You cannot encourage somebody else and not receive encouragement from God.
Do you understand that even secular psychiatrists and psychologists are now grabbing a hold of this? And if somebody has a lot of issues, they'll say, well, go do something for somebody else every day, because you receive comfort and edification building up and encouragement as you encourage others. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Encouragement is a vital part to walking with Christ. In fact, we should be encouraging others every day. David McGee encourages us to encourage today as he continues in his teaching from First Corinthians chapter 14. Before we join Pastor David, we want to let you know about an outreach opportunity that could bring hope to countless prisoners. This month, Cross the Bridge is teaming with men and women like yourself in order to provide Pastor David's devotional book, Cross the Bridge Every Day to Inmates. When you call today and help support the ministry with a gift of $25 or more, we'll send you a book and also provide one to a prisoner in need. To take part in this important outreach, call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508.
Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now here's David McGee with part three of his teaching, Love the Great Quest. Turn with me to First Corinthians 14, verse three says, but he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. These three things are so important, man. Edification, exhortation, and comfort. And again, anybody that's speaking to somebody else on behalf of God needs to keep these three words front and center. Edification, exhortation, comfort. What is edifying and exhorting? Those aren't words we usually use on every day. It's talking about building up. Encouraging would be another phrase. To encourage, to build up, and to comfort.
Is this important? Well, we talked about Moses. Let's go back, refer to him again. Because Moses prophesied. Moses spoke to people on behalf of God.
Everybody understood that. He would go up to the hill to meet with God. He'd come back down and say, this is what God said. And Moses, at some point, Moses was an extremely godly man, a powerful man, a spirit-filled man, but he was a man. And you can see it as you read through those first five books of the Bible, that sometimes he would just get so fed up. And then he had his brother, his sister, and they weren't always with him. The people weren't always with him. And sometimes Moses said, you know what? Just take me out.
I'm done. I think if we're being honest, we can relate to that. You know, if you're in any sort of ministry leadership, you can certainly relate to that.
Because there's going to come those days, those seasons, those times, those moments, it's like, oh man, just take me out of here. And then you think of what Jesus went through. But Moses, in this instant, one of these times, he turned to the people and he said, man, y'all are just rebellious, and I can't believe I got to do this, and da-da-da-da. And he gets through with that, and he strikes the rock, and we know through the Bible that the rock was a symbol of Christ. He does this, and when that little exchange is over, God says, Moses, you're not going to lead him into the promised land. I remember he was a new believer reading that.
I go, wow, what just happened? I missed it. It was because Moses misrepresented God. Moses was speaking to people on behalf of God, and God said, Moses, you misrepresented me. See, we got to be careful with that, gang. I don't ever want to misrepresent God from up here, especially as you think about the congregation continuing to grow and grow and grow and grow through the radio and the television ministries, that I'm representing God to thousands and thousands of people. So I want to be careful, obviously, what I say and what I do. It's one of the reasons I never yell, unless it's in a good way, but I don't yell that much anyway. I know pastors that do yell. If I yell up here, you think God's yelling at you.
I don't want you to think that. If I'm up here and I'm angry, frothing at the mouth and yelling, and you walk out here going, wow, God is really upset with me. As a matter of fact, you know what's really perverted in some church services?
They gauge how good the church service is on how bad they feel when they walk out. Oh, it's great. I feel like a worm.
He was like dancing all on my toes, man. Now, obviously, occasionally that should happen, being honest. You should go, man, he was speaking right to me. That should be part of it. But if that's what happens every time, hmm, not good. And flip side is every time you're just getting comfort and building up and encouraged, boy, that's a little questionable too. One guy I watch on television occasionally, he's very encouraging, but it's rare that I watch him that I really feel challenged.
So there's this aspect of being edifying, exhorting, building up, encouraging, and comforting. And let's understand that in terms of following Jesus and in terms, spiritually speaking, fault finding is not a gift. That really doesn't take that much discernment.
It doesn't take any talent, any brains, any character, and it's a real waste of time. But encouraging somebody is a gift. Let me ask you a question. How do you feel when somebody looks for something that's wrong with you? Now, I'm not talking about those moments in time when the Spirit of God, the Word of God says, look, this is the issue, you gotta deal with it. But those times when somebody's just looking to mess with you about something, yeah, sometimes you feel pretty beat up.
I understand that. How do you feel when somebody encourages you? What does the word itself mean? In, to put in, courage. In other words, when somebody encourages you, they're placing something, they're saying something, they're doing something, they're praying, they are giving you courage. Let me ask, in this thing of us following Jesus, do you ever need courage to help you follow Him? Absolutely. How hard is it for you to encourage somebody else?
It's not hard at all. Now, maybe you're sitting there and go, well, nobody ever encourages me. No, no, no, you can't control how many people encourage you.
That's up to God. And God will make sure you get your encouragement. God does want you to look to Him for your encouragement, first and foremost. You know, as I go through stuff, God always will bring somebody, you know, to encourage me to say just the right thing at the right time and say, oh, thank you, God. But God also wants me to look into Him for this encouragement. But think about what this place would be like, this ministry, this fellowship, beyond these walls, if we made it a priority to encourage one another, to build up one another, instead of tearing each other down.
What that would do to your faith, my faith, our faith? Should it be a priority? Absolutely. Why? Because you've got the world tearing your faith down. You've got your coworkers tearing your faith down, your family tearing your faith down, your friends tearing your faith down. Do you need somebody to build up your faith? Absolutely.
Where should you be able to find it? Here. Amen. In your brothers and sisters, and here's what you can do, and this is a goal that I walk in and live by, and it's a life lesson. Make it a goal to encourage at least one believer every day. Make it a goal to encourage at least one believer every day. Say something encouraging.
That's so easy. Send an email, do something on Facebook, text, Twitter, send a letter, something. Encourage somebody every day. And here's what I know, that if you'll do that, you will be encouraged. You cannot encourage somebody else and not receive encouragement from God. If you're walking around discouraged, make this a goal and see what happens.
Do you understand that even secular psychiatrists and psychologists are now grabbing ahold of this? And if somebody has a lot of issues, they'll say, well, go do something for somebody else every day. Go bake cookies for somebody every day. Do something. Why? Because you receive comfort and edification building up and encouragement as you encourage others.
That's by spiritual design. See, I want to encourage you guys. That's a goal that I have from up here, that you feel encouraged. I want to highlight those things that are encouraging. And I want to be very careful with those things that are not encouraging to you. I really hesitate to share things that I know might discourage you.
Why? Well, because I'm your pastor. I want to encourage you. I don't want to say things that discourage you.
You know, that's it. I think some of you I think some of you understand this. That's a sacred to me, a sacred relationship between a pastor and the people. It's almost a father-child relationship. You know, my kids are growing up, and they're still growing up to a certain degree, but you know when they're growing up and learning to walk and stuff, I encouraged them. And when they tried to walk at the first, it didn't go too well.
Never does, right? You know, they try to walk and fall down, and you know, and I'd look at them and go, what are you, loser? What are you doing? You are so embarrassing. I am ashamed that you can't walk any better than that. You're not trying. Of course I didn't do that.
And when Nora did that, I'd say, Nora, stop that. I'm kidding. I wanted to build them up. Hey, get up. Let's try it again, you know. And again, we all go through this stuff, these attacks and stuff that nobody else just knows what we're going through, but we can all encourage each other. There's things that build up our faith. Worship builds up our faith. The word of God builds up our faith. Teaching the word builds up our faith. Let me encourage you to something. You really need to process things in your life according to what they do to your faith.
Television shows, you know. Is this helping or hurting? And asking yourself these questions. You know, is this strengthening me and my faith? This conversation or this television program or this movie or whatever, is this encouraging me and my faith? Is this comforting me and my faith?
If you ask yourself those three questions about a conversation, a relationship, a movie, a television show, whatever, and you come up with three no's, you know what? You need to back off. Now it's not that your faith is such a fragile thing. It's that your faith is worthy of protection. It's of great value and you should protect it.
You should protect it. Be built up. You're listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll be back to the teaching in just a moment. This month, we're focusing on prison ministry and I have the chance to sit down with Pastor David. Pastor, what is Cross the Bridge Prison Ministry all about?
Cross the Bridge Prison Ministry is consistent with Cross the Bridge itself. We believe that we need to share an effective presentation of the gospel, to invite people to have a relationship with the Lord, and then for those who do have a relationship with the Lord, that we would teach them the Word of God, to equip them, to walk in that life, that abundant life that Jesus talks about. Pastor, we know that sharing the Word of God is always important to you. And why is it so important to get God's Word into the prisons as well? Our prison system is built around trying to change the lives of people who've made bad decisions. And yet you can't change a life without changing the heart. And that's where God's Word and God's Spirit are so powerful. They can change a life.
They can change your heart. We can share the Word of God with somebody. You can help send us into the prisons to share the plan of salvation, see that prisoner get saved, and then begin to disciple him and teach him the Word of God, so that when he gets out, he is different than when he came in.
Thank you for sharing, Pastor. If you're listening and agree with David about our need to help those in prison, we would love to hear from you. You can call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508. And when you give $25 or more, we'll send you a copy of Cross the Bridge every day. Not only that, but we'll match your gift by sending another copy of David's devotional to an inmate in need. Also, your gift of $200 or more will provide a case of 10 books that will be used to help change lives for eternity. Again, that number is 877-458-5508.
Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now let's return to Pastor David's teaching. We have this interesting thing in our humanity, in our fallen humanity, to want to know bad things. Something about our fallen human nature or something. We have this weird desire to want to know. That's why people watch the news.
Do you understand that? I mean, you watch the news, oh, it's bad over here, and it's bad over there, and oh, oh, oh, oh. There's part of us that likes to slow down when we're passing a car wreck to see what happened.
That's kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, we know something bad happened, and yet instead of going, oh, we go, oh, what happened? As a matter of fact, often wrecks are created by people desiring to know what happened that was bad. Well, the same spiritually, it happens. Sometimes spiritual messes are created by people wanting to know what went wrong or what's bad. Understand, you have that in your innate fallen human nature.
Be careful with that. And keep in mind that if something is not strengthening your faith, not encouraging your faith, not comforting your faith, you know what? To be honest, it's probably not from God. Do you think the enemy wants to train wreck your faith? Absolutely. God's doing such an incredible work in this ministry, in this place, people being built up, people being saved, people being discipled. And of course, the enemy said, you know, I'm just gonna sit over here and let y'all be, y'all just go do your ministry thing, and I'm just gonna sit over here, and I'm just gonna do my thing.
No. He's at work. Why? Because one of the titles I use, if you've noticed, one of the titles that I use for the devil, and he's a real being, is the enemy of your faith. He wants to tear you down. He wants you to wake up in the morning, not realize, you know, being anxious, being depressed, being bummed out, not having the joy of the Lord. That's what the enemy wants you to be like. So he's gonna send people your way to create that situation.
You have to decide whether you give ear to that. And again, this is something we all need. As a matter of fact, the next life lesson is we all need to be strengthened, encouraged, and comforted in our faith. We all need to be strengthened, encouraged, comforted in our faith. This verse is saying this is what happens when somebody speaks to you on behalf of God. You should sense this encouragement. You should sense this strengthening. You should sense this comforting if somebody is speaking to you on behalf of God. And if somebody is not speaking to you on behalf of God, those things will be noticeably absent. So this is one of the ways we can gauge if somebody is really speaking to us on behalf of God.
It's a great gauge. When you hear a teaching or a sermon or a television program, a biblical teaching or radio or whatever, am I being encouraged? Am I being strengthened?
Am I being built up? And again, occasionally, that's not gonna happen 100% of the time. Sometimes God is gonna say, look, this issue, you need to deal with it. We're still gonna be in love. Let's understand something, gang. I came across this thing that said, well, these guys talk, all they talk about is the gospel of love.
Like it was a bad thing. We've been talking about love a lot. Some of you may be really struggling with that. You know why?
Because it's an issue. God wants you to be more loving. He wants me to be more loving. It talks about it a lot in this book about love. If you really think about it, it's throughout the whole book. As a matter of fact, it's very interesting, the first place the word love occurs in the scriptures is Genesis chapter 22, verse two, talking about Abraham and Isaac. And it says, then he said, take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. It's the first time love occurs. There's this thing we call the law of first mention. In other words, the first time a word occurs in the Bible, it has special significance. This is where love first occurs.
And go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I tell you. This whole thing, the whole gospel, the whole relationship that's available to us from God is based upon what? Your righteousness knows on God's love. John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his son, his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Is love important? I don't know, is John 3 16 important?
Yeah. First John chapter four, verse 11 says beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So gang, the Bible is very clear about this issue of love. And we should be getting clearer and clearer about love. We should be pursuing love, making it our great quest. Please don't tell me how righteous you are while you're being unloving to those God has plainly told you to love. Amen. And at the same time, don't tell me how unrighteous somebody else is while you're being so unloving towards them.
You know, sometimes I'm called into a position to confront somebody or for us to discuss somebody that's messed up. And you know what, I can honestly say whenever I do that, there's a tear in my eye. I don't care if they've stabbed me in the back 50 times.
They're still supernaturally. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is saying, look, you can do this, you can do that, but if you don't love, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I can be some kind of great evangelist, great Bible teacher, but if I don't love my family and I don't love my friends, and honestly, if I don't love you guys, but I don't love my kids, doesn't matter. I'm religious noise.
I don't want to be religious noise. 1 John 4 19 says we love him because he first loved us. God is the initiator of this whole love thing. You are loved. And because you are loved, you can be loving. None of us can say, well, nobody ever loved me.
What? Jesus loved you. God has loved you incredibly. And in the name of that, he tells you to love each other.
And that's one of the things we should be at. Am I loving people the way I'm called to love them? Even when they make me angry, even when they hurt my feelings, am I loving them? Because let's understand, friend, and maybe right now you don't know Jesus as your savior.
And maybe you do. If you do know Jesus as your savior, understand, before you ask him to forgive you of your sins, what were you basically a good person? Just no, no, no, no, that's not what the Bible says. When you didn't know him as your savior, says you were the enemy of God. You were at war literally in another place with God. But what did God do to you? Well, God commanded his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And then the book of Revelation, chapter one, verse five, the last half of the verse, it says to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Love, love, love.
Grow in love, pursue love. And it's because of this love that people will be drawn to us. People will be drawn to hear about our relationship with God.
People will be drawn to hear. It says that there's a goodness of God that leads people to repent. The goodness of God. So ask yourself, am I really loving people? And the moment you begin to not love people, may the Holy Spirit come and convince or convict us that we're being unloving. And if you've never asked God to forgive you, you need to understand he's sitting there waiting on you.
He's hoping, wanting you to decide for him to ask him to forgive you. There's no love like this. Such an awesome word, such a timely word. Corinthians 14, talking about strengthening the church and we'll be looking at that. But the love of God. Are you walking in the love of God?
If you're here and you've not asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, or maybe you're listening from somewhere else, I'm going to give you that opportunity in just a second to ask God to forgive you of your sins. And you can do that wherever you are, but also perhaps, well, perhaps you've not been walking in love. I can understand that. We get challenged. Sometimes it's hard to walk in this unconditional love. We need his strength to do it. The awesome thing is he is offering us his strength. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?
You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.
Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.
And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.
Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him. And he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend.
You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. God is using Cross the Bridge to impact lives across our country, including the lives of those currently serving time in our nation's prisons. While materials provided by Muslim organizations continue to increase within our prisons, our distribution of Pastor David's book, Cross the Bridge Every Day, has been making a significant impact for Jesus with prisoners. And you can help continue that outreach by calling today. When you call today with a gift of $25 or more, we will send you David McGee's devotional book and then match your gift by sending a copy to a prisoner in need. And if you're able to give a gift of $200 or more, we will send a case of 10 books to inmates who are without hope. Help us reach those in prison. Call today at 877-458-5508.
That's 877-458-5508. Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Also, if you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 9 and 1130 Eastern. Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There you can watch Pastor David teach from his home church, The Bridge, in Kernersville, North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us next time as we continue to cross the bridge.
