Gracious God, we are so thankful to you for your encouragement of every one of us to be more like your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for your word which is a treasure to us. It is more delicious than honey and more precious and valuable than gold itself. As we read your word and as we study it and reflect upon it in these moments together, we pray that you would indeed change us. That you would encourage us, that you would relieve us, reminding us how much you love us, for we are your people. Speak, O Lord, for your servants, listen, amen. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 17, hear the word of God. But brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time in person, not in thought. Out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you, certainly I called you again and again, the Satan stopped us. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy. So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves and Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker, in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted and it turned out that way, you will know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I was sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the Timter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless. But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us just as we also long to see you. Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution, we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now, we really live since you are standing firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you and return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day, we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking your faith. Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else just as ours does for you. May He strengthen your heart so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones. Old men are like grass and all their glorious like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. Some of you football fans who remember back in the 60s during the days of the Great Green Bay Packers years, a guard who was one of the best guards in the game named Jerry Kramer. Jerry Kramer describes the first time he went out to practice under the famous Vince Lombardi. He said that during practice he was told how slow he was, how weak he was and how stupid he was and he said he went back in the locker room after that practice and he just hung his head between his legs and over his muddy cleats and he was determining what he was going to do for a living after he equipped football. He said just at that moment the great coach Lombardi walked by his locker, must up his hair and said son you're going to be one of the greatest guards in the history of the game. Kramer said everything completely changed at that moment. He said I felt 10 feet tall and I was absolutely determined to be one of the best guards we ever played the game and he was. Isn't it amazing what one sentence can do to change a life? Every single one of you here this morning you think back in your personal history and you think of the people who have meant the most to you and you think about how they've affected your lives and every one of us will come up with those sentences I have them in my own mind. Things that I wouldn't have time to tell you about how this man or that woman and they usually were the older ones who you didn't expect to even notice you. Who picked you out and said something about you almost is like a prophecy uttered into your life. It calls something out of you that you didn't even know was there. They noticed it they saw it and they could foresee how it would play out in time. It's an amazing thing. When someone begins to grasp the power of the tongue we begin to believe what Solomon said about it. It's the very fount of life and the tongue holds the power of life and death. It can speak a life into people and it can also cut people off at the knees. It's an amazing thing the power of encouragement. I want you to notice as the apostle was dealing with his fledgling church with these baby Christians one of the things that he was determined to do was to pour life into them through encouragement. I would like for you to look for just a moment at these verses. We're going to scan them very quickly and look at the strategy of the apostle Paul. The problem the apostle had was that the false apostles and the teachers of other religion were saying to the new Christians in Thessalonica they were saying look at your apostle. There he goes. This is what's called a drive by evangelism. He just preaches a little bit, sees the church come up and then he hits it now down. He's never coming back. He didn't care about you. He just wants your money. He's just like all the other philosophers. That's what was being said about the apostle in city after city. He was not so much concerned about his own personal reputation as he was the reputation of the gospel and of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if an apostle of Christ did act that way, what does that say about Christ himself? So the apostle in his longing for them to be more like Christ look at his strategy and what he does here. You'll see in verses 17 and 18 the first thing he does is to explain to them that they are truly on his heart. Yes, he's absent from them, but in verse 17 he says it's because I was torn away from you. I was ripped out of Thessalonica. And he wants. He reminds them that he was driven out and then he says to them in the second part of verse 17 that he wanted to return to them. He says within tense longing, they are part of the passion of his heart. They are on his heart and he wants to be sure that they know it. And he said, you want to know why I didn't come back? Devil made me do it. Satan stopped me. It was a devious wicked plot to keep me from coming back to you. You do realize we're in spiritual warfare that my heart longs to be with you, but I had impediments, spiritual impediments, and getting there. What's he doing? He's saying to them, you're on my heart. My dear friends, those of you who are parents, you need to keep reminding your children you are on my heart. Some of your children are up and out and they're around various parts of the country and all over the world. You need to remind them, you're on my heart. I love you. Some of your parents are back in the old homestead. You need to remind them they're on your heart. You need to encourage them. Some of you may have people who doubt your own motives and wonder about some of the things you may have done in your life. You need to remind them. Look, no matter what it may look like to you. Let me tell you something. You're on my heart. Look at the second strategy. In verses 19 and 20, they were not only on his heart, they were in his boasting. He says to them, look at this. In verse 19, this is very unusual kind of language. He says, you're my hope, my joy, my crown in which I will glory in the presence of Jesus Christ and that you are the glory and joy of the apostles. Now, difference, what makes this so unusual is that the apostle Paul says to the Galatians, man, never boasting anything except the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. And here he's boasting in people. Why? He is reminding them that their very existence as a church is because they are a fruit of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, so that in boasting about them, he is boasting about him. He is saying, do you see how integrally related you are to Jesus Christ? When I brag on you, I'm bragging about him. And he does give back to them the things that he sees in their lives. They are his crown, his joy, his glory. And I know that anyone who pastors or leads a flock knows exactly what the apostle is talking about, the joy, the glory of seeing God working his people that are on your heart. And so he boasts in them. Have you been boasting in someone lately? Not just because you are proud that you know them, but you are proud of them because of what Christ is doing in them. Have you boasted in someone this week? Would you boast in somebody today or tomorrow? Find someone to brag about that I see Christ in you and this is why? And that makes you a joy and a glory to me. They notice thirdly, not only are they on his heart and in his boasting, but they are in his plan. He is saying this cosmic plan to redeem a people from all nations and all tribes and languages, you are part of it and I'm sending Timothy to you. He says in verses 1 through 5, I'm sending this one who is an excellent to legate, a wonderful delegate and he's going to come to strengthen and encourage you and he's going to come to inquire after you. So he's going to come to encourage and to inquire because you are important. If you weren't important, we wouldn't ask any questions about your spiritual life, but you're important to God. You are part of the crown and so therefore we're going to examine you and that's what pastors and elders are supposed to do. Examine you. They're supposed to ask you questions. How is your spiritual life and you know what you're supposed to think? Why is he sticking his nose into my business? No, you're not supposed to take that. That's what a lot of people think. You're supposed to think, why? I must be fairly important to God. He's sending me an elder just to inquire about my spiritual life. And so the apostle says, you are in God's plan. We are encouraging you, strengthening you and inquiring about you and then you'll see he rejoices in the report that he gets back in verses 6 through 9. He rejoices at the report. Timothy brings back why? Because he sees that they're persevering under persecution. And they also remember their their apostle finally and he said, that rejoices my heart. The thing that the apostle is doing, he's building that relationship and he's especially acting as a cupid to encourage them to be more like Jesus Christ. He said, you are truly God's people. Look at you. You are persevering in the faith when there's every worldly reason to give up. And he's saying, this is something divine amidst you and I rejoice in it. And then fourthly, not only were they on his heart and in his boasting and in his plan, but so significantly they were in his prayers, verses 10 and following to the end of chapter. And how was he praying? He was first of all, he was telling them what he prays for. He said, I want you to know that I love you so much. I'm praying that I can get back there. I want to be with you. Secondly, I'm praying that you all will love each other more and more, that you all will encourage and strengthen each other, that you will study love itself, which is so profound and unnatural to the following human being. I'm praying that you'll learn more and more of how you've been loved by Christ and therefore how you can love other people. And then thirdly, I'm praying for your holiness to have bound so much so that when you see Christ on the last day, you'll recognize you as one of his saints. And he prays in for their consecration, for the becoming more like Jesus Christ. Now, if we take this strategy for just a moment and let's think about how we can put it into practice. How can we take this role of the Apostle? You see, this doesn't take a rocket scientist. This doesn't even take an apostle to do. You can be a brand new Christian and do this. What does it take? It takes someone who is committed to the word of God and committed to the people of God. Why do I say that? Because encouragement is not flattery. It is not taking something untrue about a person that's positive and telling them it's true. My, Ms. Williams, what a lovely hat you have on the day. I think it really stinks. I had a lovely hat. Why don't we pat each other on the back and flatter each other, telling each other lies? Is it because we really want someone to feel better or is it because we want them to like us more? Flattery is a form of manipulation. Encouragement is not flattery. Neither is spiritual encouragement simply saying something true about someone that's positive. My, what a lovely dress you have on that really is a lovely dress. Well, that is encouraging. But Christian encouragement has to do particularly with positive things that you see in another person that it causes them to want to be more like Jesus Christ, which is something like this. You know, I heard what you said to Jane the other day. And I know it was a difficult moment for her, but you lifted her spirits. What did I just do? I encouraged you about your encouragement of another person. Or I saw you in a very tempting situation. And I want you to know I saw how you handled that and learned so much from the way you handled it. I'm telling something true about you that inflames your passion to be more like Jesus Christ. Isn't it amazing what words can do? Back in 1996, in the Masters, it looked like it was a no-brainer at the end of the Saturday because Greg Norman was six strokes ahead. Do you remember that back in 1996? And they were ready to give him his green jacket. It was just a matter of time. All they had to do just kind of slide through in the decent score. He was six strokes ahead of Nick Fowldo. On Sunday, Nick Fowldo shot a 67 and Greg Norman shot a 78 and lost to the shame of Greg Norman. And of course, it splattered everywhere all over the papers. What happened after that was most unusual. Greg Norman said that he got four times as much mail as he did when he won the 1993 British Open. And his wife tells that through the receipt of all that encouraging mail, he really developed an entirely new perspective about the meaning of W's and L's, wins and losses. And he realized you know what? Love from other people is far more important than even winning the Masters. Isn't it amazing that in your most difficult moment, words of encouragement can be so powerful in our lives? So how can we do this? We are to look at one another and know each other well enough to call out of each other those things that we see where the Lord is working in our lives. Secondly, when we see needs in each other's lives, we are to take the word of God to which we are committed and bring that word is a healing word to people. You know, the problem say that the tongue of a righteous man is a healing instrument. It heals, it restores. It announces forgiveness to each other. Don't we need to encourage each other? There were all a bunch of lousy sinners that there's nobody here who's cut off because they committed some horrible, terrible, no good sin. Haven't we all done it? Doesn't encourage one another when we say you know what? I'm in this with you and I found the grace of Christ sufficient for me and it'll be sufficient for you to come on. You can do it. I've had people through the years loads of people do this for me. So it's finding the positive and calling it out and encouraging someone to be more like Jesus Christ. It's finding the need and filling it with the love and the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. And some of you know that that encouragement comes even without words, especially those of you who are still in the midst of your grief and having lost someone that you love so dearly. What encourages you? Is it not someone that you know loves you who just sits with you, who just gives you their presence and without a word they're announcing the word of love to you and encouraging you in Christ indeed it is. Now I want you to notice the encouragement comes not only through words but through a life. Why do I say this? If you look at this text you will find that only was the apostle encouraging these baby Christians. But these baby Christians were encouraging the apostle Paul. You say how could that be? Paul is so great. It's such a powerful leader. What could a baby Christian do to encourage him? I'll tell you what they did. They live like Jesus Christ. And I know as a pastor if you want to know what encourages me more than anything and certainly that you folks are embarrassingly encouraging almost feel guilty for being so encouraged by you the words and the words of encouragement that you give to all of us on this staff are just phenomenal. But you know what's the most encouraging thing? A changed life that continues to change. That is the greatest encouragement. And the apostle Paul says you have encouraged me by your faith in the midst of persecution. You encourage me because you're persevering. And that was the greatest joy to him. His heart was abounding. So you know what encourages one another? We just simply live the Christian life. That is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your children and simply live the Christian life. The greatest gift you can give to your grandchildren will him like a Christian. Be completely committed to his word and be committed to his people. And that is the greatest encouragement that any of us could give to one another. It's amazing how powerful the gift of encouragement really is. Dear friends, the table that is set before us today is not a Presbyterian table. It's a table for all of God's people who trust in him, who have professed their faith in him and who have publicly joined his church as a community member. And why do we have this increment for encouragement? Why did Jesus give us bread and wine so that we can eat and drink and remember what he has done for us is doing for us and will one day finally and consummately do for us in taking us into his very presence. We gather the table to be encouraged, to be strengthened. So therefore let us so calm that we may indeed find rest, refreshment and encouragement to ourselves. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for so wondrously encouraging us by your word and spirit and by the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Help us this day to take the encouragement you give and to believe it, to receive it, to take it in, to believe that you love us this much, that you would indeed lay our sins on the very body and soul of Jesus Christ your perfect son. Help us to believe it and then believe it to be strengthened, to become more like him and to lay down our lives for you. This we pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.