Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Is there someone, a friend, a mate, a child, you've tried to help and encourage that just doesn't get it? They won't respond, and you've decided you've had enough.
Well, just before you give up on them, listen to today's message. It might make all the difference in the world. I'm Dave Drudy, and today I'm Living on the Edge. We're continuing our series, Building Authentic Community: How to Lift Up Those You Love. Chip Ingram walks through three attitudes most of us rarely stop to examine: how we treat the people who lead us, how we respond to people who are struggling, and what our private time with God actually looks like when nobody's checking.
Chip opens his Bible to First Thessalonians chapter five verse twelve and reveals how these attitudes quietly shape whether you're the kind of person who lifts others up or wears them down.
Well, here's Chip with his message: How to become an awesome encourager. And so let's begin. Let's read together and become great encouragers by learning some attitudes that God wants us to have.
Now we ask you, brothers. The Apostle Paul writes to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you—literally, preside over you or managers over you in the Lord—and who admonish you means correct you. Hold them in highest regard and love because of their work, and live in peace with each other. As you look at these couple verses, you notice that first there's there's a word to leaders. And before you click off and say, "Well, I'm not an elder; I'm not on staff," I want you to know if there's anybody at all who looks to you to be the influencer in their life, anyone in any kind of ministry that really looks to you, then you're a leader.
So this is for you. And the Bible says there's attitudes that leaders need to have. Did you see the key words here? They're assumed here. But did you notice they work hard, they lead well, and they admonish wisely.
But notice these shifts in verses fourteen and fifteen. And this is a word for everybody. This is for you and me. And notice the phrase. And we urge you, brothers.
Now, notice he's going to give us four quick verbs to address to how to encourage four different groups of people. He says, "And we urge you, brothers: warn those who are idle, encourage the timid." Help the weak, and be patient with everyone. And then he's going to give us a way to be patient with everyone. Verse fifteen: Make sure that no one pays back wrong for wrong or evil for evil. But always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.
You might circle the little word "try" because in our translation it comes out kind of milk toast. You know, try. This word is. Translated elsewhere in the New Testament to persecute, it means to vigorously pursue. He's saying, you know, there's four things to do.
You need to warn a certain group, you encourage a certain group, you support a different group, you be patient with everyone. And then he says, in this key area of it's hardest to be patient when people do you wrong. Don't do wrong back, but instead, literally, it's follow the good. It's vigorously pursue you. Try, as in, go after being friendly and kind and loving, in a way that just makes people scratch their head.
So let's look now at the attitudes the Apostle Paul ends with that Christians need to have. How do you build great Christians? He's told us how to build a great church, but what kind of attitudes do you need to have to be a great Christian, to be a real encourager? He's going to give a word here about our private worship in verses sixteen to eighteen. Then he's going to give us a word about our public worship, and then he's going to talk about our spiritual growth.
So let's look at private worship first, verse sixteen through eighteen. Be joyful always. Pray continually or without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. Why?
For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Boy, that's short, isn't it? But did you notice three quick commands? Be joyful when, when things are going well. Happiness has to do with happenings, circumstances.
Joy has to do with the unchanging relationship you have with God. See, joy is a choice. You say, "Well, how can I be joyful all the time?" Let me give you two practical ways. One, focus on God instead of circumstances. If you focus on circumstances, you will ride a rolling coaster of ups and downs.
You know when things are going good, when things are going bad. If you focus on God, He loves you. Your eternity is secure. He is good. He is sovereign.
He is faithful. You matter to Him. He's not down on you. He wants to draw you close to Himself. He has a plan for your life.
Choose willfully to be joyful. How? Focus on God instead of your circumstances. Second, focus on the unseen instead of the seen. When's the last time you did that?
You ever think about that? Think think about some things that are you can't see. Think about a special person in your life that you know really loves you. Can you see it?
Well, you can see some actions, but you don't see love. You don't see relationships, do you? Think of the most special times. I just did a funeral about ten, twelve days ago, and people came up and shared about Jim's life. And you know it was interesting.
I sat there and I thought, let's see, no one talked about what he drove. No one talked about the 401k program that he had. No one talked about what kind of dresser he was, whether he was a good athlete or not. No one talked about how many people reported to him, or how he wore his hair, or what his physique was like. You know what they talked about?
His love, his compassion. They talked about his relationships. They talked about all the things you can't see. You see, when we focus on the things that you can't see, see those are eternal things. All the things you can see or hear today may be gone tomorrow.
Second, he says, beyond being joyful always, pray continuously. You say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. We're all supposed to quit our jobs, find a little kneeler somewhere, and just pray twenty four hours a day. Chip, I got to eat. I can't pray twenty four hours a day.
I got a job to do. I got to drive the car. The word for continuously or without ceasing is used in other literature for a hacking cough. Here is how God wants us to pray.
Now I am going to do something else.
Now I've got to do something else. When someone has a hacking cough, when do they cough? They cough every time they're not either speaking or breathing or doing something essential. But the moment there's a little window, what happens? You cough.
You see, the life that God wants for you has nothing to do with coming once a week here and hearing the word and and even being involved in service. It has way more to do than once or twice a day reading your Bible and praying. The life God has for you is He wants to have a moment by moment relationship. With you twenty four hours a day when you're awake. In fact, the psalmist even said that God gives to him even in his sleep, and so he wants you to be talking with him.
When the focus of the job doesn't demand you, when this conversation doesn't demand you, so you're driving in your car and your thoughts gravitate toward God and you talk with Him, and you're taking a walk from your car out to the office building. You got a meeting. You say, Lord, boy, I don't know about this one, and I'm really concerned about it. You talk about it, and you've picked up the kids and in your car, and they're jabbering away, and you're having conversation with God.
Now, some of you don't do too much of this on the road. It's dangerous. My wife says my prayer life is making a lot of progress, but my driving has a lot to be desired. And she'll say, "Didn't you see that?" And I'm thinking, "No, I was having a good conversation, but probably wasn't the right time right now." I read a book by a monk out of the 15th or 16th century called Brother Lawrence. The little tiny paperback—I don't even know if it's available anymore.
It's called Practicing the Presence of God. That book had a profound impact. It's about a monk in that time period who he learned when he would peel potatoes in the kitchen—that was his job—he did it as an act of worship. And then, as he would walk out and do the gardening that he was supposed to do, he did as an act of worship. And all day long, he would communicate with the Lord.
And I begin to realize that spiritual maturity isn't how many verses you have memorized. It's not how many activities you're involved in. That part of spiritual maturity is measured best by how long has it been since you've been conscious of your relationship with God. I remember talking with God in the morning and then checking in at night. And you know, I don't know what he did, and I know what I did.
And as I begin to grow in Christ, it was like, boy, I haven't thought about the Lord in three or four hours. As I begin to grow in Christ, it's like, well, I haven't talked to the Lord in fifteen or twenty minutes. And then pretty soon, God begins to cultivate a heart and a life where you're just talking with Him all the time. That's what He's saying. This is private worship.
You choose to be joyful. You choose to pray. And then notice, finally, it gets even more difficult. Give thanks when, in all circumstances. We know that when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, according to Ephesians five.
18 to 21. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you'll give thanks for all things. But this says in all things as well. Why do you do that? Because it's the will of God.
Now, I don't think at all this means the trite things that I've seen go on. I've seen people in some groups where you know, let's give thanks for everything, and they're always saying praise the Lord like they don't mean it, and that really bothers me. Man, you need to get in there and hurt with people, and cry with people, and go through it. But at some point in time, you got to step back. At some point in time, as my friend, who's in a wheelchair now because of an accident that took me about a year to learn to say thank you for, said, "Chip, you don't know what God's doing." You assumed that the greatest thing in my whole life could be being able to wrestle in college and ride bikes and do the stuff we did.
He said, "You're angry at God. I'm not angry at God." He said, "He's done things in my life that sure would I like to walk again. You bet, but I wouldn't trade this." Said what? He said, "No, I wouldn't trade this." See, you don't you don't have any idea what God's done. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we'll continue today's message in just a moment.
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Now back to our message. See, God wants us to willfully thank Him for all things and in all things. But here's the only way you can do it: you go back to the basics. God is good. That means that not because you're good, not on the basis of your performance.
That means that there is a benevolent God with a gracious heart that wants to bless you, encourage you, that you live under friendly skies, and He longs to be your friend. He's good every day, every moment, 24 hours a day, and He's sovereign. That means that anything that comes into your life is either decreed by God or allowed by God. That means there's no accidents, no slip-ups, no luck. He is good and wants your best.
He's sovereign, so he either allows or decrees. And finally, you need to remember he's faithful. Whatever he's purpose to do, whatever promise he made, one hundred percent of the time with you, always he will come through. And so, when you face the issues of life that don't make any sense, you don't glibly say, "Praise the Lord." But you step back and you say, "Oh God, this is a fallen world, and life doesn't make sense." But I know you are good, and here is the evidence: I know that you are sovereign, and I know that you are faithful. And as an act of worship and obedience, I choose to thank you to bring out the highest and the best, even if others cause this by evil motives.
Those kind of people, by the way, are the kind that when I am hurting. Or when you're hurting, you go to talk to. What I've described is Christians who have a private worship life of joy, prayer, and thanksgiving because it's God's will. And the person that changes when you operate like that in your private worship is not your circumstances. These are the Corey Tenbooms of life.
That the regular people sitting in front of you and behind you that live this way, and when you're hurting, we go to them because there is stability and character that has grown up. Because public impact is just a symptom. Public impact always flows out of private worship. Wanting to have a great impact for God begins with. Choosing to rejoice, praying without ceasing, and learning to give thanks, and when you can do that by faith, you will learn who God really is, and He will make you what He wants you to be.
Well, He moves on now to public worship. And apparently, during this time, they were having some problems, and you know, in some churches in the New Testament, the people got carried away with some issues. And in this church, apparently, they were kind of poo-pooing some of the work of God. And so, we pick it up in verses nineteen to twenty-two. It says, "Do not put out the Spirit's fire," or literally, "Don't quench the Spirit." The grammar means stop.
It was already happening. Stop quenching the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, or don't despise them. Is the idea. The word means to act as if it were nothing.
But notice verse twenty one: test everything, examine. When you come to public worship, he says, the spirit of God is going to be operating. He may be operating through a song. He may be operating through the spoken word. He may operate in the hallway over a cup of coffee.
He may operate in a class. He may operate through a variety of spiritual gifts. Come and don't quench the spirit.
Well, you say, how could I quench the spirit? We quench the spirit any time I know God is speaking to me and it's His will, and I say no. Don't ever pour cold water on what God is firing up. And so, what's he telling us here? He says we need to be open to the Spirit, and then he says treat prophecies.
What? Be receptive to the Word. Prophet's job is to foretell the Word, and then in the New Testament times here, they would foretell the Word as well. It's prophecy. Jesus is coming back.
The Rapture. That was all foretelling. But their primary job was to foretell to teach.
Now, not to make you all too uncomfortable, but God actually does want to speak to you often.
Some of the promptings I've got from the Spirit of God in my own life have come during the worship time. There's some of you I don't know how to tell you this. You've never heard the first two songs of worship here because you're not here, and you need to prepare yourself. For public worship, that means you get ready, and maybe even have some time to get your heart ready. But it means you come with a mindset that says God is going to speak to me today.
Not just through the message, He may turn your life around through a phrase and a song, or a prompting from the Spirit, or from a testimony. And he may actually had have someone he wanted you to meet out in front at five or six till, that you would speak a word of encouragement to their life, and so I would encourage you not as a oh shame on you that's not it, I just don't I'm just trying to preach the passage. What's it say? Says be open to the Spirit, be receptive to the Word. Seems to me that you can't do it if you're not here, when we start.
And then it says be discerning and selective. He says test it. When you hear anything from any pulpit, when you hear anything from any teacher or preacher, radio, TV, whatever, the first thing you need to do is be like Acts seventeen eleven. That group, the Bereans, they receive the word of God gladly, examining the scriptures daily to see whether those things were so. Just because Chip Ingram says it, heaven forbid, you buy and think it's true.
I mean, I have off days. You need to find. You need to look at the scriptures, and I don't care who you like. Every every cult starts out with some guy that was on the right track, and people start following the person instead of the scriptures, and then they he takes them in the ditch, and he's in the ditch, and the whole group's in the ditch. Don't ever do that.
You test it. The word means like taking a piece of ore or metal. You test it with acid. You find out, mmm, that's fool's gold. And what do you do?
You let that go and you hold on to the legit. That's what God wants you to do in every public worship setting. Be open to the movement of the Spirit of God. Be receptive to the Word. Examine it for yourself, and then that which is true, hold on to.
That which isn't, then avoid. That's the idea. Hold off. Let it go. Finally, he's going to talk about our spiritual growth, and our spiritual growth here, he's going to tell us that there's two big areas we need to remember.
One is we need to be dependent. You never grow unless you're dependent on God. But then he's going to flip the coin and say you're also responsible. Verse 23 and 24 is a prayer. He says, "May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify." That means just set apart, make you holy.
You through and through.
So where does God want to make you holy? Through and through. Your mind, your thoughts, your motives, every area at work, at home, everything.
Well, notice he develops that. He says, "May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless, pure, holy." When? Until the coming, or at the coming of our Lord Jesus.
Well, who's going to accomplish this great miraculous change? The one who calls you is faithful. He will do it. You can't change your life. I can't change my life.
We just can't do it. But you say to yourself, "Does that mean that you just don't do anything?" No, in fact, look at verses twenty-five to twenty-eight. We're to be dependent, trusting him to do the work, but we need to make ourselves available to how he gives us grace. Notice how he concludes this. He says, "Brothers, pray for us.
Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss." Then he says, "I charge you, solemn. This is a strong word. I solemnly charge you before God." To have this read, this epistle, the word to all the believers. Summary: The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. You know something?
It's interesting. He says, "Be dependent. Only God can bring about the change." But then the Apostle Paul himself, which seems to be a pretty mature Christian from what I can tell, he says, "Pray for us." He needed the prayers of people, and he knew people needed to pray. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Now this went out of fashion between the third and fourth century. Christians would greet one another with a holy kiss, and you know everything kind of goes south over time.
So they they had some a lot of men beginning to visit the church, saying, "Man, this is a pretty this is a pretty neat group," you know. And they were hitting on all the ladies for real, you know. And so they're coming and you know kissing all these women.
So the church fathers by about the third century said, "That kissing stuff, we're not acts. We're not doing that anymore." But but what's the idea behind it? It's warm, intimate, caring relationships. Isn't that biblical fellowship? And then the third one.
What's he say? I charge you have this read the word. You see, you can't change you. Only God can change you, but He doesn't do it in a vacuum. He have this read when the word is read and taught.
Grace flows when you pray and talk to God honestly, individually or with others. Grace flows when you're in fellowship in a small group or out in the parking lot, and you really share hearts and care for one another. Grace flows. It's not either or. We're dependent totally on Him, but we need to avail ourselves of how grace comes.
That's how to be an awesome encourager. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Today's message is titled "How to Become an Awesome Encourager" from our series "Building Authentic Community." To revisit or share these lessons with someone you know, just go to our website, LivingOnTheEdge.org. If you'd like these messages delivered right to your phone, the moment they release, subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast wherever you listen. Underneath every attitude Chip covered today—how you treat a leader, how you treat somebody who's struggling, and even how you spend your quiet moments with God—is the same conviction: love isn't something that happens to you; it's something you choose.
That's the whole thesis of Chip's book. I choose love. He makes the case that agape love. The kind the Bible describes isn't sentimental. It's a decision to give, to serve, to put somebody else ahead of yourself, day in and day out, regardless of feelings.
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Well, now here's Chip Ingram. We've been through the entire book of First Thessalonians, and the Apostle Paul has modeled for us and written for us, inspired by the Holy Spirit, how to be an awesome encourager. We need to remember that people are hurting much more deeply than we know, and we have far more to give than we generally show. And those two dynamics need to be out in the forefront of our mind because encouragement is that little bridge between people's. Needs and their potential—it's that bridge between where they're at today and where they could be, and where God wants them.
And see, God's made us as a body where I can't make it on my own. And you can't make it on your own. You know, as I read through the New Testament, every single time you find a command, it's in the second person plural. And what I mean by that, it's sort of a Texas expression. The Apostle Paul never says you, individual, walk with God, be filled with the Holy Spirit, do this or do that.
It's always like a Texan would talk, "You all." He's speaking to a group. All these commands, all that we've heard, all that's written, God's plan is that in community. Unity. We grow in Christ, and so as we finished out today, how does that happen? One, it begins with your own private worship.
Be joyful always. Pray continuously. Give thanks in all circumstances. Yes, you must and I must cultivate that personal time with God, where we pray throughout the day, where there's a time regularly where you get in the Bible. But second, there's got to be public worship, and that's where we're open to the Spirit's work, and we're receptive to the Word, and we're discerning and selective about what we hear.
We test it. Just because I say something or another Bible teacher says. You take it and say, "Does it line up with God's word?" And when you have private worship, public worship in unity, you're going to see spiritual growth occur in your life and in the life of others. That's Chip Ingram, and the end of today's program. Join us next time, right here on Living on the Edge.
Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.
