Love One Another - How to Lift Up Those Who are Down, Part 2

Do you know someone who's about ready to throw in the towel? Don't let them. They need you to jump in the ring with them and double team the enemy.

And you know what that's called? It's called encouragement. And today you'll learn how to be an awesome encourager, how to lift up people that are down. Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We are an international teaching and discipleship ministry that encourages and equips Christians to live like Christians. Today Chip will continue our series, Love One Another, with the second half of his talk, How to Lift Up Those Who Are Down. There's a lot of valuable insights, so grab your Bible and go to Hebrews chapter 10. Chip begins by unpacking the third challenge from verse 24 of this timeless passage.

So let's dive in. Three, and let us consider, literally give attention to, ponder, examine with regard to the spiritual welfare of one another and the body. Let us consider how to stimulate or provoke one another to love and good deeds. Get your focus outward. Have relationships in the body of Christ where we motivate one another to look outward instead of inward. Because when you're discouraged, where do you look?

And we do that analysis of the navel. Oh my, poor me. It really is hard. It's harder than anybody else. I've got spiritual lint in my spiritual navel, you know.

It's terrible. He says, provoke one another. It's a strong word. Only here used in the New Testament in a positive way. It literally means to ignite. What are we to ignite one another to love and good works?

Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves, the idea of close relationship, but being motivated. Why so much the more as we see the day approaching, the reference there is to return of Christ and the judgment that's going to come. So you see the structure as you examine the structure. There's two facts out of those two words, sense, sense. And the two facts are very, very simple. One, we have access into God's presence because of the unconditional love, forgiveness, and acceptance provided by Christ. Fact two, since we never go into God's presence alone, we never have to be afraid. Now, let me play something out for you.

That's all the data. Sit back, relax for a minute, will you? Let me play this out for how it works. I'm a Jew. I've denied my faith.

I'm a Jew and I know what the story is and I've already gone back to some of my old ways. And then I get this letter. I mean, God could never accept me, right? I've already blown it. I mean, some of the things I promised I'd never do.

I told all my friends I've already reneged on my commitment. I mean, I'm born again. It really happened, but life got hard. Does this mean that when you blow up in anger and when words come out of your mouth or you think them in your heart that cut and hurt and put down and crush others, that for you entrance into God's presence is 100% available 100% of the time? Yes. Yes, that's what it means. And when you get there, you'll have a counselor to plead your case. Now, Chip, are you telling me that this means that when right after, the moment after I give into a temptation to lust, right after I've lied to a business associate, right after I've passed on information about someone else that was unkind, immediately afterwards, right after that, at that moment, are you telling me that if I would choose to, I could come right before the presence of God, tell Him I'm sorry, and He would be 100% available? And when I get there, there would be Christ to negotiate my case and explain to the Father how that was actual sin and that I'm sorry for it. But He's done the ledger account and all the sin on my side of the ledger has been moved over to Christ and been forgiven and all the righteousness on His side of the ledger has been appropriated to me so the Father will look at me as I come in prayer right after doing that and forgive me.

That's exactly what it's saying. Are you really saying that right after you fail to speak up in class when your faith was attacked, right when you get home and feel that deep sense of guilt when you've gone too far sexually with your date, immediately right then, sitting on your bed, feeling like the worst, lowest, most terrible person, you promised you wouldn't do that, you made a commitment as a couple you wouldn't do it, that right there that night at 1.30 in the morning sitting on the edge of your bed, that you can enter directly into the presence of God and He's 100% available 100% of the time and is ready to forgive and to restore and when you get there you won't be alone? That's exactly what the Scripture is saying. Are you actually saying that when you haven't read your Bible in days, maybe weeks, when praying has been a struggle where you've only shot up a few when life's got really hard, when your priorities are so out of line, when you have fallen back into patterns of lying, when you feel like in your heart of hearts you're so far away from God and you feel like dirty, worthless, guilty, bad, hypocritical, God could never accept me, when you feel all that at that very moment, after that kind of a lifestyle, are you actually saying that the Scripture is teaching? That if we would confess that as sin, that we could come right before the presence of God and have 100% access to the throne, 100% of the time, and be met by a friend who would say, what you did is wrong, what you did violated and broke my heart, but what I did on the cross has paid for it.

I love you, I accept you, and we can go on. That's exactly what this passage is teaching. See, a lot of us grew up probably a lot like me. Maybe it's American culture, maybe it's just how human beings are, but when I, early in my Christian life, and to degrees now, I always felt like, you know, little sins you had to feel bad for like 10, 15 minutes. You know what I mean?

Real bad. I mean the biggies, the habitual ones, the ones you promised God I'll never do that, I mean the real, I mean you break one of the big top 10. Those are like two to three day feeling bad about sins. You know, you don't want to read your Bible, you don't want to pray, you don't want to be around Christians, you know, be superficial, get away, get alone, be depressed, feel guilty, get down on yourself, really down on yourself. It's sort of a form of penance. I'm a bad person so I'll punish myself to make me feel like a bad person. And of course, are you moving closer and closer to God or farther and farther away?

See, that's not how it works. See, the sooner we confess our sin, the sooner we draw near to God, immediately after we have sinned, the closer and the better and the more pleased God is. Now, by the way, don't get me wrong. Hey, this sounds like a good formula. I'm just going to go out and live like an absolutely wild man or wild woman and as soon as I get done I'll say, God, forgive me and I know you promised to forgive me in the future so while I'm sinning over here I'll, uh-uh, uh-uh.

What's it say? How do you draw near? With a sincere heart and full assurance of faith. God doesn't cut deals. God doesn't play games. He knows when you're repentant. He knows when you really come and say, oh man, I'm sorry.

I know I broke your heart. I didn't want to do it but I did it again. But when you come honestly, you're forgiven. You have access.

You don't have to wait two days, three days. And so, what's one of the biggest things you think we need to do? Here's the first principle of encouragement. Biblical encouragement restores perspective. See, what happens is when we sin we draw away from God. The old adage, we sin, then we hide, then we run, right?

And what does that do? If I'm a member of a small group and I've sinned and really blown it, I don't know about you but I don't want to go. When I'm involved in sin and I've done some things that I know that are wrong, do you just get up on Sunday morning or Saturday night and say, wow, I can't wait to go to church and worship God and hear all those songs and hear someone talk out of the Bible and make me feel even more guilty.

Can't wait to go. What do you do? You do what I do.

You blow it off. And that's why if you're a member of a small group and they really know who you are, it's one of the best things that happens to you because they'll look through that. They'll love you.

They'll accept you. But you know what? If you've got something you need to do, isn't it amazing how our human little minds work? If you have something to do, oh well, I better get this taken care of. But if you don't, what do you spiral?

Down, down, down, down, down, far away. And so one of the number one things we do, biblical encouragement, restores perspective. The number one thing where we need to restore perspective is letting people know the truth.

What's the truth? Whatever you did last night, whatever's in your past, whatever's in your closet, whatever you've done in any way to anyone, wherever you are right now, God says, entrance if you're a believer in Christ, if you're born again, if you're part of His family, entrance into the very presence of God is 100% available, 100% of the time for you at this minute. And when you get there, you will not get a God whose arms are crossed, toe tapping, in your face saying, shame on you. You will get a God who will let you know what a price He paid for you.

And if you come with a sincere heart, full assurance of faith, you will experience peace, you will experience forgiveness, you will experience restoration. This may come at least emotionally and psychologically as news to you. God is not down on you. He's really not. He's for you. He made you. He died for you.

He loves you. So one of the major ministries of encouragement, we need to restore perspective for one another, to remind one another that access before God is available. How often? 100% of the time. How much of His attention will we get?

100% of it. When we get there, you'll never get there alone. Christ is there waiting to restore.

This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip will be back to finish today's message in just a minute. But quickly, did you know you've been uniquely gifted by a Heavenly Father who loves you? Stick around after the teaching to discover a valuable tool we've developed to help you identify and embrace the divine gifts you possess.

But for now, here's Chip to continue our series, Love One Another. Can you imagine what would happen in the body of Christ? Is that what happened more and more to one another? I had an incident just recently with my wife, and we're teaching this prayer class together, and we're learning a lot. And boy, just the needs in the class are just amazing and overwhelming, and I was just really discouraged.

And we got talking, and she made a simple statement. My perspective was just getting, you know, like, this is happening, and this is happening, and this is happening, and this is happening. I'm getting all ticked off because I have this other very unbiblical view that, you know, if you're walking with God, if you're obeying Him, and you're doing what's right, as far as you know, that there will just be blessing, and things will go well. It's an interesting little theory that Jesus obeyed the Father. It didn't go well for him. Paul obeyed the Father. It didn't go well for him. Stephen obeyed the Father.

Not real good at all for him. Now, was there joy and great and blessing in those men's lives? Absolutely. And you know, my wife turned to me as we were talking. She said, you know, she said, honey, maybe we're just experiencing the price tag of the privilege to get to teach on an area that has such potential to transform people's lives.

Maybe it's just, maybe this is just what it costs. And you know what? I just went like this. Oh, okay. All right. If you get to gain eight yards and a linebacker gets an open shot on you, boom. Okay. Gained eight yards. That's the price tag. Do you want to gain eight yards or not?

If you do, they get hit by linebackers, get an open shot on you. I mean, ladies, that may not help you at all. That helped me a lot. That helped me a bunch. If that's what it costs, that's what it costs. What did I get? Perspective. Notice the second thing here. Second thing here, though, is then he goes on, let us hold fast. We explained what that means.

It means not wavering. See, these things, they go in a progression, don't they? When you don't draw near to God, you can always tell people when we're struggling in our spiritual life, pretty soon, a little dust on the Bible. Prayers get shorter, superficial. We don't want to be around. You find the Christians that you really connect with, you avoid them.

Well, don't we? We need perspective restored, but then the next level, notice it says hold fast. Hold fast your confession. Live out what you say you believe. See, when we get discouraged, when we start losing hope, we start saying, this marriage isn't worth it.

I'm not fulfilled. This kid, you know what? We've tried and tried and tried.

Just let him go. Who cares? We say, you know, everybody else is cheating, you know what? You know what?

I'll pad mines too. And we, instead of enduring, instead of hanging tough, instead of walking integrity, instead of keeping our commitment. You know, I'm not going to read the Bible. God's not answering my prayers.

You know, I'm taking steps toward God, steps toward God, and it's just hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. I'm tired of this. I quit. I give up. I don't want any more of this. Welcome to life.

And so what do we need? We need to step into one another's life to say, hold fast. Don't give up. Don't give in. Every marriage goes through those seasons.

Every parent has ups and downs and some very severe with kids. And you know what? The ones that hung in there, the ones that did it God's way, the ones that trusted, you know what? What's it say? What's it say at the end of the verse? Let us hold fast.

What's it say? He who promised is faithful, not on your timetable, not in your way, not in my way. He is faithful. You keep your marriage commitments. You keep your integrity.

You keep your sexual purity. You keep getting into the word and pray and ask and seek and you'll find, but maybe not as quickly and maybe not in the way and maybe not the way you've got it pictured in your mind. And so one of the second ways we must encourage one another is to endure, to remind each other. God is faithful.

And I see this sort of in the body. We all have sort of these ebbs and flows and some of you are up and encouraging and God's doing these great things and answering prayers and He's being faithful, but you've been sowing for a long time. And some of us are down here right now, what we need is for you to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Don't give up now. Don't give up. It's too soon to give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up.

Sometimes the difference between success and failure in a marriage, in a parent, in a walk with God, in integrity is a simple word of encouragement. Who in your world needs a word of encouragement? Who do you know that is leaning away from God right now?

Who is drifting away from God? Is it you? A friend? A mate?

What do they need? They need perspective and they need to know sometimes you hold on, they cannot at the bottom of the rope and just enduring is great. I remember sitting in a classroom and maybe one of the most discouraging days of my life, working full time and going to bed about 12 or 1 in the morning, getting up at 5 and doing this crazy Greek and Hebrew and I was in my third year and I felt like, you know, I came here, I'm doing what you want me to do, God. I'm giving it my best. You know, I'm working full time, I'm going to school full time, involved in this college ministry. We don't have two nickels to rub against each other. I never know ever if I'm going to be able to pay the bills and just each month, yeah, you're faithful, yeah, that's right. But I'm tired.

And you know what? I don't need this. And I remember sitting in a class and I ever get one of the sometimes we just get numb. I mean, I couldn't tell you what happened in the class and I couldn't tell you that everybody got up and left and I was left alone in the class. I just kind of, it's kind of numb. But I was having this conversation.

I came about this close to Canon Seminary. I'd already put in three years. It was just like, you know something, man, I don't need this. I'm more committed now than I've ever been committed. Life's never been worse. You hear that?

I don't have any money. I'm tired. I'm worn out. There's more and more and more and more and more. You know what? I'll tell you what.

You know how you have these conversations in your mind? I'm checking out. You can have my helmet. You can have my jersey. You can have my shoulder pads.

You can go get them somewhat, you know, not real good. I'm, all this is in my mind. And I guess I looked around finally and, you know, people kind of know something's wrong probably when you walk around like this.

You know, but I didn't even know what was happening. And so I'm sitting there and Dr. Ryrie came up to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. He said, Chip, get a couple of good nights sleep.

Get at least two or three good meals and don't make any important decisions in the next two or three days. Tapped me on the shoulder and walked out. I mean, the guy wrote the Bible. I was going to listen to him.

The Ryrie Study Bible. And you know what I did? Canceled a couple of things. I went home and got a couple of good nights sleep. I splurged and got a couple of good meals. And you know three days later, I was really thankful that I was in seminary.

What a privilege. See, the difference between success and failure, you know what it is? A simple word of encouragement. Word of encouragement.

Who needs that from you? Encouragement is taking the truth in a context of a meaning and careful relationship and restoring someone's perspective. It's encouraging them to endure. And third, it's inspiring spiritual growth. Notice verses 24 and 25 also, and let us consider. Great word.

Let us be sensitive. Let us have our spiritual antennas up and know the spiritual welfare of people that are around us. How do we inspire spiritual encouragement?

Look on the back. By stimulating one another to Christ-like attitudes and actions. Love and good works. Love is the outward, agape, unconditional focus and concern for other people. Good works are specific acts of kindness.

You don't do that naturally and I don't do that naturally. We need one another to do what? Get our focus out there.

Get our focus out there. See, left to yourself, you will analyze your navel and I'll analyze mine. And we'll make this case of how hard and how terrible and it's not really going good and I'm not fulfilled and there's this and there's this and then I'd watch two movies, seven commercials, read two magazines and you'll be convinced. I'll bail. And you'll wake up one lonely, hurting, destroyed person with fragmented relationships and kids going between houses. Economically unsound. Emotionally bankrupt. And one day you'll wake up as a fellow I talked to this week who said, I've been away from God for a long time. And I'll tell you what, when you are, the bill is very high.

Forgiveness is always available. But the bill, the price is very high. We need to encourage, to stimulate, to provoke each other to what? Go to the next level.

Get your focus outward. Who can you love? Love them where you get it back or not. Be like Christ. And in giving, what does Jesus promise? You will receive. The same amount? No.

Good measure of perspective? You will receive. The same amount? No. Good measure of pressed down, shaken together?

You'll get more back. Give. We're to provoke each other to do that. Inspire one another to grow spiritually. Secondly, by refusing to allow one another to drift from regular attendance at worship and small group times. Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves.

Who do you know drifting? Go get them. Go get them in love. Go get them. Go get them.

Go get them. Don't let them drift like you and they're just like me. And it doesn't mean they're godly. Not godly. It doesn't mean they're not great people. It just means left to ourselves.

When you are moving this way instead of this way in relationships with the body of Christ, you're on a bad trail going a bad direction and bad things are going to happen. We're commanded. Go get them. Love them. Give them a call. Write them a letter.

Meet them for lunch. Finally, by reminding one another of the certainty and the accountability involved in Christ's return. When Jesus comes back, we get a report card. The reference here is to the Bema Seat where Christians will be evaluated.

He's going to come back. Stimulate one another what? Two things. Love and good works. How? Don't let us drift from our relationships with each other. Why?

Because He's coming back as you see the day approaching. Help other people be winners. Help other people finish well. God, I want to finish well.

I don't know. I don't know on probably both hands the number of people that I know that finish well. I know a lot of people that have good spans and a decade here or 15 years or 20 years and really walk with the Lord and I know a lot of people that, you know, then they sort of back off. I don't know many people that go for it, man. I mean go for it and end going for it. I want to be like that. I want to finish well.

Don't you? I can't do that by myself. I need you. We need one another.

Let me give you some action steps so we take the theoretical, the concept and the truth and put it into practice. Number one, who do you know that needs some encouragement? Will you pull out a pen if you got it? Who do you know that needs some encouragement? Write their name down.

You don't have to show it to anyone. Who do you know? Who's leaning away from God? Who's starting to drift?

Who's way out there? Second, what truth or biblical passage would help restore their perspective? Maybe they need to endure adversity or maybe they need to be stimulated to spiritual growth.

What truth? Pray that through because when you get with them, you don't want to just sympathize. You want to pull them in. You want to give them perspective. You want to help them endure. Third, what would be the best way to communicate your encouragement to them? Letter? By person?

Phone call? In a group? Maybe it's an act of kindness or maybe it's meeting a need but what are you going to do this week to become God's agent of blessing to encourage if every one of us come up with one name and little stones go into the pond of God's blessing and people get encouraged. Do you understand what will happen in the body?

Awesome things. Jesus said, love one another. One of the great ways we do it is by encouraging each other, restoring perspective, promoting endurance and spurring on to spiritual growth. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and the message you just heard, how to lift up those who are down, is from our series Love One Another.

Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute. You know, it's easy to hear the truth, feel inspired by it, and even believe it, but how often do we fail to act on it? Through these insightful messages, Chip challenges us to pause and choose to radically love others as Jesus did. Learn what it looks like to encourage, admonish, care for, and live in harmony with one another. Don't miss out on how to experience the joy and fulfillment of Godly community.

To catch up on any part of this study, listen through the Chip Ingram app or at livingontheedge.org. I'm joined in studio now by Chip, and Chip, you've talked a lot recently about this importance of discovering one's spiritual gifts. But you know, I think some people may confuse gifts with natural talents. So could you help us understand the difference?

Dave, that is a great question, and it's really important to understand the difference. Natural talents are what God gives us when we're born physically. We have a personality type. Many of us have taken strength finders or different kinds of tests, and we're have ability to work with words, other people in mathematics. Other people are great in fixing things, and they're mechanical. Some people are athletic.

Some people are musical. All kind of different strengths, that that comes when you're born physically. When you're born spiritually and come to know Jesus, one of the things that Jesus does is He gives us spiritual gifts. He gives us supernatural abilities that allow us to serve one another in ways where the outcomes are far more powerful than anything we could ever do. And then they help us also understand where we fit in the body of Christ. And so in this resource, Your Divine Design, we help people understand a definition of every spiritual gift in the New Testament, where they fit, how they fit, how to discover yours, how to develop that gift, and then how to discern where and how to put it into practice in the body of Christ. So what I can tell you is that it makes a huge difference, not just to know your natural talents—they're wonderful—but your spiritual, supernatural gifts from God. That will ignite people's passion and their spiritual life like never before. Well, if what Chip just said resonated with you, and you're ready to take that next step in your relationship with God, we want to help. When you make a thoughtful gift to Living on the Edge, we'll send you a copy of Your Divine Design as our way of saying thanks. We want to deepen your spiritual walk and take your faith to a whole new level. Learn more by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003, or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. Have listeners tap donate. With that, here's Chip to share some application from today's message.

We learned that encouragement restores perspective, promotes endurance, and inspires spiritual growth. Now, are you ready? Let's end this program with you asking God right at this very moment to bring someone to your mind that needs to endure or needs some perspective or needs a shot in the arm for spiritual growth to really occur. Have you got that person in mind? You might be related to him, might be one of your kids, might be a friend, might be an office worker.

Are you ready? Let's think about it. Now, what could you do to encourage him? What act of caring, loving response could you wrap around some truth that would help restore this person's perspective?

Could it be a phone call? Could you, right now, as this program ends, jot a note to someone? Could you give an anonymous gift to someone with a verse that they need to hear to trust God and keep pressing ahead? Could you go home from work early and just say some words of life to your wife and express your appreciation to her or to your husband?

What would it look like for you to lift up someone who's down? Have you got it in your mind? Let's do it.

Make a commitment that you're going to do that. And as you do, I want to pray, Lord Jesus, you know the people you've brought to our mind. We know the encouragement by the power of the Holy Spirit as we would share the truth and maybe do it through an act of kindness. And Lord, all over will you use us to lift up those who are down for your glory and for their good. Amen. Let me know how it goes.

Go for it. Thanks, Chip. And if you have a story or testimony you'd like to share with us, email Chip at LivingOnTheEdge.org. That's Chip at LivingOnTheEdge.org. We look forward to hearing from you and the remarkable ways God is using you to encourage others today. For Chip and the entire team, this is Dave Druey thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope you'll join us again next time.