Encourage One Another

The message given in the Wednesday night Lent service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on March 1, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Hebrews 3:12-19.

            It’s not easy to be a Christian these days.  Society in general does not hold Christianity in very high regard.  We may not notice it here, living in a small town in north-central South Dakota.  But we see it when we watch the news.  And while we can pretend that it does not affect us here, it does.

            But you know, things were not that different for the early Christians.  In fact, things were worse.  They were subject to persecution.  They were subject to ridicule.  Things were not easy at all for the early Christians.

            And in fact, you could make the argument that things are not supposed to be easy for Christians.  A lot of the things Jesus told us to do go against our instinctive human nature.  We talked about some of them last Sunday.  “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gauge it out and throw it away.”  “If anyone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.”  “If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.”  “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”  “Treat others the way you want them to treat you.”  No matter what the circumstances are, it’s not easy to live the life of a Christian.

            In our reading for tonight, the letter to the Hebrews gives us some encouragement to live that life.  Our reading starts this way:  “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

            Let’s look at that, because there’s a lot in it.  First of all, it gives us, as Christians, responsibility for each other.  “See to it…that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart.”  Don’t just see to it that you, personally don’t have a sinful, unbelieving heart.  See to it that none of you does.  Each of us is called to do whatever we can to make sure that none of the Christians around us drifts away.  We are responsible for each other’s faith.

            Now, I’m not saying that my lack of faith in Jesus can keep you out of heaven.  We’re responsible for ourselves, too.  But the point is that, as Christians, we need to keep an eye on the faith of our fellow believers.  If we see someone starting to waver, if we see someone starting to slip, we should not just sit back and allow it to happen.  We need to do something.  Not in a judgmental way, but in a loving way.  In an encouraging way.  And it’s not enough to just do this when we happen to notice it.  We need to pay attention to how others are doing, so we can step in and provide that love and encouragement.

            That’s not something that comes naturally to us.  We tend to think of faith as a private thing.  We don’t ask other people about their faith.  And I’m as guilty of that as anyone.  I mean, because I’m a pastor, once in a while someone will initiate a conversation about faith, and I’m happy to have that conversation.  But I don’t initiate it myself.  

It's just not something we do.  We don’t ask people how their faith is.  We don’t even ask, as John Wesley used to do, “How is it with your soul today?”  The closest we get is to say, “How’s it going?”  To which, nine times out of ten, people will respond “Fine”.  And on those rare occasions when someone really does tell us how it’s going, we’re kind of stunned.  We don’t know what to say.

But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.  Faith is not supposed to be a private thing.  Faith is supposed to be a public thing.  We’re supposed to talk about our faith.  We’re especially supposed to talk about faith with our brothers and sisters in faith.  

And in fact, we’re not just supposed to do that, we need to do it.  And we need others to do it with us.  Because, what’s the next thing the letter says?  It says we are to encourage each other daily, as long as it is called “Today”.

We need that.  We need to encourage each other.  But not just encourage each other in our daily lives.  We need to encourage each other in our faith.  Because, again, our society, our popular culture, discourage us in our faith.  Our popular culture mocks and makes fun of God.  Oh, they might, sometimes, pay lip service to the idea of serving God.  But even that is becoming less prevalent than it used to be, and usually it’s used to further some sort of political agenda.  Let someone actually take their faith seriously, let them actually go public with their faith, and see what happens.  They’re criticized if not totally ostracized.  And the rest of us see that, and it can make us even more reluctant to go public with our faith.

We need to encourage each other in our faith.  We need to support each other in our faith.  We need to be vocal about our faith with each other.  Not just assume that everyone is “fine”, but really encourage each other in our faith.  We need to know that, no matter what the popular culture says, we are there for each other and we can trust God to be there for us, too.

And look at the reason our reading gives for this.  We need to encourage each other “so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Sin’s deceitfulness is out there.  It’s everywhere.  Again, it’s all over the popular culture.  And it can look very appealing to us.  If it did not, we would not be tempted by it.  

And one of the things that makes sin’s deceitfulness so appealing, and so tempting, is that we see people who are going along with sin appearing to succeed.  And not only do they appear to succeed, they get praised by society.  They’re held up as role models for us to look up to and to try to be like.

It is really tempting for us to, as they say, “go along to get along”.  If we see people of faith being mocked and criticized, and we see people who appear not to have faith lauded and rewarded, what are we tempted to do?  We’re tempted to go along with the behaviors that are rewarded.  We might not agree with them, but we keep our disagreement to ourselves.  Again, we keep our faith private, rather than being public about it.  And by keeping our faith private, we make it more likely that others–even our brothers and sisters in Christ–will fall for sin’s deceitfulness.  They won’t know that we disagree privately.  All they’ll see is that we’re going along with it publicly.

Again, we need to encourage each other.  We need to encourage our fellow believers.  We need to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ.  And we need them to encourage us, too.  If we don’t, we may all fall for sin’s deceitfulness.

Our reading says that we have come to share in Christ, “if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.”  That’s one of our goals as Christians–to stay firm in our faith until the very end.  To resist sin’s deceitfulness.  To not have the sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

But as we said at the beginning, that’s not easy.  It never has been easy.  It’s not supposed to be easy.  It takes courage.  It takes determination.  It takes perseverance.  It takes reliance on God, of course.  But it also takes reliance on others.  Those of us in the church, those of us who are believers in Christ, need to encourage each other to stay strong in our faith.  If we do, it’s much more likely that we will all stay firm in our faith.  If we don’t, it’s much more likely that some of us–maybe all of us–will drift away.

This is the period of Lent.  It’s a time when we try to draw closer to God.  Receiving encouragement from others to keep our faith strong will bring us closer to God.  And giving encouragement to others will keep their faith strong and bring them closer to God.  And if all of God’s people are closer to God, we might be able to bring others closer to God, too.  

It is not easy to be a Christian.  But it is worth it.  No matter how appealing sin’s deceitfulness may be, we have a reward that is greater.  If we hold our original conviction, our faith in Jesus Christ, firmly to the end, we will have salvation and eternal life.  And there can be nothing on earth that is better than that.

So let’s be more vocal about our faith.  Let’s be more public about our faith.  Let’s encourage each other and support each other.  Let’s resist sin’s deceitfulness and hold firm to our faith.  Let’s do all we can to make sure we all share in that reward of salvation and eternal life.