Bible Studies

A STUDY OF ENCOURAGEMENT

by GLENN PEASE
12/06/21
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You might be encouraged to know that it is not only normal, but it is even Godlike, and Christlike, to get discouraged once in awhile. God got so discouraged with the wickedness of man that Gen. 6:6 says, "The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain." How great must be the pain great enough to fill the heart of God. Jesus experienced this same pain filled heart over the blindness and rebellion of the leaders of Israel, and He wept over Jerusalem.

Discouragement is one of the costs God was willing to risk to make a free willed creature like man. The result has been that God has had to endure a great deal of discouragement. His own chosen people have failed Him so often that you could reduce the Old Testament in half almost if you removed all of the lamentation and judgment God had to inflict on them for their disobedience. It is discouraging to be an all wise God trying to get your will done through unwise and foolish men. It is discouraging to be an all powerful God trying to get your will accomplished through weak and unfaithful men.

You might think it is a snap to be God, but that is not the picture the Bible gives us. The Bible reveals, over and over again, how difficult and costly it is to be the Creator and Redeemer of men. In our superficial understanding of the sovereignty of God, we think He has it made, and everything just goes His way, and He never has a problem. The fact is, no father has ever endured a more rebellious family than God has. Time and time again God gave leaders to guide His people in the ways of righteousness, but we read in Judges 2:19, "And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them: They cease not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way."

Jeremiah is one long discouraging lament as God cries out to His people through the prophet--"You have broken my covenant. You have not inclined your ear nor harkened unto me. Do not do this abominable thing which I hate. Why have you provoked me to anger?" We could literally spend hours reading the words of God's discouragement with His children, but let me close this negative aspect of reality with Ps. 81:13, "Oh that my people had harkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!" Life and history would be different, God says, if His people would live in obedience. There would be peace, love, joy, and righteousness, instead of judgment, with all of its attending sorrows. If you think God is happy with history, you have not read much history. The point is, it is discouraging to God when life is so full of suffering and sorrow because of man's rebellion. He hates it that the world is filled with strife, injustice, and wickedness of all kinds. He got so discouraged about it in the day of Noah that He decided to wipe the slate clean and start over again.

What encouraged God to start over again? Why not just call the whole experiment with a free-willed being like man a bad deal, and scrap it completely? God did not do that, and the question is why? Believe it or not, it was one righteous man who saved the whole experiment. If Noah had not found favor in God's eyes, human history, as we know it, may have ended with the flood. One righteous man who walked with God, and pleased God, gave God the encouragement He needed in the midst of all His discouragement to let human history continue. We only know the rest of the story because God was encouraged by one man.

Noah was the savior of the physical world, and of all mankind. Here was a man whose life was an inspiration to God, and kept God going in His plan to redeem man, when all others were a hindrance to that plan. Noah has been an encouragement to millions as well. D.L. Moody was once so discouraged because He was going through a dry spell. There was no fruit for his labors. He sighed in a sad prayer, "There just isn't any pleasure in working for you when there is no fruit." A Sunday school teacher came into his office when he was in this down mood, and told him of his joy in studying the life of Noah. He said to Moody, "If you imagine your labors are fruitless, you might just study Noah's life for awhile. "Moody began to read the life of Noah, and he was amazed. Here was a man who preached righteousness for a hundred years and never won a single convert to join him in the ark. His immediate family consisting of his wife, three sons, and their wives, were invited by God to join him, but Noah did not win one neighbor, friend, or other relative. You talk about futile preaching, and the irrelevance of godly living in a godless society.

If the only way to please God was to get converts, and to persuade men of the truth, then Noah was the biggest flop that ever lived. But the fact is, Noah was one of the most pleasing men to God, who has ever lived. He gave God hope that man was worth saving. He kept the dream alive of a people of God in a fallen world. He failed to win one convert, and he failed to touch a single life in a saving way, and yet, he was the most successful men of his age, and one of the heroes of both God and man for all time. Moody was so encouraged by this man Noah that he was renewed in his own commitment to serve the Lord, for he knew he would be far more fruitful than Noah ever was. Noah is one of the great heroes of the Bible because he was faithful and persistent in doing the will of God, even though there was no positive result. We do not know if he ever got discouraged. It seems only natural that he would, but he never gave up, and he never ceased to preach God's word, and practice God's will.

Noah was not a perfect man. After the flood he got drunk with wine, and created a crisis in his family. It was a time when there was no lack of water in the world, and yet he foolishly got drunk on wine. The best of men can, and do, do the stupidest things, and this is discouraging. But the fact is, an imperfect fallen man can still be the greatest encouragement to God and man. Noah was just such an encouragement. How can a man who never changed anything in his world be an encouragement? How could a man who never altered the fate of a single individual in his world be an example and encouragement to us?

Lowell Lundstrom, the evangelist, gives us the answer out of his own experience. He says the feeling of futility is what causes men to be discouraged. They ask, am I really accomplishing anything? And their answer is often discouraging. Lundstrom writes, "I get this feeling every time I watch the evening news or read a daily newspaper. There are so many great needs in the world, and my efforts seem so small and futile. I heard a commercial the other day that really helped me in this regard. The narrator said, "You can't save the whole world, but you can save a little piece of it!" That's all any of us can do. Save a small piece of the world each day."That was all Noah did. He obeyed God, and took the animals and his family inside, and he saved a small piece of the world. But in so doing, he saved the whole world. He saved history, and the whole plan of salvation for mankind. He failed in just about everything he did, but he succeeded in just one thing. In his loyal and persistent obedience to God, regardless of the fruit, he pleased God, and more than made up for all of his failure. We don't have to succeed in everything. We just have to succeed in something. We just have to save some small part of the world that God has put into our sphere of influence, and that will make us successful in his book, which is the only book of success that really matters.

Every successful person in God's book only saved a part of the world; a small piece of the whole. Moses never succeeded in getting the Israelites to be committed to God alone as their God, but he did get a remnant of them to be faithful. Joshua never did succeed in getting Israel to take all of the promised land, but he did succeed in leading them to take part of it. No leader of Israel every succeeded completely, but they did succeed in some measure, and that is all God asks of anyone. Even Jesus did not succeed in winning all, but He won some, and with that remnant He began a new people who have gone into all the world, not winning all anywhere, but everywhere they have gone winning some. The best any child of God can do is to save some small piece of the world, and not get discouraged because they cannot save it all. Noah is our example. You do your best, and to God you leave the rest. If you please Him, you don't have to worry about the results, for you have already achieved the highest success, which is pleasing Him. Sometimes even just a word of encouragement can make a big difference in another persons life.

Samuel Storms writes, "Every Christian is called upon to encourage others. And contrary to what you may be thinking, you are not an exception. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is addressing the entire Christian community when he says, "Encourage one another daily.........." One of the main reasons for coming to church is to give and receive encouragement. Heb. 10:25 says, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Paul writes in I Thess. 5:11, "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, ....." It doesn't take that much to be an encourager. Someone said no matter how poorly a team plays the cheerleaders never turn on them and shout give up you bums. They keep on yelling, "Fight team, fight!" They can be counted on to cheer the team on, win or lose. Every Christian should be a cheerleader; not a jeerleader who always tells people about their weaknesses and faults, which they already know about all too well. People need cheering, and that is something we can all do. Prov. 10:21 says, "The lips of the righteous nourish many." By words of encouragement we please others, but more important, we please God.

Heb. 11:6 says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." The ultimate success, therefore, is being a person of faith in a fallen world where it is easy to get discouraged. None of us have ever had as much to get discouraged about as Noah did, but the fact is, every Bible hero had to overcome discouragement by faith. Show me the man or woman who never had to fight discouragement, and I'll show you a fictional character.

Abraham and Sarah were discouraged, for they were getting so old, and still had no child. Joseph was so discouraged with his brothers who sold him into slavery, and with those who let him be unjustly imprisoned. Moses was so discouraged with trying to lead a rebel people in obedience to God. The prophets were all discouraged by God's people rejecting His word. Jesus was discouraged by His rejection from God's people, and by the bickering and lack of understanding among His disciples, and by their betrayal and forsaking of Him. The apostles were discouraged by the opposition of Israel to the church, and by the immaturity of the church leaders. The point is, if you study any of God's people you discover quite quickly that one of the inevitable obstacles they have to cope with and overcome is discouragement. It is an element of life that is inescapable. Some face harder cases than others, as the end of Heb. 11 makes clear in its list of heroes of the faith. Some were persecuted, imprisoned, stoned, and even worse, it says some were sawed in two and put to death by the sword. Some people of faith have to endure the ultimate in discouraging circumstances as they, like their Lord, are despised and rejected of men, and are violently killed by the forces of evil.

But they are all in God's success book because in spite of all their discouraging experiences, like Noah, they were people of faith. They never received all that God had promised, but they never ceased to look for it, labor for it, and trust in God. When we sing, faith is the victory that overcomes the world, we are saying, faith is the key to pressing on, and doing the will of God no matter how many discouraging things happen, or how many things are discouraging because they don't happen. Noah is a hero because most men and women would have given up long ago if they faced his circumstances. In fact, most of us have given up many times with far less discouragement. We have tried some things in witnessing, and because they did not work, we gave up. This is not always bad, for if something is a poor strategy, then we should give it up. It can be helpful to get discouraged if it stops you from doing what is impractical, or even foolish. But to get discouraged and stop doing anything to reach some small piece of the world is sin. It is an act of deliberate disobedience to our Lord's command to reach out to the whole world to reach some.

Paul was discouraged often by circumstance beyond his control. He wanted to get back to the church of the Thessalonians, which he founded, but he was frustrated, and he wrote to them in I Thess. 2:17-18, "..Out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you--certainly I, Paul, did, again and again--but Satan stopped us." It was discouraging, as one attempt after another was foiled by Satan, and he just could not get back to them. But did Paul say in his discouragement, I will just forget about that church and move on? No! He prayed for them, and he wrote two epistles to them, and those two letters have been a blessing to millions of Christians through the ages. Paul had to give up on his desire to see them, but he never gave up in his care for them, and in his communication with them. The result is, he was used of God to be a greater blessing to God's people than he ever could have been had he gotten back to that church.

When Paul was being taken to Rome as a prisoner, some Christians got together and traveled to meet him, and we read in Acts 28:15, "At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged." Paul was a strong man, but we see here that it is not only the weak, but the strong also who need encouragement. No one was stronger than Christ, but when He went into the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked the three disciples to watch with Him. He needed the encouragement of human companionship and sympathy. The old commercial says, "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." The Bible commercial could be, "Nobody doesn't like encouragement." The strongest of Christians need it, as we see was the case with Paul. Paul had to accept the reality that Satan can hinder some of our plans, and discourage us on some level. But he persisted in spite of that discouragement, and the result was a greater blessing. That is why we must never, never give up in doing the will of God, no matter how frustrating it is. Discouragement is real, and we have to live with it, but faith goes ahead in spite of it, and does what pleases God anyway, and God often blesses the alternative even more than He would have the original plan.

This was Noah's claim to fame, and so it was for all in this great faith chapter. All it says of many is that they suffered for their faith, but remained loyal. These are the successful people of God's history, for these are the people who are encouraging to God. Most of us have never thought about it, but it is a valid and vital question: Are you encouraging to God? Nobody wants to see His will done more than God, and it has to be as discouraging today as it was in the Old Testament, when it does not happen. God is encouraged when His children obey him, and like Noah, do His will even if there is little or no fruit for their labor. It is hard to encourage God sometimes, but it is the only way to the successful life that really counts.

This word, paraklesis, is used 29 times in the New Testament. What we learn from a study of this word is that an encouraged Christian is a positive functioning member of the body, but that a discouraged Christian is a malfunctioning member of the body. Encouragement is like oil. It makes things run smoothly. The encouraged Christian is the one who can give of self and foster unity and harmony in the body. The discouraged Christian is looking to take and not give. The one running on empty and needing the flow to come from others to them is not bad. This is a part of the purpose of the body. But they are takers in that state of mind and not able to look beyond themselves to the interest of others. When self-need is high one becomes a care-receiver and not a care-giver. This will be a part of everyone's experience at some point, but the goal is to be a healthy care-giver. This can only be when we are encouraged about who we are in Christ.

Paul likes to use this word in a context of unity. Encouraged Christians are united, but discouraged Christians tend to be divided. From the frequent references in the New Testament, we know that one of the hardest tasks of the church is to keep Christians united. They have so many different personalities and perspectives that division is the constant tendency, and Paul is fighting it everywhere. This gift of encouragement is a big factor in unity. In Rom. 15:5-6 Paul uses this word in the same way he does here. "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Encouragement is a gift of God, and when you have it you are a blessing to the rest of the body, for this gift leads you to be a force for unity. We cannot go through all 29 uses of this word, which is a vast study in itself, but let me share on more strong passage of Paul. In IITim. 2:16-17 Paul writes, "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." Again we see encouragement as a gift of God and when we have it we are more useful tools to do his will.

We could study another whole aspect of this subject which is the encouragement we get from one another, but this is not the issue that Paul is dealing with here. He is dealing with a source of encouragement that comes from God and what he has done for us in Christ, and what he continues to do for us in Christ. The reason Paul is specializing in this aspect of encouragement is that it is certain, and what we get from man is uncertain. If we are going to be Christlike, we cannot depend on what we get from men-even Christian men. This source can dry up just as it did for Jesus. His people rejected him, and his disciples forsook him. If all he had was that one well, Jesus would have been running on empty, but he was able to do the will of God and lay down his life for lthe very people who rejected him because he had another well of encouragement. Paul's focus is on that heavenly well because he knows all other wells can go dry. He has been there more than once himself.

Christians need an unfailing source of encouragement, and so Paul's focus here is on the encouragement that comes from being united to Christ. You can be robbed of all other encouragements, but the only way you can be robbed of this is by your own neglect to consider it. At the end of this sentence Paul deals with the encouragement we give each other in the body by tenderness and compassion, but here at the start it is the encouragement which is ours by being united to Christ. The next two are also values that come directly from our relationship to God, and they are the comfort of His love, and the fellowship with the Spirit.
The implication is clear that Christians often try to get more out of the human level than it can provide. Our greatest resources come from God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. But because we focus on the human level, which is good, but not not the best, we have a hard time living up to the level that Paul describes as God's will for us. The only way you and I are going to be able to be more Christlike is to have more of a focus on the encouragement of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The focus of the vast majority of literature for the Christian is on the encouragement to be gained from the body. This is a valid and vital subject to be sure, but it is not the priority of Paul. That is second place to the resources that come directly from our relationship to Christ.

The result is that Christians are not united. They do operate out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, and they do not consider others better than themselves, and they do not have the attitude of Christ who humbled Himself to lift others. If you do not have the right foundation, you cannot build the right building. If you build on a purely human foundation, you will have what humans can produce. If you build on a divine foundation you can have what God can produce. Thus, we see why Paul's focus is on the values gained by direct relation to God. If I am focused on the encouragement I have by being united with Christ, and the comfort I have in His love, and the fellowship I have with the spirit of God, I have a degree of satisfaction in life that enables me to let go of selfish interest, and take on the interests of others.

When you feel empty and deprived of love, encouragement, and fellowship, you are like a straving man, and nobody else's needs mean a thing to you. It's every man for himself, and you are totally self-centered. But when you are content and full of encouragement because of what is yours in Christ, you feel generous and have a sharing spirit, and are ready to give to others in tenderness and compassion. The most encouraging people are those who have been most encouraged by Christ. They see the value of little things they can do to encourage others. The late Frank Crane said: "It takes so little to make people happy. Just a touch if we know how to give it; just a word fitly spoken; just a trick, a knack, a slight readjustment of some bolt or pin or bearing in the delicate machinery of the soul-it takes little, so little, to make people happy." Stopford Brooke wrote: A little sun, a little rain, A soft wind blowing from the WestAnd woods and fields are sweet again, And warmth within the mountain's breast. A little love, a little trust, A soft impulse, a sudden dreamAnd life as dry as desert dust Is fresher than a mountain stream.

Our own cup has to be full if we are to fill the cup of others. That is the point of Paul in his focus on the personal spiritual life. Ivan Panin said, "The art of living consists in keeping earthly step to heavenly music." This is Paul's point. Listen to the beautiful tunes of your heavenly relationship, and you will then be able to take earthly steps in harmony with those tunes. The great comforters of history were people who were passing on the comfort they had received from God.

"One day in the winter of 1864 an old Quaker lady visited Lincoln at the White House and took the hand of that harassed man. "Friend Abraham," she said, "Thee must not think thee stands alone. Back where I live we are all praying for thee. The hearts of all the people are behind thee, and thee cannot fail. The Lord has appointed thee; the Lord will sustain thee and the people love thee. Yea, as no other man was ever loved before, does this people love thee. Take comfort, friend Abraham. God is with thee. The people are behind thee." Those who were present and witnessed the scene remembered for long years afterward the relief and glad radiance that came to Lincoln's face. The great man straigthened his body, and with tears in his voice, as well as in his eyes, he said, "You have given a cup of water to a very thirsty and grateful man. You have done me a great kindness."

Even a cup of cold water given in his name will not go unrewarded Jesus said, for the gift of encouragement is one of the most needed gifts in life. But sometimes we do not get if from the body as we ought, and that is why we need to get it directly fro our relationship to Christ. Jesus went through this lack of encouragement from men and found it in his Father. He then called his disciples to look to him for encouragement in a world of trouble. Jesus said in John 16:32-33, "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with Me. I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Jesus had the gift of encouragement from God, and He passed it on to His disciples, for He knew it would be the key to survival and ministry in a hostile world. It always has been, and it is amazing to see how God's people fail or succeed depending on whether they listen to encouragers or discouragers. Something can be clearly the will of God, but if the majority is lacking in the gift of encouragement, God's will is not done. Poor Joshua and Caleb, they were the encouragers of God's people. Caleb said in Num. 13:30, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." But the majority rules, even if they are fools, and in spite of the fact that it was clearly God's will, we read in the next two verses, "But the men who had gone up with him said, we can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are, and they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored."
These discouragers led God's people into a judgment of God, and they had to wander for 40 years in the wilderness until all the discouragers were dead. Joshua and Caleb alone survived of their generation, and eventually these encouragers led God's people to victory. But a tragedy when the majority of God's people lacked the gift of encouragement. That is why Paul is always urging Christians to focus on their gift and build on it, for it is the only way Christians can live the Christian life in a way that is truly Christlike.

It is contrary to our nature to consider others better than ourselves, and to be so selfless that we put the interest of others before our own. There is not a lot of this going around, and the reason is, Christians do not often reflect enough on the encouragement and comfort they have in Christ, even though they are so unworthy of it. We are loved by Christ and united with Him as part of the family of God. It is not by any merit or works of our own, but solely because of His love and sacrifice. As soon as we take our eyes off this truth we revert back to people of pride who feel better than others, and so we are unwilling to stoop as Jesus did to lift the lowly.

It hard to be Christlike if your eyes are not always on Christ. Get your eyes off Him and His encouragement and you will soon cease to be a channel of encouragement to others. But keep your eyes on Him, and be aware of the encouraging reality of being united with Christ, and you can be a channel of encouragement to everyone in your life. Listen to this testimony of William Lyon Phelps, the famous Christian professor of Yale. "I never go into a hotel or a barbershop or a store without saying something agreeable to everyone I meet. I try to say something that treats each one as an individual, not merely a cog in the machine. I will ask a barber how he came to take up barbering, how long he has been at it and how many heads of hair he has cut. I frequently shake hands with a redcap who has carried my grip.

"One extremely hot summer day, I went into a railroad dining car to have lunch. The crowed car was almost like a furnace and the service was slow. When the steward finally got around to handing me the menu, I said, 'The boys back there cooking in that hot kitchen certainly must be suffering today!' The steward began to curse, 'Good God Almighty!' he exclaimed. 'People come in here and complain about the food. They kick about the slow service and growl about the heat and the prices. I have listened to their criticisms for 19 years, and you are the first person that has every expressed any sympathy for the cooks back there in the broiling kitchen. I wish we had more passengers like you.' "He was astounded because I had thought of the cooks not merely as cogs in the organization of a great railway. What people want is a little attention as human beings."

This testimony convicted me, for I have done this on occasion and felt good about it, but I usually get so caught up in my own agenda that I do not consider others better than myself and take on their interests. The reason is the very thing I am pointing out in this text. I have taken my eyes off Christ and the encouragement of being accepted and loved by Him, and the result is I am not a channel of that love and acceptance to others. It is hard to be a Christian all the time, but the more we are the more we will be encouragers to all who come across our path, both within and without the body of Christ.

Now, what about this phrase, "If any fellowship with the Spirit." We think of this even less than we do the encouragement we have in Christ. The word for fellowship is koinonia, and is a basic New Testament word for relationships where two or more persons have something in common. Business partners have fellowship; friends have fellowship; mates have fellowship, and the more people have in common the deeper the fellowship. To have fellowship with the Spirit of God is the same idea as, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Be of one mind with the Spirit, and you have fellowship with the Spirit and with Christ.

It is amazing, but we, as fallen creatures with all our weaknesses and sins, can have much in common with the Holy Spirit. We can love what He loves and hate what He hates, and feel great peace and comfort in His presence. Like a friend who accepts us just as we are, so we do not need to be fake and hypocritical, but can be real, for we know we have the same basic values and goals. So we can be comforted by the Comforter, and be encouraged by our fellowship. Someone wrote, "Oh, the comfort-the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts or measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take an sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."

This is what we have in the fellowship of the Spirit, and having that is to compel us to be that kind of friend to others, and help them experience the same level of love and acceptance. The essense of Paul's message here is this: If you would think more about what you have in Christ and the Holy Spirit, you would be better tools by which they could communicate the same blessings to others. If you would get all the encouragement they offer you, you would be a greater encourager of them. Encouragement encourages encouragers.