The Work of Encouragement

It's ending now, a move of your spirit, heaven break out, come now in power.

All right, good morning. It's good to see everybody. I'm glad you're here, glad you're with us on this beautiful morning. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started. Father, we love you. We thank you for another day and another opportunity to serve you and to worship you, Lord God. We just ask your blessing upon this time. Lord, just help us to be completely surrendered to you. Help us to lift a joyful

noise. Lord, to sing our hearts out to you, Lord, to lift praise to you. Lord, let your word go out with power this morning. We ask your blessing upon this time. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like, and we'll continue on. How you give it so freely. Amen.

Lord God, we just give you praise for who you are and for what you've done for us, Lord, for the new life that we have in you. For arresting death and sin, Lord God, we thank you and we praise you.

We'll sing of the goodness. Lord God, I just want to take a moment and just thank you for how good you are to us. Lord God, I know that we are undeserving of your goodness and your grace and your mercy, but we thank you that you are good to us and kind and gracious to us in spite of our sin and our shortcomings. We give you praise, Lord. We give you all the praise due to you. You're worthy

of it all. Lord God, you're worthy of all praise, Lord, this morning as we continue on in worship, Lord. We know, Lord, that you're going to come again soon, and with you comes a victory. Victory over sin or death, Lord God. Victory over the enemy, and we just give you praise for that. We give you praise this morning, and we give you thanks. We give you thanks for the victories in

our lives, for the ones that we've seen and the ones that have still yet to come to pass. Lord God, we know with you there is victory, and help us to not lose hope in that. Help us to rest in that fact. Lord, when you come back, you will be victorious. You're coming back as the victorious king, the king of kings and the Lord of lords. Lord, we look forward to that day, but until then,

we're going to keep fighting. And we're going to rest in knowing that in you there is victory. Lord, this morning, I pray that as Pastor Ryan comes, Lord, that you would just speak mightily through him. Let your Holy Spirit overflow him. Let your Holy Spirit move mightily in us. Give him the words to speak, and give us ears to hear and hearts to receive that which you've prepared for us this morning. We love you,

Father God. We praise you, and we thank you. And all God's people said, Amen. Let's have some fellowship.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seat, 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. Handful of things to take note of in your bulletin. Over on the left-hand side, as always, is what's going on throughout the week, so please take note. In the middle section of your bulletin,

a handful of things to take note of. Just a reminder that every Sunday evening until the end of the week, we'll be having our intercessory prayer time at 6 o'clock down at the other end of the hallway, so that will be going on tonight. So, because, boy, there's a lot at stake coming up, so we need to be really in prayer for God to move. Fellows, we have a men's breakfast coming up next Saturday at 8 o'clock down at the other end of the hallway, so join us for that. Ladies, take note

of the fact that there is a Women's Fellowship gathering. Make it and take it. I think you guys are making something decorative. You did this a few weeks ago. I think you guys are making something decorative. You did this a few weeks ago. I think you guys are making something decorative. You did this a few months ago, and so I think there will be a QR code sign up in there next week. For that,

I'm getting the thumbs up to say, yes, that is true. So, just one hand emerged from the video booth that did this. I'm like, got it. Nailed it. Just a reminder also that we are going to be starting up our Agape Fruits meal ministry starting in November. It's going to be twice a month, and if you would like to sign up to help out with that, or if you would like to make donations

to help out with that, all of that information is out on the table right by where you picked up your bulletin this morning. And then Operation Christmas Child, don't forget, I think in between the services, they're going to be having more boxes here that you can take. Also, along those lines, a reminder that if you are interested in going to Valdosta, Georgia with Ross and Jana on November the 6th, they'll be there for a few days. I sent that out, I think, last night or really early this morning. I sent that out, I think, last night or really early this morning. I sent that

out, I think, last night or really early this morning. I sent that out, I think, last night or really early this morning. I don't remember which it all runs together. They're taking a group out there to help out with hurricane relief. So if you are interested in doing that, please get with Jana, Ross and Jana Lumbert, and they're putting that group together.

So it should be, it's a much needed thing. As we know, things have really been pretty messed up with what's going on there. So also, two things that are not in your bulletin, I've got to invite a couple of people to come up and share. So first of all, I'm going to invite a couple of my FCA if they would come up and share about an event going on Wednesday night.

Okay, hello. We're Lily and Morelli from Ark City High School. We have an event going on we wanted to share about. It is called Fields of Faith and Anyone is Welcome. It starts at 6. Yeah, so it's next Wednesday evening. We've got a lot of churches invited all the way from Wichita down to Ponca, I think. Yeah. we've been planning it along with Ryan and then another teacher from our school

we've been planning it for about two months it's gonna be a big worship event down at the Arc City Stadium the football field there's gonna be worship and then we're having Branson where's where's he from faith ignited in Winfield he's gonna be giving a message and then we're having chick-fil-a sponsor it and we're having lots of door prizes so we just wanted to invite anyone here if you have grandkids kids coming just take them there Wednesday night it starts at 6 so everyone's welcome and we thought we'd love to see a lot of people there okay and then I've also invited a Kurt Freeland to come share with us so while it's wonderful to help out in lots of places throughout the world we also like to remember that there's lots of need right here in our

own community and Kurt Freeland has been the head of or the board president for Habitat for Humanity for quite some time now so he's gonna share with us a few things about being able to help out with that. Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to come today and probably many of you know that we have a Habitat Housing Ministry in Arkansas City and we've built one house for a family in need of better housing each year have for the last several years but we're at a point where we're again at a point where. getting a little gray and long in the tooth and so we're in need of some new people to get involved and and help with our habitat housing ministry in a minute we're going to show a video that just shows four families that have been

helped by habitat. Habitat is a Christian housing ministry and it was started by Millard and Linda Fuller in 1976 and they were a very wealthy family in Georgia and had been very successful but the more success that they had financially the less they felt like they were in need of help. They were doing what God would have them to do and they had some dysfunction in their family and so they gave away everything their house their funds much of their belongings and and they asked God to show them what they could do and they finally after a year or two felt like you know that there were so many people that were suffering from a lack of a good home that they could be secure for their family and

they decided that that's what they would like to do and so they they asked God to show them how to do this and so now this this particular ministry is one of the largest builders of a farm. It's one of the largest builders of affordable housing in the country and around the world. It's founded on Christian principles. We tithe 10% of our donations to help people in other countries and in our case that goes to ministry habitat housing ministry in Mexico. Basically it's a lot different than what we have in the United States.

Basically it's a lot different than what we have in the United States. Basically it's a lot different than what we have in the United States. We do here that's basically taking somebody whose family is living in a cardboard box and putting them into a home that is a solid shelter. So let me just say that there are many things that if you have and feel God calling your heart to getting involved with this ministry just let us know Just let us know.

and we'll see if there's some place that you could get plugged in elaine and jeff phillips have been very involved uh recently and and as members of our board and jeff is uh he's one of our board benders out there helping build a home so anyway um let me just uh stop at that point and then just have them play this video and then i'll leave some sheets uh back there that kind of shows uh some ways that you could get involved if you just contact us and and we thank you for everybody that has been involved over the past so anyway it's 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 winter times 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 the wind came here and we had central heat and air and 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 and because of that we were more intentional about pursuing a relationship with him and we were able to do that 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 begin to act differently and behave differently we help other married couples that are that are

having problems we we do marriage counseling we do all kinds of stuff so just it really helps us to be more conscious we really centered us and focus 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 though 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 we got to meet new people in town stable people there just became part of the community really yeah we've been here since it didn't prove 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 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 on 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 so thank you Kurt for sharing and if you are interested in getting involved in that you can visit with Jeff and Elaine afterwards

so all right those are the things that are going on so if you would for our responsive reading we are going to be in Psalm 13 Psalm 13 looking at the New American Standard for this part so that we sound the same if you need one 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 sorry about that 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 is dealt bountifully with me and father we do come before you and we praise you for your salvation Lord we know that you hear us when we cry and we know that you are always answering and so father we see cute today and father just want to pray that you would continue to bless all of the different outreaches that are going on throughout the world and especially through

this church. We lift up those affected by the hurricanes and just pray that you would provide for them. And Lord, use us as you see fit to do that. And as always, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And Father, just ask that you would be with us as we spend time in your word now. May we learn from you. 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. As we come to chapter 3, it's the last chapter really of the more personal aspect of what Paul shares with them. In chapter 1, he talked about the work of the gospel and what the gospel had done in the lives of those Thessalonian people. In chapter 2, he defended his ministering. We talked about

those six principles of the work of the minister. And as we come to chapter 3, we will see the work of encouragement. The work of encouragement. And so we pick up in chapter 3 verse 1. And this is what it says.

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 us from you and has brought us good news of your faith and love, we will be able to endure it no longer. We will be able to endure it no longer. We will be able to endure it no longer. We will be able to endure it no longer. We will be able to endure it no longer. That you always think kindly of us, longing to see us, just as we also 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? As we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may be able to endure this, that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father

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 without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Now, just to paint the story for you, remember they were forced to leave Thessalonica because of the persecution that was going on. And they went on to Athens. And then after they went on to Athens,

they went on to Corinth. Actually, Paul is the one who went on to Athens and then on to Corinth because he had sent Timothy back to check on the believers in Thessalonica because he knew the persecution that they were facing. And of course, Timothy returned to Corinth, giving a good report of the believers. And so he tells them kind of a little bit of that story. And he talks about just how encouraging

Timothy was to him because of the news that had been brought of how good the Thessalonican church was doing. But in this chapter, as we see this work of encouragement take place, not only in the life of Paul, but also in the Thessalonian church. And once again, began to look and realize there's some things that we can learn from this, from this story about Paul and his church. And so we're going to look at Paul's encouragement from Timothy. And so as we look at chapter three of First Thessalonians,

there's two main things I would like to point out to us. The first thing I would like for us to pay attention to is the problem of discouragement. And the second thing that I would like to for us to pay attention to is that work of encouragement. So the first thing that we'll look at is the problem of discouragement. Now, again, we live in a discouraging culture right now, in my opinion, because every

time we look around us, we are reminded of how bad things are. The news does a good job of that. Every time we look around us, we are reminded of how much everything is going downhill. You're constantly reminded of the issues in the world. And sometimes life can just be discouraging because you know what it's like to go through a day and to feel exhausted and to feel a little

bit alone. And like you're the only one in the midst of your struggle. And sometimes you can just kind of go, what's the point? Because life is really discouraging. Well, I think that that aspect of discouragement is nothing new. And Paul here for us paints three things that are true about the problem of discouragement. Three things that often bring discouragement into our lives. Number one, he tells us that we

can be discouraged through separation. We can be discouraged through separation. I want to remind you of what he says here. He says, therefore, when we could endure it no longer, when we could no longer bear our separation from you. Remember in chapter two, Paul had said that they had been taken away from us. They had been taken away from us. They had been taken away from us. They had

been taken away from the Thessalonian church. And remember we said that that phrase taken away is a Greek phrase that indicates a child that has been bereaved of their parents. And so when Paul was separated from the Thessalonian people, when he was separated from that church, it brought a great deal of discouragement to him. And he feared that his separation from the Thessalonian church had brought a great deal of discouragement to them. But I got to thinking about something.

I got to thinking about just how much separation and isolation brings discouragement into our own lives. And we live in a world today that sort of can kind of promote separation a little bit. I know I harp on it quite a bit, but it's because I see it so much. Nothing will fascinate me more than walking into a room filled with maybe 10, 20 people and every single person is on their phone and not one of them is talking to each other. Now they may be

texting each other. They may be snapping each other. They may be doing all those kinds of things, but no one's talking to each other. And it's fascinating that you can be in a room and yet be all alone. Because part of what took place with the COVID issue is that we began to isolate ourselves and we began to separate ourselves. Now listen, that's already natural to us as human beings. The most natural thing for us

to do as human beings is for us to isolate, to separate, and to hide ourselves. You know how I know? Do you remember the very first thing that Adam and Eve did after they sinned? They hid themselves. Right? And they covered themselves up because that isolation goes along with the shame that comes from sin. And so because we all have sin natures, we have a tendency to want to

hide. We have a tendency to want to isolate because we're a little bit ashamed of who we really are. We're a little bit ashamed to let anybody know what's really on the inside of us, or maybe even fearful to let people know what's really on the inside of us. And so we have a tendency to isolate from other people. As a matter of fact, most people will tell you that when they

go through their hardest times, when they go through their most difficult times in life, their first thought is that they just want to be by themselves. Right? When you go through a hard time, you think, I just need a little bit of time to myself. And listen, I'm not saying that's not a necessary thing sometimes. Sometimes you need to get alone with the Lord, but we also need each other. We also need to not isolate from each

other, but that's what we have a tendency to do. I personally have a major issue with this myself. I am a loner by nature. I am a loner by nature. I am a loner by nature. I am a loner by nature. I am a well, I'm what I call a social loner. I love to be around people, but I won't always engage with people because that's just kind of who I am by nature. I contend to isolate myself, and I know

it's a weakness in my life, and I have to work to overcome it. I have to work to overcome it so that I'll really get to know people. But we can have a tendency to do that, and that's one of the things that's happened in this culture, and I think it's caused a great deal of discouragement, if not depression, in the lives of people. And Paul says, one of the issues we had was the issue of separation, and that separation brought discouragement into our lives. Number two, he tells us that discouragement comes through

affliction. We can be discouraged through affliction. Notice what he says in verse three. He says,

Now, we've talked about this almost every study that we've had in the book of 1 Thessalonians so far, and that's persecution. But I want to point out something to you. There's multiple words used for suffering in the Greek language, and the words that are used here don't indicate persecution. They literally indicate, like it says here, affliction. Now, persecution can fit into that aspect of affliction, but there's much more to it than that.

There's much more to this idea of affliction. It really just has to go along with all of the hard things that we go through. And he says, Even though we told you that was potentially going to happen, even though we told you that as you live on this earth, affliction is part of life, and listen, when we go through affliction, it brings discouragement. How many of us have gone through a really difficult time, maybe even just this week?

Maybe even just this week, the thing that you didn't want to happen in your life happened, and you're a little bit discouraged because you find yourself going, how many more times is this going to happen? I know some people that are battling illness, and it's like they're going, when am I ever going to not be ill? When am I going to feel good ever again? And they can get a little bit discouraged because they're going through this time of affliction.

And the longer we deal with the physical aspects of life and the affliction that goes along with life, the more discouraged we become. One of my favorite writers is Charles Spurgeon, and Charles Spurgeon, part of why I really enjoy him so much is because he battled depression, and he wrote about his battles with depression. But do you know what caused his battles with depression? His battles with depression came about because of his physical illness.

He dealt with intense pain, in particular, intense. He dealt with intense headaches in his life. And because of that, he dealt with massive depression because of it. Because our physical bodies are so closely tied to our spiritual being, our physical bodies are so closely tied to our emotional well-being that when we are physically ill, we can have a tendency to get really discouraged and really depressed. And so if

that's you this morning, know that you're not alone because lots of people go through this. But those afflictions that we go through, those afflictions that we go through, those afflictions that we go through, in life can oftentimes bring about massive discouragement and sometimes even depression into our lives because it all is so closely tied together. And so the first thing he talks about is that we were discouraged through separation. Second of all, we were discouraged through affliction. But third, they were discouraged

through fear. Jump down to verse five. For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, your faith, notice the next two words, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain. He says, my greatest fear for you is that you would be tempted by the tempter. What does he mean by that? Well, because of persecution and because of affliction, he knows

that the first thing that begins to happen when you go through hard times in your life is the enemy will come in and say, see, it's not worth it. See, Jesus isn't real. This isn't really working and he will want to pull you away from the faith. That's why when Jesus told that parable of the sower, do you remember? And he talked about the seed that goes out and it starts to put down

roots, but then it hits the rocks and then it can't actually grow because it hits something hard in life. You hit the trials in life and you tend to be in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're in a See, that's what the enemy does to us. And so he was fearful for them that that's what had taken place in their lives. And undoubtedly the Thessalonian people were probably somewhat fearful themselves because this newfound faith that they had was actually bringing more affliction

to their life instead of making their lives better. I often wonder what the Thessalonian people would have said to many of the prosperity preachers today that tell them, well, if you just have Jesus in your life, you'll have world peace in your own apartment and a brand new car, right? I always wonder what, like, the early church would have said to that. They're like, well, that's not true at all.

He says, I was afraid that the tempter would come in. But I want you to notice he uses a strong word there. He uses the word fear. And I point that out because fear is a very real thing in our lives. Now, listen, fear can often be one of the most protective things in our lives. Sometimes it gets a little bit of a bad rap, right? Fear is what causes me if I'm walking on top of a roof.

Last Saturday, I cleaned out my guttering, and I do it like I did when I was a teenager. I grabbed the leaf blower, and I walked the edge of the roof, and I blow all the gutters out. And I do that, but there's a certain amount of healthy fear, partly because I'm now 44, not 18 anymore. And I go, man, I should be careful when I get close to the edge because falling off the roof would hurt.

You see, that's a healthy fear. I understand the consequences, and that fear causes me concern. Caution in my life. But if that fear kept me from actually performing the task, at that point in time, it would no longer be a healthy fear. It would be an unhealthy fear. And what happens a lot of times in our lives is what starts off as a healthy fear becomes an unhealthy fear.

And as that fear begins to grip us, it no longer becomes fear. It becomes worry and anxiety. Because now that fear is all you can think about. And now that fear is all you can think about. And now that fear is all you can think about. And now that fear begins to occupy every aspect of your minds. And I know people where fear and worry and anxiety is what's constantly on their minds.

And when that begins to happen, it turns into depression and discouragement. As a matter of fact, in the New Living Translation, there's a psalm that says, anxiety in the heart leads to depression. Because you have to try to suppress those anxious feelings. And as you do, it causes that depression and that discouragement in your life. Have you experienced that?

Do you understand what I'm talking about? That fear that grips us becomes our greatest discouragement. And so Paul talks about the issue of discouragement. And I think it's really good that he does this. Because do you ever think in these situations, when you start reading the Bible, do you ever think, the people that wrote the Bible do not understand what I'm going through.

The people that wrote the Bible do not understand the world that we live in today. They don't understand the fear that we live in. They don't understand the separation that we live in. They don't understand all these things. Until you really start to read and you go, they not only know about it, they experienced it. And that's why they wrote the things that they wrote.

And so if that's you this morning, know that you are not alone. Because even one of the writers of most of the New Testament said, we were discouraged. And we were fearful about what was going on with not only the Thessalonian believers, but even in our own world. As a matter of fact, as all of this was going on with Paul, with his concern over the Thessalonian church, we're told in the book of 1 Corinthians that when he arrived there, that it was in fear and trembling.

That's what was going on in Paul's heart while he was there. As a matter of fact, he was so fearful that we're told in the book of Acts, that an angel of the Lord had to show up. And tell him, I have many people in this city, keep doing what you're doing. Right? That was the condition that Paul was in when he was there. So he goes, so I understand discouragement.

But now he talks about the work of encouragement. He says, but we weren't stuck in that situation. We weren't stuck in that place. God did a work of encouragement. Of course, the work of encouragement that he did was by sending Timothy. But again, there are four things that I would like, to point out to you about the work of encouragement. That if you are discouraged, you might need this in your life.

Or if you know someone who is discouraged, they might need this in their life. Four things that I would want to point out to you about the work of encouragement. Number one, the first work of encouragement is presence. Presence. Not like what you get at Christmas, but the presence of you as an individual. I want to point a couple of things out to you. Look at verse two of chapter three.

He 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. How did Paul help out the discouragement that could have potentially been going on in the Thessalonian church? Well, he sent Timothy to them. And what did he send Timothy to do in their lives? There's two words that are really important there.

He sent him to strengthen them and he sent him to encourage them. That word strength. Then means to establish, to make firm or to stabilize. In other words, he sent Timothy so that Timothy could be a stabilizing force in their lives, a stabilizing force in the lives of those who were dealing with so much affliction, separated from the guy that started the church and probably a little bit fearful about what the future held for them.

And he sent Timothy to them for the express purpose of stabilizing them as a church. But the second thing that he sent them to. Sent Timothy to do is to encourage them, to encourage them. The word encourage means to call to one's side. And if you're thinking, hey, I wonder if that's the same word as exhort that he talked about last week. You're right. And bonus points for you for remembering that.

That's what the word encourage means. It means to call to one side. And that's exactly what Timothy did with those Thessalonian believers is he gave them the gift of his presence by calling them to his side and saying, You're not alone. You're not alone in this. I'm here with you. Paul may not be here in person, but he's with you in spirit. And he's praying for you.

And he cares about you. You are not alone. And I'm going to show you that Jesus is right here by your side as well. And he gave them the gift of his presence. Not only did Timothy do this for the Thessalonians, but remember, he returned to Paul with a message. And you can imagine that when he returned to Paul with the message of how good the Thessalonian church was doing, Paul was like,

Dad is praying. That's fantastic. And undoubtedly, Timothy sort of strengthened Paul, right? He stabilized him and his faith a little bit because he was reminded that even though he wasn't there, God is still good. And the work of the gospel still goes on. But he also encouraged him by saying, Hey, Paul, I know you're doing a heavy work. I know you experience a lot of persecution, but you're not alone.

And what does that mean for you? Well, there's some of you in here this morning that you need the gift of presence in your life. But you might need to let somebody know what you're going through in order to have that gift of presence in your life. I always tell people, I don't know how to solve problems that I don't know exist. I don't always know how to solve a problem if somebody doesn't tell me

that they have a problem. And sometimes we get upset because nobody gave us the gift of presence when we didn't let anybody know I need the gift of presence in my life. I need a little bit of encouragement in my life because we won't let anybody else in on what's going on in our lives. Why? Because we have isolation. We've kind of isolated ourselves because of either shame or fear

or you name the thing, we've kind of isolated ourselves. So if you're here this morning and you need that gift of presence in your life, would you tell somebody that you need that gift of presence in your life? But also, this is what we're supposed to do for each other. Because sometimes the Holy Spirit starts to whisper into our ear, you should just, you should go see them.

You should go encourage them. You should send them a message. You should give them a phone call. Because listen, there is nothing, there is nothing better than the presence of an individual in our lives. I watched a great little sermon clip yesterday. And this guy's a young pastor. He said, I gave a sermon one Sunday morning and it was the worst sermon that had ever been put on the internet.

As a matter of fact, I had them take it down from the internet because I don't want anybody to ever watch it again. And he said later that day and on into the next day, I questioned everything about my calling. I didn't, I thought there's no way God's ever called me. And I'm pretty sure I've mistaken this calling in my life. And he goes, I was just sort of wallowing in the misery of how bad that whole thing went.

He said, and then a friend of mine called me up and he said, let's go get coffee. He said, so we went and got coffee and we sat down and he knew it did not go good. And he said, I want you to know something. You don't see your calling right now, but it's so visible to everybody else. It's so clear to everyone around us. We see what God's doing, even though right now you don't see what God's doing.

And he said, this friend of mine went through a list of all of the areas where God was moving in the church. And I was reminded, yes, I am called. And he brought up a really good point. He said, bad company corrupts good morals, but what does good company do? Good company gives the gift of presence and good company brings encouragement. You see, that's what we should do for each other.

That's what the body of Christ does for each other is we give each other that gift of presence. You see, when it comes right down to it, as much as God does minister to us, one of the greatest ways he ministers to us is not only through his word, but he ministers to us through each other. Let me tell you a couple of different little stories from my own life. I remember a couple of different times in Bible college of some difficult times going on in my life.

And one particular, I'll tell you both stories, why not? We've got time. It's okay. I'll get you out of here by 10 still. A couple of different stories in my life. One time we were all on a worship night. It was on a Sunday evening and I was a little discouraged in my faith. I felt like everybody else was getting all this stuff out of the word and I didn't feel

like God was speaking to me. And I was like, man, Lord, I just wish I could hear from you. As a matter of fact, I'm a touchy feely sort of a guy. I'm a Nichols. It's kind of a part of who we are. I was like, I just wish God would give me a bro hug, right? That would be amazing. But clearly God's not physically here right now, so that can't happen. So I got up and it was sort of a come and go thing.

So I got up and I got ready to leave the sanctuary and I'd kind of prayed that. Like, Lord, if there was some way for that to happen, that would be really awesome. And a guy stepped out as I'm on my way out of the door. And I knew this guy because you knew everybody in the Bible college because it was really small. And this guy stepped out and we weren't like close friends or anything.

We worked out together sometimes. That was about it. And he just gave me the biggest bear hug ever and like picked me up. And it's like God said, I may not be here, but I'm here. You see, that's the gift of presence. God's not here. He's not here physically right now, but that's why he has you because you are that presence of God in the life of someone else.

I remember another time I was so discouraged because I had messed up big time. I had hurt someone that I did not intend to hurt, a good friend of mine. And I was just sort of wallowing in my own self-pity, right, for how badly I treated this person, something I said or something along those lines. And I just didn't feel very good about me as a Christian. I didn't feel very good about me as a person.

And it was like I'm almost done with Bible college and I just probably screwed up bigger than I ever had. I never had the entire time that I was here and I'm supposed to be one of the leaders in the Bible college at this point in time, right? And I remember my good friend Wes Root came up to me and Wes Root is this total like hippie kind of a guy with dreadlocks and yeah, man, like he kind of talked like that. And so he comes up to me and he's a couple of semesters behind me and they were in the book of Romans, which is all about grace.

And he was like, hey, Ryan, can I kind of talk to you a little bit? And I was like, Wes, you can hang out here as long as you want to. And he said, can I tell you what we've been learning in Romans? And I said, that would be fantastic. And he just starts expounding grace to me and just telling me all about how amazing God's grace is and how precious God. And I am just, well, you know me, I am just weeping like a baby, right?

And it's like the longer he's like, wow, that's heavy. And just kind of kept going with what he was saying. And he had no idea what had happened. He had no idea the broken relationship that I was dealing with at that point in time. And he just kept rolling out with all this stuff. And I'm just crying and he just gives me a hug and says, good talking to you, man.

And moves on. And it was like, that was exactly what I needed to hear at that point in time, right? That's called, that's the gift of presence. We don't always know what our presence is going to do for somebody, but usually it ends up really, really well. And that's what we're to be in the life of others. Because in a world where we constantly feel separated and isolated,

quit giving each other so much space. Quit giving each other so much room and just start invading each other's lives a little bit. The non-touchy-feely people. They have a little bit of an issue with it at first. Just don't worry about it. Just keep rolling, right? Number one, the gift of presence. Number two is love. Love. I want you to notice what it says in verse six.

He says, But now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought to 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. He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, He says, But let's pay attention to the Greek word that's used there for love. Because the Greek word that's used there for love is the word agape, divine, sacrificial love. And not only was it a love that they had for each other, but it was a love that they had for Paul.

Because he says, And they long to see you. Friends, there is nothing that brings encouragement in the life of a believer, quite like knowing that they can. are loved. Quite like knowing just how much you are loved by God and that you are loved by each other. The word love has absolutely been hijacked in our culture. Can we all agree with that? Love has just been turned into something God never intended for. Well, love is love. I

don't even know what that means, right? You just use the same word twice. Love is divine and sacrificial and it always looks out for what's best for someone else. And it's amazing how love brings encouragement into our lives. And as I think about this, I'm reminded of three aspects of love that Paul deals with here that kind of needs to be in our lives too. You cannot

learn to love each other unless you first know that God loves you. Unless you first know that God loves you. If you're dealing with massive discouragement right now, then one of the things that you need to begin to pray for is love. Love is love. Love is love. Love is love. Love is love. And one of the things that you need to pray that God would do in your life is that he would begin

to show you just how much he loves you. That you would just be overwhelmed by the great love that God has for you. Because we cannot love God and we cannot love others unless that love has first of all been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We're told in the book of Romans that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. And we're told in the book of 1 John that we love

because he first loved us. And so if you want to know that love, you need to first of all pray that God would open your hearts to it. Not only would he open your hearts to the love that God has for you, but that he would open your hearts, second of all, to the love that other people have for you. Because that's the second thing is that they had a divine love for each other, right?

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the hardest thing to do is just to let someone love you? I notice this sometimes with people, is that we just kind of tend to push people away. Like oh, I don't, you know, just don't bring that around here. That's kind of weird, that's cheesy, whatever. And it's hard for us to let people love on us. Usually it's pride that keeps us from

doing that, but it's really hard to do. And so we have to open up our hearts to let other people show us the love of Jesus. But then we have to open up our hearts, third of all, to show love to the people that are around us. Because there's nothing quite as encouraging as you showing love to someone else, right? I don't understand, how does that encourage me? Well, because he gets your eyes off of you.

See, one of the biggest issues that we have with discouragement is where does discouragement put all of our focus? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . on me. Because all I can think about is me. And sometimes the best way to get out of that rut, sometimes the best way to get out of that pit is to start showing love to the people around you. Because if you'll start serving other people, you'll find that your problems start looking

a lot smaller. You'll find that, that the issues going on in your life, well, they're not nearly as important because God is supplying everything that you need. And so number one is presence, number two is love, and number three is faith. So! faith. I want you to notice what he says in verse 7. 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. We were comforted about your faith. Faith has this amazing ability in our lives to bring about a great deal of encouragement. But we have to remember something about faith. Faith is not feeling. Faith is a belief in something that you know to be true. There are days where you won't feel very good. There are days where the feelings won't be there,

but you still have to continue to believe because we have to choose to believe what God has to say and not what our flesh has to say. We have to choose to believe what is true about God and what is true about his word and what is true about what he's able to do more than we can choose to believe. To believe what our flesh has to say because your flesh will continue to lie to you. Your flesh will continue to base everything upon feelings, everything upon your circumstances, everything upon what's going on around you, and faith chooses to do the very opposite. Faith chooses to believe

even when you don't feel like it. I've probably shared this story before. I share it with kids all the time, but I remember when I was fresh out of Bible college, my dad and I were serving together at Calvary Chapel. I was in the church. I was in the church. I was in the church. I was in Chapel Johnson County. We were the first service crew. I was the first service sound guy, and he was

the first service worship leader. And we'd had like a game night or something like that before with a bunch of fellows. And so we stayed up way too late and got up way too early. And you know how that is. Like sometimes you're just a little down when you wake up like that, maybe feel a little bit anxious. And I was dealing with anxiety at that point in time. Anyway, my dad was fresh

out of being healed from depression. And I woke up and said, man, I'm having a hard time this morning. I'm just kind of feeling anxious. And he said, he said, yeah, I was doing the same thing. He said, but I just gave it to the Lord. I said, so do you feel better now? And he said, not yet, but I will because I gave it to God by faith. Feelings come in good time. I don't give God things by feelings. I give God things by faith.

And I think that that's a beautiful thing for us to remember is that we put our faith in God and feelings come and go. Faith always remains the same. But you know, there's something interesting that I think that we should pay attention to. Paul was encouraged by the faith of the Thessalonians. They were encouraged by the faith of Paul. That should tell us something. If you want to build

your faith, you should read about the lives of other people who live by faith. I think one of the greatest things that you can do is read the stories of the Bible, but then find some, find some biographies about men and women of God who have done great things for God and live by faith and read all of the ups and downs that they went through and how God did amazing things through their lives. Somebody, I don't remember who it was, sent me a picture this week of the book. Harvest, which tells the story of a lot of the Calvary pastors. And it's, and it's fascinating

to read because in all of those stories, we see that God did amazing works through the faith of Chuck Smith, which was pretty small at that point in time. And God did great works through some of the craziest guys that you could ever imagine. And those kinds of stories build your faith because you say, well, if God did that for them, why won't he do that for me? And as you read stories about men and women of God that have been used throughout the centuries, it builds your faith. But you know, there's kind of a third truth about that as well.

That's why we get together in fellowship. Do you realize that? That's part of that gift of presence is as we share with each other, what God is doing in our lives, it builds our faith because we realize, hey, God's at work in them too. And even though I'm going through a harder time, I see what God's brought them through. I know I can make it through too, because it's a

builder of our faith when we fellowship with each other and when we encourage each other. And so he says, your faith is what encouraged me, and hopefully my faith encouraged you, but faith in God always brings encouragement. And then number four. So we've seen that presence, the gift of presence brings encouragement. We've seen that the love of the brethren brings encouragement. We've seen that

the truth of faith brings encouragement. And number four is prayer. Let me just read this last little section to you. 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 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 without blame, in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all of his saints. If there's nothing else you can do, you can always pray. See, Ryan, the person that I know needs the most encouragement, I can't get to them. Physically, they're too far away for me to get to them all the time, but you can still get there through prayer. Ryan, I can't make it to where

I don't know how to express the love of God to them. I don't know how to express faith to them. I don't know how to do those things. Well, then you need to pray. Pray for them, because that work of prayer in the life of an individual brings an incredible amount of encouragement. Again, I remember receiving a letter from a missionary that I supported one time, and as I got this letter, he said, I've been praying for you this week.

And this wasn't just some form letter, he hand wrote it. And I remember thinking, that's maybe the most encouraging thing I've ever heard, is that a missionary living in India that I'm supporting, because he can't make enough money any other way to support himself, is praying, for me. Like, that's an amazing truth. And that was such an encouraging moment for me, to know that. And there is just something encouraging about knowing that someone's praying

for you. And so he says, we pray for you. I'll tell you a few things that he says about this. First of all, notice he says, we pray for you night and day. Night and day. Now, do you think that that meant Paul spent all day and all night praying for them? No, I think as he thought about them, he would pray for them. Maybe he was making tents, or as he was declaring the gospel, or preparing his next message, or you

name the thing, the Thessalonian people were on his mind, because he cared about them. And so he would pray for them. Maybe he would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, and he would think, hey, why am I up right now? I'll pray for the Thessalonian people. You name it. He just prayed for them all the time. He says, night and day, we prayed for you. Partly, we prayed that God would

direct us back to you. I really want to come back and see you at some point in time. But even if that's not true, I want you to know something about me. I want you to know something about me. I want you to know some things that I'm praying for you. First of all, I'm praying that you would increase and abound in love. I know that you guys have a great deal of love for each other. I know that you guys

have a great deal of love for me, but you can never stop growing in this aspect of love. And so my prayer is that you will continue to not only increase in that, but that you would abound, or as it says in the Greek, super abound in love for each other. That that love of God would flow through you to the point where it just oozes from every part of who you are, and everybody around you feels loved by who you are. That you would abound in love for one another. Next, I pray that

your hearts would be established. That's that same word that we talked about before, to make firm, to strengthen, or to stabilize. That your hearts would be stabilized in faith. Because listen, the foundation can get shaken if we're not careful, and we have to remain stable in the faith. And so we should be praying for each other that we're remaining stable in the faith. He says the next

thing is that you would be blameless and holy, without spot or blemish, and set apart under the things of God. And again, if there's something that's missing in our church culture today, it is oftentimes blamelessness and holiness. Because I do fear at times that as the church, we can try so hard to look like the world, that we forget that we're supposed to look like Jesus. And so he says, I pray that you would be blameless and holy as you're living in this in this evil world.

In this evil age. And that as you are blameless and holy, that that's the way that you would be until Jesus comes again with all of his saints. At the coming of Jesus with all of his saints. Once again, he gives them that reminder that Jesus is coming again. Why does he give them that reminder? Why does he keep giving them that reminder? Because he reminds them,

we know how the game ends. You don't have to be worried in the third quarter. Because we know what the game looks like in the end. And he says, I pray these things for you. So here's my challenge to you. Start praying these things for the person that you know is battling discouragement right now. Start praying these things in your own heart. If you're battling discouragement right now, start praying for each other. Say, well,

I will never see anybody's name show up on the prayer request list. Well, that's okay. You should take the directory that we gave out a few years ago, that is now incredibly out of date. And you should start praying for all of those people because 95% of them still go to church here. I think the other 5% I made mad and they left. Either way, most of them still go to church here. And you should start praying for those people. Or better yet,

better yet, do something really wild right after service, okay? Now, hold back. You're going to freak out on this one. You should turn around all the people around you and you should find out their names. And then you can start praying for them by name all week long. And then, it's going to get real wild. When you come back next week, ask them, so how you doing? It's going

to be great. It's almost like fellowship will take place. And it's almost like we'll become this body, this family that grows together, right? Because listen, discouragement in our world is a real thing. And I don't ever want to discount that because I battle it in my life and I know you battle it in yours. And we need this work of encouragement in our lives. 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 were able to have in your word this morning. Lord, I thank you for the opportunities that we have to serve not only here, across the world, across the country. Lord, you give us so many ways that we can serve, not only in physical ways, but Lord, through prayer and spiritual ways. And so, Father, would you knit our hearts together in love? And Father, as Paul prayed for these

Thessalonian believers, Lord, I pray that our hearts would abound in faith, or abound in love towards one another. Lord, that your love would flow through us, that it would be shed abroad in our hearts to the people around us, and that we would be known as a church that just simply loves each other as your word tells us that we're supposed to be. And Father, would you establish our hearts? Father, if there are any that are being shaken in their faith right now, Lord, if there are any that feel like the foundation is being rocked because of the events of the world, or the events of their lives, or afflictions, or whatever, Lord, I pray that you'd Lord, that you would stabilize their hearts, establish them strong in faith. And Father,

that we would be a people that are blameless and holy. Father, that we would be a people whose lives are set apart unto you, set apart unto you and your service, set apart to you and our relationship with you, Lord. Father, that we would continue to keep our eyes open for the coming of Jesus. You know how the game ends, and we can find our rest in that. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.

Lord God, I just pray that as we leave here today, that your Holy Spirit go with us and just move in our lives, move in our families and in our homes, in our communities, in our schools, in our workplace. Lord God, just move mightily. Lord, let revival break out. Lord, please send revival. We desperately need it. We desperately need you in our lives. We love you, Father. We praise you, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Y'all have a wonderful week. God bless you.