Encourage One Another Series

Parakaleo, Encouraging One Another

One Another week 4

OKAY – welcome to week 4 of our series, “One Another, Doing Church Together.”

UNDERSTAND IN - Matthew chapter 16 Jesus made a very bold prediction…

On this rock (on this truth that I am, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God… on Me, on who I AM…

I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. – Matthew 16:18

REMEMBER… church has nothing to do with geography, a place or a building and everything to do with a people.

Jesus did not predict a place, He predicted a people.

A people who would flourish, expand, and keep pressing forward to every corner of the world.

I pray… for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

– John 17:20,21

AGAIN – Jesus didn’t pray that we would…

• Build great buildings

• Preach great messages

• Have great worship

• Do great things

INSTEAD – Jesus simply and desperately prayed that we would be one and brought to complete unity.

BECAUSE - Jesus knows that the entire deal… that the spread of the Gospel and the redemption of mankind depends on us His followers having relationships that are remarkably different than those in the world….

BY THIS – (how we love one another, how we one another one another)… BY THIS – all people will know that we are His disciples!

GET IT?

MG – that is why we are doing this series.

AND LISTEN…

The way we ‘flesh out’ this command (to love one another ‘just as’ Jesus loves us?) in our everyday lives is…

The way we become and answer to Jesus’ prayer (so that the world will believe in Jesus and find life in Him is…

IS BY – obeying, embracing… IS BY – living out…

The ONEanothering commands that we find scattered throughout the New Testament.

NOW – so far we have looked at

• The Fellowship Of The King, Carrying One Another’s Burdens

• Seventy Times Seven, Forgiving One Another

QUESTION…

DO YOU THINK…

THAT IF - everyone one of us in this room.

THAT IF – everyone who is part of this Jesus-Gathering called MGCC, would have the attitude of Christ, and actually and actively forgave one another and carried one another’s burdens…

THAT - it would help us create a community that people would want to be a part of?

NOW THIS MORNING – we are going to unpack a conversation called, “Parakaleo, Encouraging One Another.”

AND – here is how I want to attack this conversation…

BY – answering 2 questions inregards to encouraging one another…

• Why should we encourage one another?

• How do we encourage one another?

NOW IN - the New Testament, the word most often translated as “encouragement” is parakaleo.

This term comes from two Greek words: para, meaning “alongside of,” and kaleo, meaning “to call forth.”

UNDERSTAND - when people come alongside of us during difficult times to call forth in us…

A renewed courage, a renewed spirit, a renewed hope—that’s encouragement.

NOW – the word Parakaleo, was often used to describe speeches that leaders would give to urge fearful and hesitant soldiers to keep pressing on confidently into battle.

Wallace: Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace.

Young soldier: William Wallace is 7 feet tall.

Wallace: Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds, and if he were here he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes... I AM William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What would you do with that freedom? Will you fight?

Veteran soldier: Fight? Against that? No, we will run; and we will live.

Wallace: Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!!!

Wallace and Soldiers: Alba gu bra! (Scotland forever!)

Parakaleo – to come alongside and call forth courage…

AND LISTEN – even our English word carries that very same idea…En-Courage – putting courage into another person…

I. Why Should We Encourage One Another? (because…)

a) The Triune God is all about encouragement

UNDERSTAND – as you look through the Scripture you see that God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit are all about encouragement, are all about depositing courage into the hearts and lives of people.