16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and
by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your
hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
- 2 Thes 2:16-17, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
From time to time it is useful to remind ourselves of where we are in the church year. I’d like to begin by doing that...
In just a couple of Sundays (December 2) we will begin the Advent season. Advent marks the beginning of a new "church year" (as opposed to a calendar year) and is a time of preparation before we celebrate the single greatest event in the history of the world: the birth of Jesus Christ.
For the last two weeks, today, and continuing through next Sunday, we are in that final period of the church year when we consider what the Bible has to say about the "end times." Each of these four Sundays has a general theme in common, yet each Sunday also has its own distinct focus.
The particular emphasis today reminds us that there exists in heaven a group of people who "from their labors rest." We refer to them as "Saints Triumphant," and the older we get the more of them we know. Those who have gone before us to heaven – whether they be figures from the Bible, Church history or our own loved ones – remind us of what we have to look forward to, and serve as our models as we continue "to fight the good fight" and "run the race" of faith...
However, "Saints Triumphant" is not made up only of those who are in heaven; it also encompasses the faithful who are yet on earth. Which means us. We, the living, are a part of this gathering of past and present believers known as "Saints Triumphant." This is a grand and glorious fact, and a blessed truth we’d like to concentrate on this morning...
But I wonder if there are days when we don’t feel like saints triumphant... Days when we feel whipped or weary or worried or anything but triumphant... Days when we might better be described as Saints Defeated or Saints Overwhelmed or Saints Preoccupied...
For any of us who have ever felt this way, our text for today is a message of encouragement. It is a message that tells us we can be comforted and strengthened and victorious even in the midst of the trials and uncertainties of life. Today we’d like to talk about how we can spend our time on this earth
"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." Let’s zero in on a word used twice by Paul, first as a noun and then as a verb – "encouragement" and "encourage." We’ll start with a definition. To be "encouraged" means to be strengthened or comforted or given the courage to face whatever it is in our lives that needs to be faced...
In the original Greek, the word we render "encouragement" is really a combination of two words, which, roughly translated, means "to call alongside." The word picture is of one (the "encourager") who calls another brother or sister (the "discouraged") to the side and then tenderly comforts them with uplifting words.
The reason people need to be encouraged in the first place is because people can easily become discouraged. If encouraged means to give courage or confidence, to be discouraged means to have one’s courage or confidence taken away. And people can and do become discouraged.
Even Christians? Even Christians. Even strong believers who have grown up in the church and believe the hundreds of promises that God has given us in His Word? Yes. In fact, some of the strongest and most towering figures of faith in the Bible at times got discouraged...
Take Moses, for example. Here was a man who personally hand-picked and equipped by God to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt – something they had been praying about for literally centuries. And Moses did his job. But the Israelites turned out to be a tough and ungrateful bunch to lead. Every time they faced a crisis or hardship they blamed Moses and threw their situation in his face. "Why did you take us here, Moses? We were much better off in Egypt..."
After years of this, Scripture tells us that at one point Moses finally breaks. He says to the Lord that the burden is too great and the way is too hard and that if he had found any favor whatsoever in His eyes, would God please (I’m paraphrasing here) take him out to the back forty and put him out of his misery. The great Moses became discouraged.
Or what about the great prophet Elijah? You know, Elijah who took on the prophets of Baal in a contest to see whose god/God was greater? Elijah, the man of God who did not even taste death but was swept up into heaven by a whirlwind accompanied by a chariot and horses of fire? Scripture records for us that he, too, got so discouraged at one time that he asked God to just take him. He’d had it. He was ready to throw in the towel. The great Elijah was discouraged...
I cite these two examples to put to rest a fallacy we sometimes hear in our circles. To deny that God’s people ever get discouraged or to suggest that "real believers" are always "up" and never lose heart is simply wrong. Discouragement comes along with the weakness of our sinful flesh and it happens to people. Even Christians. And I would guess that somewhere along the line it has gotten a hold of each of us here today.
Think about it. What are some of the things that cause us to become discouraged? Maybe it’s world events. The thought occurred to me that not a single day has gone by since September 11 without some reference to September 11. Maybe it’s become almost numbing in its repetition, but at the same time maybe we don’t fully comprehend the impact it has had on us – as a nation and as individuals. And if it hasn’t affected us personally, it certainly has countless others...
Or maybe it’s things pertaining to our daily life that gets us down. Maybe we feel financial pressures. Maybe we’re dealing with health matters. Maybe our jobs knowingly or unknowingly have gotten us into a rut. Maybe we’re struggling with family matters or strained relationships. Maybe we’re still hurting from the pain of a loss. All these things individually or cumulatively can get us down.
Or maybe it’s our spiritual lives. We struggle with living our Christianity. We fall into the same old sins and same old patterns and we disgusted with ourselves. We let opportunities to witness go by the boards and that bothers us. We know well from our own personal experience the words of St. Paul, "The good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do..." And we get down on ourselves for not being better and stronger Christians...
The point: There are lots of things which can cause us to become discouraged; to face the future not with confidence, but dread. In fact, if we wanted to, we could easily go through life in a constant state of discouragement and unhappiness, chronically feeling beaten, battered, deprived and afraid...
But is that what God intended His Children to be? A group of dejected, beaten and unhappy people? Is that the kind of witness to the world that He wants from us? Are we to be recognized and spotted only by certain negative, identifiable features ("Hey honey, see that person over there with the slumped shoulders and frown? Must be a Christian")?
Of course not. And that’s not the way it has to be, because the fact of the matter is that, even though there may be causes of discouragement, there are more and greater reasons for encouragement. Reasons which lift us out of the slough of despond and catapult us out of the pit of despair and give us just cause to be happy and fulfilled; reasons which can and will allow us to live as what we are through Jesus Christ: Saints Triumphant.
And all these reasons for triumphant living are connected to one great characteristic of God mentioned in our text for today: His amazing grace. Listen again to Paul’s words to us: "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."
Paul links any and all encouragement we have for this life and the life to come with God’s grace. What exactly do we mean by this term? Grace is the free, unmerited, unexpected love of God, and all the benefits, delights, and comforts which flow from it. Grace means that while we are undeserving because of our sinfulness, we have nevertheless been treated as God’s children, and are now heirs of eternal salvation.
The pinnacle of God’s grace to us can be summed up in two words: Jesus Christ. Paul put it this way in his second letter to the Corinthians: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." Our richness and our treasure and our source of present and eternal encouragement is found exclusively in the forgiveness of our sins. And the forgiveness of our sins is tied exclusively to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – whom we, by God’s grace, know to be our Savior.
And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is not just a pie-in-the-sky kind of deal that only kicks in at death. It fortifies us now. It is an ongoing reality in our lives. God’s grace permeates every second of every minute of every hour of our existence. Each day for us as Christians is a new day of God’s amazing grace. Each day we live with the promise of God that not a single hair of our head falls to the ground without His permission.
And that grace "encourages our hearts and strengthens us." That grace allows us to stave off and ultimately defeat the times of discouragement that inevitably creep into our lives. That grace allows us to live as Saints Triumphant. Because that is what we are.
I’d like to bring our thoughts to a close by telling you of a fellow triumphant saint, now in heaven, but who lived on this earth for about 70 years during the 1600’s. He is, for good reason, considered to be the greatest of the Lutheran hymn-writers. His name was Paul Gerhardt.
Beneath a life sized painting of him that hangs in a Lutheran Church in Luebden, Germany is the inscription: "A divine [clergyman] sifted in Satan’s sieve." That inscription is said to pretty well summarize Paul Gerhardt’s life. Without getting into detail, it’s enough to say that his life was marked by personal loss and hardship, including the death of his wife and four of five children. He endured much. Yet he always kept his focus on the cross – and despite his difficulties lived as a Saint Triumphant.
One of the hymns he wrote (and still sing today) is entitled, "If God Himself Be for Me." Allow me to end this morning with the first and last verse. These are the words of every triumphant saint who is encouraged by God’s grace and fortified by the knowledge of Jesus Christ, regardless of whatever else is going on. Which makes them our words...
If God himself be for me, I may a host defy
For when I pray, before me My foes, confounded, fly.
If Christ, my head and master, Befriends me from above,
What foe or what disaster Can drive me from his love?
My heart for joy is springing And can no more be sad
‘Tis full of joy and singing, Sees only sunshine glad
The sun that cheers my spirit Is Jesus Christ, my King;
The heav’n I shall inherit Makes me rejoice and sing...
And it does the same for us. Because we are Saints Triumphant. Amen.