to be by myself. I just need to be alone. But one of the things that you learn, especially when you deal with really hard things in your life, is that that's actually the last thing in the world that you need. And so he tells us, first of all, discouragement comes through separation.

Second of all, discouragement comes through affliction. Discouragement comes through affliction. Notice what it says in verse 3. He says,

Now again, the second thing that he tells us is that discouragement comes through affliction. Now, almost every study we've had in Thessalonians so far has dealt with some sort of persecution. And this one's going to be just a little bit different. Because there's actually multiple words in the Greek language that talk about affliction. And it's different than the word persecution.

This speaks of just general affliction that we go through. And so it has a much wider range of application. Because you and I may not go through persecution, but we do understand affliction, right? Sometimes affliction comes in the avenue of a physical illness that we deal with. Sometimes affliction comes to us through an affliction. Sometimes affliction comes to us through an aspect of a broken relationship.

Sometimes it comes to us through the aspect of persecution. That's one aspect of affliction. But hard things happen to us in life. And when those hard things start happening to us in life, we have a tendency to get discouraged. Because all we can see is the affliction that's in front of us. Because as we are affected physically, it begins to affect us mentally.

As we are affected physically, it begins to affect us emotionally. And as we are afflicted physically, it begins to affect us spiritually. Because the physical is so closely tied to the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual in our lives. So if you are going through hard things, discouragement tends to go along with it. Because you start to think things like, I'm never going to get better.

I'm just always going to be like this. Is God really real because of the thing that I'm going through? And because of these physical ailments, these afflictions that we go through, it can end up causing discouragement to come into our lives. As a matter of fact, pain in our bodies can lead to depression in our spirits. One of my favorite writers is Charles Spurgeon.

And I appreciate him so much because he so vividly expresses things and was so honest about his own personal battle with depression. But do you know what led to C.H. Spurgeon's spiritual battle with depression? A physical battle with pain. He dealt with intense pain. From his migraine headaches to where he was debilitated and ended up in bed so much. And it caused him intense amounts of depression.

So much so that all he could do was hang scriptures all around his room. He hung the Psalms all around his room. Because all he could do was just look at those Psalms that were hanging on the wall to hopefully bring some encouragement into his life when he was in the process of going through that physical pain. And so the afflictions that we go through can lead us to discouragement.

Maybe you can relate to that this morning. And then the third thing that he tells us is that discouragement comes through fear. Discouragement comes through fear. I want you to jump down to verse 5 and look at that. It says, For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith. For fear, pay attention to those words, that the tempter might have tempted you

and our labor would be in vain. See, Paul had an intense amount of discouragement over these Thessalonian people because he was fearful that they had given in to the temptation of the enemy. The temptation of the enemy that was bringing about persecution. The temptation of the enemy that was bringing about the affliction. The temptation of the enemy that in the process of those things,

as they were separated from Paul, started telling them, You don't really believe in God because why would God allow this to happen to you? You can't really believe in God because why would God do this to you? And he knew that that temptation was there and so he was fearful. And I think that the Thessalonian people had a certain amount of fear. Because now they've got this newfound faith.

This newfound faith in the God that they are convinced is the one true God. But this newfound faith in God is what has actually caused all of the problems in their life. And there was a certain amount of fear in their lives based upon what they were facing for their faith. And that fear was leading them to discouragement. As a matter of fact, fear begins to bring about worry.

Worry brings about anxiety. And anxiety, we are told in the Psalms, it says anxiety in the heart leads to depression. And I know that we live in a culture of fear right now. And we can post all the faith over fear things that we want to in the world. But the fact of the matter is, there's a certain amount of fear that we all have in our lives. Fear because the media keeps telling us we should be afraid.

I don't care which side of the media that you look at. I don't care what you listen to. Everybody tells you you should be afraid right now. Be afraid. Everything's going to die. Everything's going downhill. Right? That's what we hear every single day. And so there's a certain amount of fear about the economy, about what's going on in the world, about what's happening in the weather.

And we have this place of fear. And if you're a parent, you're fearful for your kids. If you're a kid, you're fearful of your parents. Right? I mean, there's a lot of fear going on. That last part was a joke. You shouldn't be fearful of your parents. Right? Thank you for the courtesy laugh. I do appreciate that. But there's a certain amount of fear that we experience in life.

And as we begin to suppress that fear, it turns into anxiety and depression and massive discouragement. And pretty soon, fear begins to guide us. Now, there's one aspect of fear that can be very healthy. For instance, the other day, I was cleaning out my guttering. And I do it exactly the same way that I did when I was 20 years old. I jump up on the roof. I don't really jump up on the roof.

I climb a ladder much more gingerly than I used to because of fear. I climb up on the roof, and I take the blower, and I walk along the edge of the roof, and I blow out all the guttering. And it goes everywhere, and then I clean it up, and that's what I do. But fear is what causes me to come to the edge of the roof and say, I should stop here and walk a little bit carefully so that I don't fall off of the roof.

That's healthy fear. But if fear began to dominate my life and create discouragement, I would never get up on the roof to clean out the guttering at all because my fear would say, What if I fall off the roof? What if I fall off the ladder? And pretty soon, I don't do anything because discouragement, through fear, has debilitated me. Now, maybe you can relate to those things.

Maybe you understand what it's like to experience separation. Maybe you know what it's like to experience affliction, and maybe you know what it's like to experience fear, and they brought that discouragement into your life. So what do we do? How do we begin to allow the work of encouragement to do its work in our life? Well, Paul gives us four things that are a part of the work of encouragement in our life.

Number one. Number one is presence. Presence. I want you to notice what it says in verse two. It says, And we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith. See, Paul was fearful for the Thessalonian people, and he was fearful about what report he was going to get, but all he knew to do was to send someone to give presence

to the people, to be with the people. He says, So we sent Timothy to you. And why did he send Timothy to them? To do two things. He sent Timothy to them to do two things. Number one, he sent Timothy to strengthen them. He sent Timothy to strengthen them. That word strengthen means to establish or to make firm or to stabilize. He knew that the foundation of their faith was being shaken by the affliction

and by being separated from Paul. And by the potential fear that came about because of those things. So he sent Timothy to them to be a stabilizing force in their lives. To be someone who would stabilize them and say, Listen, what you're going through, not new, okay? We've been going through this too. I watched Paul experience this exact same thing. God is still God.

God is still good. Don't be shocked by these things. Stand strong in your faith. And he stabilized them. But the second thing it says that he did, not only did he strengthen them, but he sent him to encourage them. The word encourage means to call to one's side. And if you were paying attention and taking notes last week, yes, that is the exact same word for exhort from our last study.

So if you put a little star next to yourself, if you took that note and you paid attention to that. So that's what it means is to call to one's side. In other words, when Timothy showed up, he kind of took him under his wing again. And he called him to his side and he said, It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. What you're experiencing is what it means to be a believer.

Sometimes God is still God. God is still good. And he sent him to encourage them and to call them to his side, to be that encouraging force. Listen, this is what we're supposed to do for each other. This work of presence is something that we can do for each other on a consistent basis. Now, if you're here this morning and you're battling with discouragement,

if I've described you in one of those things and you're battling with that, you know what? The first thing that you have to do is you have to let somebody else in on your struggle. You have to let somebody else in on what's going on in your life. Because listen, there's a whole body of people that would probably love to come alongside you, that would love to stabilize you and to call you to their side, but they can't solve problems they don't know exist.

They can't solve problems that they're not aware of. And so sometimes the first thing we have to do is let down our guard enough to say, You know what? I'm pretty discouraged right now. I've really got some stuff going on and I could really use somebody to come alongside. But see, that's when now the rest of us have to jump in, okay? Because the rest of us have to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to offer that encouragement,

to offer that presence to someone, to be the person that will show up in their life to encourage them when they feel like everything else is falling apart. I watched this amazing little sermon clip yesterday. And this young pastor on the beginning of the sermon clip said, I preached literally the worst sermon that had ever been put on the internet. As a matter of fact, I told our media team to take it off the internet so you can't even find it anymore.

He said, but after I got done preaching the worst sermon that's ever been on the internet, he said, I began to question everything about my calling. He said, I didn't know if I was called. I didn't even know if I was supposed to be doing what I'm doing. I clearly had heard God wrong because you can't be called by God and do what I just did and be as bad as I just was.

He said, I spent all Sunday afternoon and on into Monday morning just absolutely questioning everything about my calling. He said, but Monday morning I got a phone call from a friend of mine. And he said, come get coffee with me. He said, so we sat down to coffee. He goes, I know you're questioning your calling right now, but I want you to know you don't see what we see.

You can only see a mistake yesterday. You don't see what we see. And he said, he started going point by point on what God had been doing in my life, of what God had been doing in the church, and what God had been doing in the ministry. And he said, you don't see it, but God has called you and we all see it. You keep going. And he said, bad company corrupts good morals.

But what does good company do? Good company strengthens and encourages. And listen, sometimes we have to have that sensitivity to know somebody's going through a hard thing and we've got to come alongside them. We've got to give them the gift of presence. Now listen, I can't be everywhere all the time. I can't be that gift of presence for everybody. And that's where the body of Christ comes in.

And quite frankly, if I was the guy that was there for everybody, I'm doing my job wrong. Because my job is not to be everybody's everything. My job is to equip you to be the body of Christ so that you can give the gift of presence to the rest of the body of Christ. Because that's what it means to be the body. And it's time for us to start seeing the needs and meeting the needs and encouraging the people

because that's what God has called for us to do, to give the gift of presence. You see, as wonderful as our relationship with Jesus Christ is, He's not physically here with us. Does He speak to us through His Word? Absolutely. And I will beat that drum until the day that I die. And you should be in God's Word and hear from Him. But there are points in time when you need to talk to a flesh and bone person.

Let me share a couple of stories with you. When I was in Bible college, both of these are from when I was in Bible college, it was kind of one of those seasons where everybody else was getting everything in the world out of what they were reading, right? And they're having these great personal applications and it just was really dry for me. And I was kind of like, okay, Lord, where are you?

What's going on right now? And we, every Sunday night, we would have chapel and then we'd have a time of worship afterwards. And it was during this time of worship and you could kind of come and go by that point in time. And I remember praying during that time and saying, Lord, I would love it, like I'm a touchy-feely guy, I'm a nickel, so we like to hug people, okay?

I high-five because I, anyway, I just like to hug people. So I was like, Lord, I'd love if I could just have like a sweet God bro hug right now, right? But clearly that can't happen. But Lord, if there was a way for that to happen, that would be pretty awesome. And so I didn't think too much about it. So I got up and I walked out and there was a guy standing at the back.

And I know this guy because you knew everybody in Bible college because it's a pretty small school and we worked out together a few times. And we were like boys, right? We were like close friends. And so I'm walking to the back of the door and he steps in front of the door and he reaches out and he wraps his arms around me and he hugs me and he like picks me up.

He did everything. But swing me around and sing my buddy and me, right? Just gave me the biggest. And it's like God said, there you go, right? Because that's the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. Like he's not there physically with us, but that's why you're here. That's why you're here is to give that gift of presence that God doesn't give to us because he wants you to do it.

Well, let me tell you one more story. So I had done something really stupid at the end of Bible college and I really hurt a friendship. And I felt really, really terrible. We're talking like three weeks from graduation. I should have known better by that point in time. But I did something dumb. I hurt somebody and I felt terrible about it. I just felt like the worst human being like here.

I was supposed to be a leader at the Bible college. I'm doing stupid stuff. And there's all these tables around this little pond. And so I was just sitting at one of them on a Saturday afternoon sort of commiserating what a loser I was. And my good friend, Wes Root, came up to me. And Wes is this like sort of hippie guy that had dreadlocks. And, hey, man, like he absolutely talked like that, right?

And so Wes comes up to me. He goes, hey, little Ryan, can I sit down and talk to you? And I was like, sure, Wes, let's visit. He goes, can I tell you about what we're learning in Romans class? And I said, sure, why not? And so he just starts expounding God's grace to me because that's what Romans is all about. It's God's grace in our lives. He just starts expounding God's grace to me.

And, of course, I'm just a giant baby. You guys know that about me by now. And I'm just like tears are dripping. They're just flowing. And as tears are flowing, he goes, wow, that's heavy. And then he keeps talking about God's grace, right? And he said, hey, God bless you today. Gave me a hug and moved on with life. And that was exactly what I needed to hear right then.

You see, I needed someone to come along in the midst of my commiseration and tell me that God's grace is still real, God's grace is still good, and God's grace is still for me. And that's what that was for me at that point in time. Why? Because he gave me the gift of presence. And that presence is one of the greatest encouragements that people can have in their lives.

Number two is love. We need love in our lives. I want you to notice what he says in verse 6. No, verse 4. No, I didn't mean that either. I meant verse 5. For this reason, when I can endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would have been in vain. But now that Timothy has come to us from you

and has brought us good news of your faith and your love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we long to see you. He said he told us all about your love. And that word love, of course, is not the word love that our culture has turned it into, where love is love or whatever that's even supposed to mean. It's the real word for love, which is agape, which is a divine, sacrificial love.

He said he came to us and he reported, not only do you have love for God, not only do you have love for each other, but you have love even for us. And brothers and sisters, they were kind of writing that song in the 70s, all you need is love. Do, do, do, do, do. Right? I mean, it's just true. We need that love. There's nothing more encouraging in our lives than to know that we are loved.

But there's a few things that we need to realize about this. First of all, you need to know that God loves you. And I do think sometimes that's hard for us to take in sometimes, because when we start really examining our lives and looking at ourselves, we say, how could God really love me? And one of the greatest things you can do is pray and say, Lord, I want you to show me just how much you love me.

I want you to reveal to me through your word that you actually love me. And he will do that for you, I promise. He's done it in my own life, where he has displayed to me through the cross and through creation and through all of the other things that his love for me is so great. Why do we need to first know God's love? Because you cannot love anyone else until you first know that God loves you.

You see, this is where I mildly separate from the rest of culture. The rest of culture says, until you love yourself, you can't love anyone else. And I would tell you, take it a step farther. Until you know that you're loved by God, you can't know what it's like to love anyone else. Because scripture tells us that we were made to be responders. We're told that we have the love of God

shed abroad in our heart. It tells us that in the book of Romans. And in the book of 1 John, it says that we love because he first loved us. And so if you are dealing with that discouragement right now, if you feel like everything in the world is falling apart, sometimes the first thing that you need to hear is that you are loved more than you can ever imagine by the creator of the universe.

Like the guy that spoke the world into existence cares about you and he knows your name and he knows everything about you. I always like to think about the fact that he knows all the hairs on our head. And for some of you, that's an addition process. For the rest of us, it's a subtraction process, right? And he's just like, oh, there goes another one. That's too bad.

But he knows because he loves us so much. And as we begin to know that love that God has for us, listen, we can begin to accept love from other people. Because I'm here to tell you right now, one of the hardest things to do is to let other people encourage you. Have you ever noticed that? You ever been around somebody that will not accept encouragement from someone?

You're like, everything's gonna be okay. And they're like, no, it's not. Well, God is still good. No, he's not. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, right? And they won't accept encouragement from anybody else. You know why? Because they're struggling to really take in that love for themselves. But as we truly begin to understand that God loves us, we can start allowing other people to love us.

And then when that begins to happen, we also start to show that love to the people that are around us. And we do that oftentimes in very tangible ways because that's one of the greatest encouragements that people can give us. You may notice that presence and love, those very much work together. Can we all agree with that? Because that love will ultimately produce presence

in the life of people. Number three is faith. Notice in verse seven, it says, for this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction, we were comforted about you through your faith. We were comforted by your faith. Now listen, we need to understand something. If you really want encouragement to take its work in your life, you have to start believing what's true

and stop doubting what the enemy tells you to doubt. See, we live in a feelings-based culture. And really, it's nothing new. We've always been a feelings-based culture because that's who we are as human beings. But we cannot rely on our feelings. We have to rely on faith. We have to choose to believe what God says and not choose to believe what we say or what our flesh says.

And we can't base our life on our feelings. We have to base it on what's actually true, which is called faith. I remember one time living in Johnson County, still living with mom and dad. Erin and I hadn't gotten married yet. And so, I don't even know if we were dating at the time, but dad and I used to serve together at first service at Calvary Chapel of Johnson County.

He was worship guy at first service and I was sound guy at first service. Well, there had been like a guy's game night where we played an epic game of Risk the night before. And we all know how late that was. And we all know how late that can go. And so, we got home really late, woke up, and we were both just a little bit down because we both share a similar personality

where we can get down kind of easy. Plus, I was battling anxiety. He had just come past dealing with a great deal of depression in his life that God had healed him from. And so, we got up, we're getting ready for church, and I said, man, I am really struggling this morning. Like, anxiety is really doing its work in my heart. And he said, yeah, me too. He said, but I gave it to God.

I said, so do you feel better now? And he goes, not yet. And I was like... He said, no, I gave it to God by faith. Feelings come and go. You give these things to God by faith and you trust in Him. And feelings will come in good time. And that has stuck with me for over 20 years now that you have to give things to God by faith because faith is choosing to believe what God says

and refusing to believe what my flesh says, right? And so, how are we encouraged? We're encouraged through faith. But not only our own faith. It's so encouraging to see the faith of other people. You see, Paul was encouraged by the faith of the Thessalonian people. The Thessalonian people were encouraged by the faith of Paul. They heard what God was doing. He heard what God was doing through faith

and he was encouraged by it. I think one of the greatest things that you can do is start pulling out biographies of men and women of faith who God has done amazing things through and they get real honest about the times that were hard but how God brought them through. It is such a faith builder to see what God has done in other people's lives. Somebody sent me a picture of a book this week.

They were like, man, I'm loving reading this book right now. It's the book Harvest about the beginning of the Calvary movement and how Chuck and the small faith, honestly, that he had at that point in time worked to bring all of these crazy guys to the Lord. And it's like, yeah, those are great stories of faith. It's great to look and say it builds my faith to see what God did in that.

But you know, we don't even just have to go read other people's biographies. We could get together in a small group every week. We'll call them small group Bible studies, okay? We could get together in a small group every week and you could share each other's stories of faith and how God is working in your lives and how your faith is continuing to be strong in spite of what's going on.

It's almost like we'd call it fellowship, right? Because that's kind of what we're supposed to do as the body of Christ and as believers. That's why everything on the left-hand side of the bulletin and I'm just going to point it out to you. Well, left for me. Now it's right for you. Everything on this side of the bulletin are the studies going on throughout the week.

I don't tell you that because I need something to say in between worship and the Word. I tell you that because I want you to get involved in one of these. I want you to go to one of these so that you can get to know some people you don't know quite as well and you can hear their stories of faith and you can share your story of faith because as you do that, it builds your faith and you become encouraged. And you say, it's not just me.

That's why when you go home on a Sunday, you're like, man, it feels really good to be together, doesn't it? Because you've encouraged each other. When I was going through the hardest time, the best night of my week was the night we had college study because we would get together and for that hour and a half, I didn't think about my anxiety. I thought about how great it was to hang out with my friends.

I thought about how great it was to talk about what God's doing in our lives. And it was the best night of my week. That's why these Bible studies are so important to me, my wife and I both, because that was not only where our relationship grew, but we have friends from that that we still go on vacation with today. You've got to get involved and you've got to share your stories of faith with each other.

Number four is prayer. Prayer. I just want to read this last section to you again. Notice what it says starting in verse nine. For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account, as we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all people just as we also do for you so that he may establish your hearts through faith, or that he may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and the Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all of his saints. I love this. He starts off by saying, night and day I pray for you. And I don't think that that means that Paul was constantly on his knees before the Lord night and day.

I think that means that as Paul went throughout his day, he would think about those Thessalonian people and he would pray for them. And he would say, oh yeah, I need to pray for that person. Oh yeah, and remember they have this going on. I'm getting there. I'm gonna pray for them. And as he thought about those people, he would pray about them every time he'd think about it.

Maybe because of afflictions he had in his own life, he'd wake up in the middle of the night. And as he woke up in the middle of the night, he'd think, well, I can't sleep anyway. I might as well start praying for my friends back in Thessalonica. So he said, pray for you night and day. And as he prayed for them night and day, he was like, all I want is for God to direct us to you,

to get us back to you. But if not, I'm gonna minister to you from afar. And as I do, I'm gonna pray for you. And he prays for them. And there's four things for them. First of all, that they would increase and abound in love. That they would increase and abound in love. They were already a church that loved. They loved each other. They loved the people around them.

But he says, I wanna see you increase in that love. And I wanna see you abound in that love. The word in the Greek literally means to super abound. In other words, I want love to ooze out of you to where everybody in the world looks at you and they see just how much you love each other. Which is kind of interesting because Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciples

by the love that you have for one another. Basically, that's what he says. I want everybody to know that you're disciples because of the love that you have for one another. He says, I pray that you would abound in love. But not only that, I pray that God would establish your heart. Same word, to stabilize. That God would stabilize you. That even though the foundation may be kind of shaking

because of the afflictions that you're going through, that God would continue to stabilize you. To stabilize you in your faith and in your walk with Jesus Christ. Not only that he would cause you to abound in love and to stabilize you, but that you would be blameless and holy. Sidebar, can we just say that this is something that's absolutely lacking in the church today?

Nobody thinks being blameless and holy is important anymore. Oh no, it's all about love. Listen, I just spent an incredible amount of time talking about love. I know that that's important. But if love doesn't produce holiness, then it's called license, right? And so, that doesn't do anybody any good. Blameless and holy is what God's desire is for us. He has made us that through the blood of Jesus Christ

and he wants us to walk in that reality. But as we pray for it, he produces it in our lives. He says that you would be blameless and holy at his coming with his saints. And once again, Paul reminds them, we know what the end of the story looks like. We know what the end of the game is. We know the final score. And it may be the third quarter. And things look a little bit down for you.

But we know how it's gonna end. And it's gonna end with Jesus coming back. And you can hold strong with that. Now listen, brothers and sisters, I want you to realize something about prayer. You may not physically be able to give your presence to somebody that's going through something hard right now. You may not physically be able to be there to encourage them

or to show them love or to tell your story of faith. But that doesn't mean you can't still be a force for encouragement. Because you can encourage them through prayer. You can be praying for the people that you know I've got friends in Kansas City that I pray for all the time. I've got friends back in California that I'm praying for all the time. Sweet Jesus, am I praying for the people

in California right now, right? Like I'm praying for all those people and I'm doing the work of encouragement the best that I can, even though I'm not with them physically. But you know what? You sit in a congregation of people right now. And you say, Ryan, I don't know what everybody's prayer needs are. Okay, let me paint a scenario for you. There is a world in which

after the worship team ends this last song and they say amen, have a great week, you could do something. You could meet everybody in your section right now. And you could say, what's your name? It'd be a bold move, I know. But you could just meet everybody in your section, right? And then you could take one more bold step. You could say, how could I pray for you this week?

And then you could pray for them all week. And then listen, this one's gonna blow your little gourds. But when you come back next week, you could track that same person down and say, hey, I've been praying for you about this this week. How's it going? And it's almost like you're saying, I've been praying for you this week. And it's almost like we would be the body working together,

doing exactly what God has called for us to do. And pretty soon our hearts would be so knit together in love that everybody in the world would go, what the heck's going on at Calvary? Those people are weird, right? And it would be the most beautiful, weird tribe anybody's ever seen. Because that's the work of encouragement. Friends, we live in a discouraging world right now,

a world that is constantly beating us down. And I know some of you experience that discouragement in your life. And as you experience that discouragement in your life, I want you to know that you are not the only ones. Paul, the writer of over half of the New Testament, battled discouragement. You're not the only one going through this. But there's a work of encouragement

that God wants to do in your life. And it's gonna take place through presence and through love and through faith and through prayer. And God wants to use all of us as those instruments. Amen? Let's all stand. And if you'd bow with me. Father, we come before you. And I thank you for the time that we've been able to have in your word here this morning. Lord, I thank you for how good you are to us.

And I thank you for how pleasant your word is to our souls. And so, Lord, as we depart from here, I just want to pray along with Paul, just like he did for those people of Thessalonica. Lord, I pray that you would establish our hearts. Father, that we would abound in love for one another. Lord, that you would produce in us a blamelessness, a holiness as we live our lives.

We know you've done it in position, but Lord, do it in practicality in the way that we live our lives. And Father, would you keep our eyes focused on you. Lord, would you help us to constantly be aware and constantly be looking for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we praise you for who you are. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.

Lord, God, this morning, I just pray that as we leave here this morning, that your Holy Spirit go with us. Continue to minister to us as individuals, Lord, but continue to minister to our homes and our families, our communities and our schools, Lord. God, our workplaces. Lord, let revival break out, Lord. Do something awesome in our lives and in our communities, Lord,

and our families. You're a big God and you do big and mighty things, Lord. So just do something awesome and mighty as we leave here. Lord, I ask your blessing upon each and every one of us as we leave here today. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.