Romans 12:1-8
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of
God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God-- this is your spiritual act of worship.
2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do
not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself
with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and
these members do not all have the same function,
5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each
member belongs to all the others.
6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given
us. If a person’s gift is prophesying, then that person should use that gift in
faith.
7 If it is serving, that person should serve; if it is
teaching, then teach;
8 if it is encouraging, then be encouraging; if it is
contributing to the needs of others, let that person give generously; if it is
leadership, that person should govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, do so
cheerfully.
(NIV)
I met
a man recently who was telling me about an experience he had while he was on
vacation in the Bahamas
He
looked down and saw this modern day adventurer, this young sailor who was
preparing this homemade sailing boat for a solo trip around the world. My friend said that all of these tourists
were gathered around the pier and they were looking down at this young man and
they were shouting things like, "You're crazy. It can't be done. You'll never make it. You're and idiot. You'll run out of food. You'll die of thirst."
My
friend said everyone was pessimistic, but there was in that crowd one lone
voice that was different. Perhaps a
friend or relative of the young sailor, this voice was shouting, "I
believe in you. I've got confidence. You're going to make it. You've built a good boat. You've made a solid plan. You'll show them all."
Man,
what a perfect example of life.
The
old song, "Home on the Range," sings about a place where seldom is
heard a discouraging word."
But we
in out time and place seldom hear an encouraging word.
Paul
in our New Testament lesson speaks of encouragement as a spiritual gift. And it
is a rare and precious gift that all of us have to some degree -- or at least
we should. But some of us have it in a
very special way.
But
all of us ought to be able to give encouraging words to one another.
The
author of Hebrews made a comment (Hebrews 3:13)
"Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so
that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."
Encourage
one another daily.
In his
first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 5, Paul said, "Encourage one
another. Build one another up."
And
yet many of us put one another down.
Many
of us stand at life's piers and we look down on other people and we say,
"You're never going to make it. You
don't have what it takes. You're not
good enough."
The
Duke of Wellington, the military leader who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo
All of
us ought to give more encouragement and praise.
Nurture
the spiritual gift of encouraging one another.
To
give more praise.
Now
don't believe for one moment that the Scripture teaches that we should give
false praise or empty encouragement.
William
Author Ward once said, "Flatter me and I will never believe you. Criticize me and I may not like you. Ignore me and I will never forgive you. But encourage me and I'll never forget you.
Dr.
John Trent, Vice President of Today's Family, said in a recent magazine
interview that sometimes giving encouragement means giving praise in the work
of another person, with words and phrases like "great job," or
"I'm proud of you," or "well done."
But on
the other hand there are times when encouragement gives no pretense that the
other person has done a good job because maybe the other person has not done a
good job at all. Maybe they have done a
lousy job, but they still need a word of encouragement from us. You need to lift someone up in a manner that
says "You're worth something.
You're a valuable person."
I
recently heard the story about a man who lost his job and he was thrown out of
his profession for some indiscretion he had committed. He was an office worker. White collar worker. Had a high level job. But after his indiscretion and after the loss
of his job, he took work at a construction company at the very bottom of the
construction ladder. He was a
gofer. He would spend most of his day
hauling concrete bricks from one part of the construction site to the other. He was plunged into a dramatically different
world. Instead of going to an air conditioned office every day he was going to
a hot, outdoor work site. Instead of
listening to soft music piped into the office he was listening to shouts of
cursing and profanity all day long.
Instead of wearing a nice clean, tailored made suit, he was wearing blue
jeans and a tattered old T Shirt. Any
girl who walked by was subject to whistles and sexually suggestive shouts from
the workers.
He
said he just couldn't take this any longer.
After three weeks of trying his best, he was ready to give up. It was just wearing his soul down. He finally decided that when he went into
work the next day and the supervisor handed him his paycheck for the week, he
was going to take it and walk away and never look back.
He'd
find something, anything else.
That
day was a particularly bad day. He did
something stupid and everyone was making fun of him all morning long. The foreman brought him his paycheck. And as he handed it to the man, the foreman
said something civil to him for the first time in three weeks.
He
said, "Hey there's a woman in the front office who knows you. She says she takes care of your kids
sometimes."
"Who,"
asked the worker.
And
the foreman gave a name of a woman who worked in the nursery of the church
where he and his family worshipped.
The
man took the paycheck envelope and opened it.
And there inside was his check.
And a note.
The
note had this to say...
"When
part of the body of Christ suffers, we all suffer with it. I just want you to know that I'm praying for
you."
The
man stared at the note for a long time.
He didn't even know this woman worked in the front office of this
company. Here he was at his lowest point
in life. Here he was doing a lousy task
in a lousy job, having committed an offense that had taken away his career. Yet she had given him a word of encouragement
that was just enough to enable him to turn back to the wheelbarrow and begin
pushing another load of bricks.
We
need to encourage others around us all the time. It may be in the form of giving them praise
for a job well done. It may be speaking
to them at their lowest point when they are doing a lousy job, to simply say,
"I'm with you. I'm praying for
you."
In
fact, it sometimes in the midst of a person's worst failures that the person
needs to hear the words of encouragement the most.
During
a practice session with the Green Bay Packers, things were not going well for
Coach Vince Lombardi team. The coach
singled one player out in particular for his failures to "put out." The coach pulled this guard aside and raked
him over the coals with a verbal assault for each and every one of his
failures, yelling at him in such a way that everyone on the team and anyone in
the vicinity could hear. Finally, the
coach said, "Son, you are a poor excuse for a football player. You can't do anything right. Now get off this field and hit the showers
while the real football players stay and finish practice."
The
guard dropped his head and walked off the field. Over an hour later, Coach Lombardi found the
guard in the locker room. Sitting on a
bench. Head hung low. Sobbing softly.
Lombardi
was always a changeable character and he looked at this kid and did a sudden
about face. He sat next to him and put
his arm around him and said, "Son.
You know, you really are a poor excuse for a football player. You're not putting out the way you
should. But fortunately you have one
thing that most football players don't have."
There
was a long pause, and finally the young player raised his head and looked at
the coach and asked, "What's that?"
Lombardi
looked at him and said, "Unlike most football players, you have the BEST
coach in the nation. Now I know that
right now, you are a poor football player.
But somewhere in you is a great football player. And I'm just the coach who can pull that
greatness out of you and make you a star football player. I'm going to stick by your side until you
become great."
And
with those words Jerry Kramer straightened up and began to feel better and went
on to become one of the great football players of all time.
But it
is not just in those moments of failure that we need words of
encouragement. Even in our most
successful moments we need to hear encouraging words.
We
look at people who are successful and we think that they do not need an
encouraging word, but they do.
In the
Library of Congress there is a box that is often on display. It is marked, "Contents of the
President's Pocket -- April 14th, 1865."
Of course, that was the night President Lincoln was assassinated. Five things are found in that box. A small handkerchief embroidered with the
words, "A. Lincoln." A country
boy's pen knife. Spectacles that have
been repaired with string. A purse that
contains a $5 bill. For some strange
reason, it is a Confederate $5 bill -- go figure. And some old faded newspaper clippings
praising the President of the United
States
One of
the clippings from a Senator who said in a speech, "Abraham Lincoln is one
of the greatest men of all time."
Well, everyone thinks that today.
But back in 1865 not everyone felt that way. And the President's critics were fierce, and
he spent hours agonizing over his work and grieving over a country that was torn
apart by Civil War.
There
is something touching about this great man having to read some encouraging
words from a clipping that had been cut out of a newspaper.
Jesus
Christ was one of the greatest at the art of encouragement. And in one place in Matthew's Gospel, chapter
11, he encourages his disciples with words found in that Gospel. "Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
I remember
being in a Bible Study with some other men one time and one of the men said,
"I know exactly what Jesus meant when he said, "My yoke is easy and
my burden is light."
He
said he grew up on a farm. He knew that
Jesus was not saying that 'Life is going to be easy or light.' He said he knew the YOKE was going to be
easy. He said that as a child growing on
a farm he used to handle a team of Oxen.
He would put these animals together.
Even I knew that the yoke was a part of the harness process that fit
over the shoulders of the animals and somehow kept them together or guided
them. But I always thought that the yoke
was perfectly balanced. That one yoke
was much the same as the other and that one side weighed the same as the
other. But he said growing up on his
farm, they always made the yokes unbalanced because when you put two animals
together to pull something, the animals are always going to be unbalanced. One is always going to be stronger. One is always going to be weaker. You balance them off by having the yoke
compensate for this. You always give the
stronger animal the heavier part of the yoke.
And you always give the weaker one the lighter side.
And
here is Jesus saying take my yoke. I'm
giving you the lighter side. Because I'm
the stronger one. And together, we are
going to plow through life.
What a wonderful word of encouragement. Knowing that as we plow through our life,
Jesus is right next to us. And he is
carrying the bulk of the load for us.
With words like that encouraging us, surely we can go out and encourage
others.
Copyright 2014
, Dr. Maynard
Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
