|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Location:
6425 Jefferson Rd. For
directions, click here.
Jerry
Varnado,
pastor July 14,
2002 We
have different gifts, according
to the grace given us. 1-Introduction
to
Spiritual
Gifts 2-The
Enabling
Gifts
of the
Holy
Spirit 4-The
Gifts
of
Tongues
and
Interpretation
of
Tongues 8-The
Gifts
of
Knowledge,
Wisdom,
and
Faith I
want to talk with you today about
the spiritual gift of
"exhortation." Exhortation is a
word that people doesn't use much
any more. That's why several
modern translations, including
the NIV, use the word
"encouragement" rather than
exhortation -- "if it is
encouraging, let him
encourage." The
word "encouragement," however,
actually comes up short in
conveying to us what Paul is
talking about here. I'll
try to not to bore you with a
lengthy word study, especially
since I talked last
week
about how a teacher needs to
careful not to overwhelm his
audience with too much detail!
But understanding the actual word
we're dealing here with is
critical to understanding this
gift of exhortation. First
let's look at the Greek words
that traditionally have been
translated as as "exhort" or
"exhortation." I'll put these up
on the video screens. So,
yes, the gift of "exhortation"
may be referred to as the gift of
"encouragement." But it is not a
quiet-pat-on-the-back kind of
encouragement. It's not simply
saying, "Attaboy! Good job!"
Biblical exhortation has a sense
of urgency and insistence about
it. It won't take "no" for
answer. It is as stubborn as a
mule -- and that's not
necessarily bad, as I'll explain
in a few minutes. But
before we move on, let's look at
the definitions of the English
words, "exhort" and
"exhortation": We
are not talking
passive
encouragement here, but an
active,
insistent, forceful, rousing,
prodding
encouragement! You
also need to know that the Greek
words we translate "exhort" and
"exhortation" are derived form
two root words: para,
which means "beside or near," and
kaleo, which means "to
call forth or bid, particularly
aloud." So
the idea is that the exhorter
doesn't call from way off on the
sidelines saying, "Hey! Stay in
the game! Keep going!" Instead,
the exhorter comes along side. He
or she is there
with
us, to encourage us -- maybe even
push us -- along the
way. This
spiritual gift of exhortation
equips a person to motivate
others to their best effort, the
highest level of being in Christ.
Exhorters urge us to our full
potential as children of
God. On
the video screens I've listed
some of the common
characteristics on an
exhorter: An
exhorter will ask things like:
"What's God saying to you in your
prayer time or Bible reading?"
"What is God doing in your life?"
"What is God teaching you through
what you're facing right
now?" Not
only do they tend to perceive
where we are spiritually,
exhorters often know the steps of
action necessary to get us moving
to where God wants us to
be. Persons
with this gift usually have a
very different perspective of
failure and hardship than others.
They see failure and hardship as
positive steppingstones to
spiritual growth. They see
trouble as an opportunity to rise
above adversity. In
one of his e-mail articles last
week, Dr. Tim Hudson, campus
pastor at Christian
Campus
Fellowship
at
the University of Georgia, told
the story of a farmer whose mule
had fallen into an old well. The
man determined there was no way
to rescue the animal, so he
decided he'd just have to bury
him in the well. Some
of those shovel loads of dirt had
rocks and pieces of brick, so it
was hard and sometimes painful.
But the mule just kept telling
himself, "Be stubborn; shake it
off and step on it." You
can figure out what happened! He
just kept shaking it off and
stepping on it until he stepped
out the well. Here's
the point: life will either bless
us or bury us, depending on our
attitude. The person with the
gift of exhortation wants life to
bless you. He or she always sees
hardship as a stimulus to
growth. The
enemy is going to throw dirt on
you. That's the reality of living
in a fallen world. But unlike
like a person with the gift of
mercy, an exhorter won't offer
sympathy will, even when the dirt
has big rocks in it and hurts.
Instead, an exhorter will exhort
you to "shake it off and step on
it," knowing that hardship is the
steppingstone to growth and
deliverance. Last
week I talked about how prophets
and teachers can sometimes be
misperceived or misunderstood.
The same is true for exhorters.
Look at the video
screens: Second,
their "shake it off and step on
it" attitude may convey to you
that they really don't care about
your pain. But that's not the
case. It's just than an exhorter
sees pain as a stimulus to
growth, and he or she is
confident that the right attitude
and the correct steps will get
you out of the painful situation
and moving forward in
life. We
need every spiritual gift God has
given us; all of them are
important but it seems to me that
gift of exhortation is of far
more importance than we have
ascribed to it in the modern
church. In
the early days of the Methodist
movement, "exhorter" was a
recognized office. In
evangelistic meetings, sometimes
with thousands of people in
attendance, exhorters would walk
up and down the aisles during the
invitation looking for signs that
God was moving in someone's
heart. When
they saw someone weeping, or
shaking, or giving some other
sign of God's activity, an
exhorter would come alongside and
encourage that person to take
action, to respond to God's
grace. I'm
going to spend the rest of our
time giving examples of how the
manifestation of the gift of
exhortation has resulted in the
accomplishment of great things in
the kingdom of God. Let's
start with a biblical example:
Barnabas. The first we hear of
Barnabas is in Acts
4:36-37: The
apostles recognized the gift of
exhortation in this man, and gave
him a name -- "Son of
Encouragement" to match that
gift. The Greek word translated
"encouragement" in that verse is
one of the words we talked about
earlier:
paraklesis. Now,
after Saul of Tarsus, a
persecutor of the church, turned
180 degrees around and embraced
Christ, it was this same Barnabas
who reached out to him. Look at
Acts 9:26-27: It
was Barnabas, the "Son of
Encouragement," who got Saul an
audience with the
apostles. We
learn in Acts
11:19-26
that when revival apparently
broke out among the Gentiles in
Antioch, the apostles sent
Barnabas to check it out. The
move of God there was real and
Barnabas needed help in teaching
and discipling new converts.
Jerusalem was a long way away,
but Tarsus was much closer -- and
that was where Saul lived. So
Barnabas went to Tarsus to get
him, and together they ministered
in Antioch for quite some
time. Then
the church at Antioch then sent
Barnabas and Saul out on the
first missionary journey. Saul,
who took his Greek name, Paul,
became the apostle to the
Gentiles -- and the most prolific
writer of the New
Testament. Without
the exhortation and encouragement
of Barnabas we may have never
heard of Paul! Later
on we find a conflict with Paul
and Barnabas over John Mark in
Acts 15:36-40: Barnabas
wanted to take John, also
called Mark, with them, but
Paul did not think it wise to
take him, because he had
deserted them in Pamphylia and
had not continued with them in
the work. They had such a
sharp disagreement that they
parted company. Barnabas took
Mark and sailed for Cyprus,
but Paul chose Silas and left,
commended by the brothers to
the grace of the Lord.
Paul
was ready to write John Mark off,
but Barnabas took him in,
nurtured him, encouraged him, and
brought out the best in him for
the Kingdom. John
Mark was later restored to Paul's
confidence, we learn in
2
Timothy
4:11.
And most scholars agree that this
same John Mark most likely wrote
the Gospel of Mark. If not for
Barnabas, the "Son of
Encouragement," we might not have
Mark's gospel. Was
Barnabas a great man of God,
mighty in the Kingdom? He most
certainly was. He had the
spiritual enablement of
exhortation, a key gift that God
used to raise up two men who
wrote much of the New
Testament. For
years a British statesman named
William
Wilberforce
pushed Britain's Parliament to
abolish slavery. But his efforts
seemed to be going nowhere.
Discouraged, he was about to give
up. His
elderly friend, John Wesley,
heard of it and from his deathbed
called for pen and paper. With
trembling hand, Mr. Wesley
wrote: John
Wesley died six days later. But
William Wilberforce fought for 45
more years and in 1833, three
days before his own death,
Wilberforce saw slavery abolished
in Britain. Many believe his
efforts saved Britain from the
kind of internal struggle that
nearly destroyed America two
decades years later. One
more example -- a personal one.
In 1986, not long after I became
a pastor, I was preaching at a
series of revival services at
small Methodist church not far
from here. And I preached my
heart out. Of
course, in those days I just knew
I was going to be the next Billy
Graham. I just knew that when I
preached, people were going to
throng to the altar. Well, I
preached -- and no one came
forward. On
the second or third night of that
revival, I noticed a
distinguished-looking gentleman
sitting near the back. He
listened attentively all through
the service. And when I gave the
invitation, he got up and came to
the altar. I
knelt to pray with him, and he
said to me, "Young man, my name
is Joe Black and I'm a retired
Methodist preacher. I don't need
to be saved, but I just feel like
the kind of preaching you did
tonight deserves a
response." Then
he stood and faced the
congregation and began to exhort
them about the things of
God. The
next day, he wrote me a letter --
and here's what it
said: Dear
Brother
Jerry, Your
brother, Joe
Black, by the way, was the
grandfather of our lay leader
here at Gateway, Joseph Slife.
And I must confess that that
letter helped me get Joseph to
join this church! Friends,
that bit of encouragement, that
exhortation, was just what I
needed. I
still have that letter. I keep it
in my desk drawer. I know exactly
where it is. On days when I'm
feeling really discouraged, I get
it out and read it. And those
words of exhortation speak to me
again, giving me the
encouragement to press on in
Christ, doing the thing God has
called me to do. Exhortation
is a critical gift in the church.
It is critical in corporate
worship. We need exhorters among
us, people who come alongside and
urge us to keep going, so that
individually and corporately we
can become all God intends us to
be.
Gateway
Church gathers
for worship
Sundays
at 10:30 a.m.
(Hwy. 129) in Athens,
Georgia.
Ministry
of the
Word:
Recent
sermons
Our quarterly e-magazine
Gateway
Today
For the Gateway family
Pastor
Jerry's Weekly
E-Mail
The
gift of
exhortation
(Seventh
in the series,
Spiritual Gifts in Corporate
Worship)
Gateway
Church,
Athens GA
If a man's gift is
prophesying, let him use it in
proportion to his faith. If it is
serving, let him serve; if it is
teaching, let him teach; if it is
encouraging, let him encourage;
if it is contributing to the
needs of others, let him give
generously; if it is leadership,
let him govern diligently; if it
is showing mercy, let him do it
cheerfully.
(Romans
12:6-8)
Sermons
in
this
series
These
words come from the same Greek
root word as paraclete,
which is the word used to
describe the Holy Spirit.
Paraclete is translated:
"counselor," "comforter,"
"advocate," "helper,"
"intercessor," "strengthener,"
"standby," or
"encourager."
Again,
notice that there's a sense of
insistence in these definitions.
And listen to these synonyms for
the word "exhort": "prompt,"
"stimulate," "motivate," "prod,"
"stir up," "urge," "spur on,"
"rouse," "inspire," "excite,"
"push," "drive," "propel,"
"impel," "goad," incite,"
"provoke," "kick-start," "light a
fire under."
Coming
alongside
Characteristics
of an exhorter
First,
a person with this gift is
motivated to see others reach
their potential, even to the
point of making us uncomfortable
with their pointed questions. The
exhorter wants to know what we're
doing to promote our own
spiritual growth.
Lesson
from a mule
He started shoveling in dirt. At
first the mule was real panicky,
but then a thought to himself --
you probably didn't know mules
could think, but at least the one
in this story does -- anyway, he
thought to himself: "Just shake
it off and step on it." So that
what he did -- over and over
again.
Understanding
exhorters
First,
exhorters -- because they often
see clearly the steps you need to
take to address your problem --
may come across as
oversimplifying the situation. In
fact, you might reject the advice
of an exhorter because it seems
too simple and straightforward.
Most of us tend to see our
problems as difficult and
complex, and think they can't be
solved by a simple "1, 2, 3"
solution.
The
gift in action
A
biblical exampleJoseph,
a Levite from Cyprus, whom the
apostles called Barnabas
(which means Son of
Encouragement), sold a field
he owned and brought the money
and put it at the apostles'
feet.
When
he came to Jerusalem,
[Saul] tried to join
the disciples, but they were
all afraid of him, not
believing that he really was a
disciple. But Barnabas took
him and brought him to the
apostles. He told them how
Saul on his journey had seen
the Lord and that the Lord had
spoken to him, and how in
Damascus he had preached
fearlessly in the name of
Jesus.
Some
time later Paul said to
Barnabas, "Let us go back and
visit the brothers in all the
towns where we preached the
word of the Lord and see how
they are doing."
An
example from
history"Unless
God has raised you up for this
very thing, you will be worn
out by the opposition of men
and devils. But if God be for
you, who can be against you?
Are all of them stronger than
God? Oh be not weary of
well-doing! Go on, in the name
of God and in the power of his
might, till even American
slavery... shall vanish away
before it."
A
personal example
Thank
you for your very
good and very right
sermon yesterday
evening. It did me so
much good that I had
to exhort a bit. Hope
you didn't
mind.
That's
the way we used to
preach, back in the
days of my youth, and
people were converted
by it.... More
recently, we have
tried to educate
people, and we have
lost more than we
have
gained....
Keep
up that kind of
preaching. Don't
worry about anything
superficial. Just
keep that up and the
Lord will honor
you.
Joe Black
An
audio tape of this sermon is
available
free of charge (U.S. requests
only).
Request
a tape by calling
or writing the Gateway Church
office.
Please specify tape number
020714a: Spiritual Gifts in
Corporate Worship, part
7.
©
2002 Gerald R.
Varnado