God is a God of grace and mercy and love and goodness and kindness to all of us.
And all of us who have been saved realize we were saved by the grace of God.
That means by His unmerited, that is, His undeserved love and favor toward us as a result of sending His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to the cross to die for our sin.
We realize we didn’t deserve that. That is a gift of His grace. We’re quick to understand that.
Sometimes we forget to realize that everything else that comes our way is also the result of God’s grace and love and mercy toward us.
You say, well, what about those difficult times, those times that we don’t like?
Well, sometimes those also are gifts of God’s goodness and love and mercy and grace toward us.
Now, we don’t realize why He sends them. We don’t particularly like it. We don’t like the nature of it.
We don’t like the timing of it. We don’t like anything about it.
And then as time goes by, we look back and realize God was just loving us.
He was preventing us from doing something that would erect our lives.
We were heading in a direction that God knew was not wise.
And so, even the difficult times, those times that we don’t understand are also oftentimes acts of His love and grace and mercy.
Well, certainly one of the ways that He expresses His grace toward us is in the fact that not only has He saved us, but He sent the Holy Spirit to seal us as a child of God forever, and to live on the inside of us and to live through us the life of Jesus Christ.
And so, one of the essentials of the Christian life is that you and I grow.
The scripture says that we are to desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby.
And so, He is, has enabled us to grow. He desires that we grow and He’s equipped us to grow.
And part of what’s involved in all that are His spiritual gifts.
That is, He has gifts and manifestations of those gifts, how they’re expressed, and He also has different ministries for us.
And the scripture tells us that the whole body of Christ needs the whole span of all of those gifts.
Now, there are 3 primary divisions of scripture that talk about the gifts, and one of them is in 1st Corinthians 12 that people understand primarily.
And then, of course, there is, um, the ministry gifts that Paul mentions in Ephesians chapter 4.
And then, of course, there is his chapter in Romans, Romans chapter 12, where he talks about the motivational gifts, and he names them there.
Now you say, well, what is a motivational gift?
Well, a motivational gift is that gift which is the drive within us.
That is, it is the underlying motivating reason that we do what we do.
Now, there are a number of those gifts. He’s mentioned 7 of them.
The gift of prophecy, righteous living.
Then is the gift of service, and the drive in the service gift is what? Meet a need.
And then there is the drive in the teaching gift, the gift of teaching. And what is that?
And that is to get knowledge out, the truth of knowledge.
And then comes what we’ll talk about today and that is the gift of exhortation.
And of course, then there’s the gift of giving, the gift of leadership or administration, and the gift of mercy.
Each one of those has an underlying driving, uh, facet to it.
Now, what I mean by drive is this.
All of us do what we do and respond to situations on the basis of that drive.
That is, that we are wired a certain way that God has wired us in order to help meet a particular need or facet of the body of Christ.
And in 1st Peter chapter 4, for example, and we read this every week on purpose because He makes it very, very clear what this is all about.
He says, as each one of us has received a special gift, one of these motivational gifts.
You may be gifted to do many things, and we’ve talked about the difference between a talent and a gift.
We’re talking about these spiritual gifts given to you at salvation.
He says, Each one has received a special gift, employ it, put it to work, for what reason?
Serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
The manifold grace of God are the various expressions of God’s grace in our life from salvation, all the rest.
And so, he says the reason he gives us these spiritual gifts is that you and I are to serve one another in the body of Christ.
And he says in the next verse, we’re to do it. He says we’re to do it how?
We’re to do it in the strength of Almighty God.
So God has gifted you as a believer, and He intends for you to exercise that gift.
It’s the underlying motivation for what you do. So, we come to the gift of exhortation.
And, uh, what are the characteristics?
Well, one of the primary characteristics of the gift of exhortation is this, and that is, that person is motivated, motivated to urge people to, listen, full spiritual growth.
What is it that drives the person with the gift of exhortation?
Above everything else, they desire to see other people grow in their spiritual life so that whatever they’re doing, whether they’re serving this person or whether they are giving here, whatever it might be, the underlying motivation of all of that is their desire to see people grow spiritually.
And of course, the scripture tells us that.
And in each one of these gifts, there’s some biblical character that best describes them. In prophecy, it was Peter.
In service, it was, uh, Timothy. In teaching, uh, it was Luke.
And now in, in, uh, exhortation, who do you think would be the best example of exhortation in the Bible?
Who would it be? Paul, absolutely.
Because all the way through his epistles, you will hear him saying things.
And, uh, what he’s really saying in essence, he is encouraging people to grow in their Christian life.
And here’s what he says, for example, just one verse in Colossians chapter 1, verse 28, he says, We proclaim Him, that is Christ, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ that is mature.
And so, verse after verse, scripture after scripture, chapter after chapter, epistle after epistle, what is he doing?
He is encouraging us to live a godly life and to walk in that life and to grow up in our Christian life and to be spiritually mature believers, because that’s the will of God for all of us.
The Bible speaks of, um, um, children.
For example, He says, My little children, these things I’ll write to you that you sin not.
And so, what is He saying?
We are all saved, born again, the Bible says, and we’re little children, so we must grow.
Many people are satisfied, it seems, that, uh, they just wanna be sure that they’re saved and they get into heaven, so they wanna get inside the salvation door and have somebody have God lock the door in, then they wanna just sort of live casually.
No, because it is the will of God that you and I grow up, and the gift of exhortation is committed to doing what?
The person they’re able to influence, the person they’re able to speak to, they’re always gonna have this innermost drive.
Whatever they’re saying, whatever they’re doing, whatever the relationship is to help that other person grow up spiritually and become the person God wants them to be and to be able to accomplish the things that God wants them to accomplish.
And so, when you think about that, you think about the fact that because they have that gift, they’re able to visualize.
Listen, a personal gift of exhortation can visualize for somebody else, they can visualize so accurately about what their possibilities are, what their potential is, and how God can work in their life.
And so, that is what drives them above everything else.
Now, it would be wonderful if every parent had that gift, if every parent was so committed, uh, to living before their children and to admonishing them and to encourage them to live a godly life and to grow up as a Christian by the time they’re, not by the time they’re 40, but by the time they’re 13, 14, 15, 16, they’re on their way to spiritual maturity.
And yet, oftentimes, parents wanna wait till they become teenagers or become 21 years of age or whatever it might be.
Listen, spiritual growth begins the moment you are saved and the more help you have, and the more instruction you have, the more good exhortation you have, what happens is you grow stronger more quickly.
The second characteristic is simply this, and that is the ability to see root problems in people.
That is, a person who has a gift of exhortation is able to quickly go to the root of the cause of the problem in that person’s life.
Sometimes it’s pride. Sometimes it’s selfishness. Sometimes it’s insecurity. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s control, whatever it might be.
All of us have those root issues in our life that need to be dealt with.
Now, as long as you’re willing to deal with them, God’ll expose them and He’ll take care of it, if you’re willing.
If you keep denying that you have a root problem and you just want to talk about it and you don’t want to deal with it and you say, Well, that’s not true of me.
Then what happens is you don’t, listen, you don’t ever deal with the root cause of the problem until you want to face the fact that you have one.
And so the exhorter, he especially or she wants to get to the root of the problem and they have a very discerning spirit to be able to discern what that is.
Now, once a person is able to understand what is the root cause, why do I act that way?
What is it about me? Why in this situation do I respond that way?
Why do I say these kind of things? Why is it that I’m rebellious over you?
Why is it I’m willing to give God some but not much? That is some root cause.
So what is that root cause? Sometimes, as we said, it can be pride. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s control.
Sometimes it’s selfishness. Times, you know, they’re different things.
And so, if you’re gonna get over it, if you’re gonna grow in your Christian life, and remember this, you can only grow, listen, you can only grow if you’re willing to hit one of those and then you say, I’m willing to deal with this.
You know what happens? Then you grow, and you, and you hit the next one.
You grow and you hit the next one.
The truth is, all of our Christian life, we are moving and growing. But here’s what happens.
When God brings something to your life, some root issue in your life, and you, and you, somebody either points it out and you recognize it’s there and you say, Yeah, I know that’s true.
I know that’s true, and you’re not willing to deal with it, that is as far as you grow.
This is why we’ve got spiritual pygmies in the church, and that is, they have what?
They have heard the truth, heard the truth, heard the truth, heard the truth.
That’s as far as they’re gonna grow, and what you have, you have a lot of people in church who do not know the Word of God, who are not growing in their Christian life, and they just wanna go to church and listen to sermons, but they don’t wanna change.
Imagine that, the awesome potential that every single believer has and you don’t want to change, and you don’t want to change simply because you’re not willing to deal with what God has brought to light in your life.
Root causes, every parent wants to get to the root cause of what causes their 13, 16, 17 year old to be rebellious.
Well, God wants to be able to bring forth the same thing in your life so that you can grow and be a responsible child of God.
And the person with the gift of exhortation, they know how to get to the root.
Now, if you want somebody to get to the root, you let one of those persons deal with you.
This doesn’t mean it’s gonna be hard and difficult necessarily, because the person who’s walking in the spirit who has a gift of exhortation knows how to approach a person.
And they’re not gonna walk up and say, I’ve been thinking about you and praying for you, and I’m gonna tell you, you have a root cause of bitterness.
They’re not gonna do that because, you know, that’s the end of the session when you do that.
That’s not the way to do it.
And we’ll talk about, uh, how, uh, people are misunderstood and also how they act when they get in the flesh.
That is, how does a person who is a, uh, an exhorter, when they get in the flesh, that’s what they do.
It wouldn’t be a matter of discernment. It’d be judgment. And so, that’s not the way we operate.
So a third thing is this, and that is that person wants to prescribe steps of action. Now watch this.
By steps of action, I mean what they’ll do is say, okay, here’s the root issue in your life we want to deal with.
Now the first thing you need to do, step 1. Then they’ll say, then step 2.
Or they may say, here’s step 1.
Now, when we talk about that for a while and we work on that, then we come back to step 2.
Somebody says, Well now, I don’t believe in all those steps.
Well, I’m here to tell you, the only way you got here this morning is step by step.
You got out of the bed, step 1.
And so the truth is in our thinking, in our process of how we, how we process ideas, we go by steps.
A person, for example, who comes to church, now watch this, come to church, no notes, no Bible, nothing, they just, it’s just a habit of going to church.
I’m not referring to guests who didn’t happen to bring their Bible in their notebook this morning.
But if you go to church all the time and you sit and you just listen to sermons and walk out, I’m telling you something.
You’re not gonna get far for the simple reason you have this conglomeration of knowledge. But you know what?
Step 1, step 2, what about the step? You say, Well, I go to church.
They don’t give me the steps. You need to change churches. I’m gonna tell you why.
Because if somebody, somebody can preach to you, preach to you, preach to you, preach you what you ought to do, what you ought to do, what you ought to not do, what you ought not to do, and never tell you how to do what you ought to do and how to stop doing what you’re doing, then what’s it all about?
Steps are very important. And sometimes I’ve given you 12 steps to 1, in 1 message or 14 or whatever it might be or 6 or 2 or whatever, because that’s the only way you grow.
You grow by understanding what the process is. How do I deal with it?
For example, if I said to you or you came to me and you said, Well now, you know, I have a very bitter spirit.
I know I have. How do I deal with this? If I just said, well, just forgive them.
You say, oh, I know, I know, I know what I mean. I’ve been trying to forgive them.
But if I said, now, first of all, step number 1, step number 2, step number 3.
Or if you said to me, Now I wanna learn how to study the Bible.
Well, I said, Just read it. Well, that’s not gonna answer the question.
And so what I want you to see is this.
There are precise steps in any situation, and the same thing is true in our spiritual life.
And what happens here is simply this. The gift of exhortation is very precise in giving steps.
That is, if you will take this step, if you’ll take that step, and they’re willing to get involved in your life to some degree.
Now, I’m not talking about necessarily some big counseling situation.
It could be a friend you work with or a friend at school or in your home, and you’re talking to your children.
You give them precise steps. And what happens is that’s how we grow.
We grow a little bite at a time.
If I said to a person who just been saved, now, well how do I live a Christian life?
Get filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
Well, that’s a pretty good size order, and naturally we wanna be filled with the Spirit and there are some people who understand salvation and the Holy Spirit is explained to them upon salvation, doesn’t take them very long.
Most of us didn’t get it that way.
And so, step by step by step, the person with the gift of exhortation is very precise in giving those steps and very insistent.
If you just wanna talk about it, the personal gift of exhortation’s not simply interested in hearing you say the same thing over again.
They wanna see some growth. They want you to grow.
And they’re doing the wisest thing they can do is to help you by giving steps.
And this is the reason oftentimes that I say, okay, step number 1. Step number 2, why?
If you write it down, you have a little map, you have a little traveling, uh, note here, and you say, well, I’m moving this step, that step, and this step.
And so what happens is that’s the way we grow.
We grow by learning this truth and this truth and this principle and that principle and one principle upon the other.
And after a while, God’s doing something awesome in your life. That’s what that person’s committed to.
Then, of course, uh, they like turning problems into real benefits in our life.
That’s the way they think, the person who has the gift of exhortation.
So therefore, they may say to you, well, I know you’re going through a bad time, but you know what?
This is really good. What do you mean it’s good? I’m hurtin’? I’m disorganized, my mind’s fragmented.
You tell me that’s good. That’s real good. Well, how can it be good?
Because you see, the gift of exhortation knows that if God has allowed you to get into this situation and you’re miserable, He or she knows that God’s working in your life.
And I said to some time, uh, a friend some time ago, telling me all about what was going on, and I said, You know what, I’m so glad.
What do you mean you’re glad? I said, Because I see exactly what God’s doing in your life.
And the person with the exhortation, they welcome that.
And so, if they tell you, for example, well, what you’re going through is really good and you’re just having a fit over the whole thing, you just wanna walk away, they understand that God does what?
He prunes, He sands, He sculptures, He gets out the chainsaw sometime, if necessary.
He works on us, and oftentimes what does He do? Getting our attention. What does He wanna do?
He wants to grow us up.
And He knows, listen, He knows, for example, let’s say that, uh, you have a beautiful apple tree.
I mean, it’s luscious with apples and I mean, very fruitful.
And you just say, well, it did fine last year. It didn’t leave it like that this year.
It did fine last year and the year before that and you never prune it.
You cease pruning, quality goes down. Well, mark it down.
In the Christian life, if He doesn’t keep us pruned, you know what happens. Then you know what?
The fruit of our life also degenerates.
And so, God is in the process of doing that so that the growth process in the Christian life deals with hardship, trial, pain, persecution, rejection, and all the rest.
And the person who has the gift of exhortation knows, takes that and turns it into something good by helping that person realize.
Now listen, God still loves you, He still cares for you, He has a purpose for you, He wants to work in your life.
Give Him the privilege and give Him the opportunity of doing so.
So, sometimes when you’re complaining about something, you need to ask yourself the question, God, trying to get my attention?
What area of my life do You want me to look at?
What is it you’re trying to say to me that I don’t understand?
And sometimes I’m gonna blame it on somebody else.
And you see, as long as you blame, as long as you blame these things or most anything on someone else, you’ll never face it.
I said, we know this about our children, but sometime we don’t wanna practice the same truth.
That is, as long as you blame what’s happening on God or someone else, then you’re not gonna see the root problem.
And you see, here’s what happens to so many marriages.
So many marriages break up because somebody is not willing to see they have a root problem they will not deal with.
I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t tell me about it. Don’t give me that.
I, no time to discuss it. When people quit talking, before long it’s gonna be all over.
So, you have to be willing to face the root cause. Why do I do what I do?
Why am I feeling these feelings? And why do I act the way I act towards You?
And why do I respond to people? There’s something going on.
Must be willing to look at it, must, listen, must be take the necessary steps, and if you’re willing to do that, God can take care of anything, if we’re willing.
Then, of course, that person, uh, the exhorter desires not to write you a letter or call you on the phone.
The exhorter wants to see you face to face. They wanna look into your eyes.
They want to see your responses.
They love, listen, they love not being critical, but they love to see how you respond when you say, Do you think there could be some root cause for this?
And they can tell, listen, an exaltor can tell in a split second, faster than that, they’ll watch you react.
They’ll watch you react right here, right in your eyes because you cannot, listen, if there’s a slight bit of hesitation or rebellion or objection to what they say, it’s written all over your face, you cannot hide it.
And if you respond in the right way and you say, That’s right, very evident.
So, the person who has the gift of exhortation desires to talk face to face.
They want to see how you’re responding because, listen, they want to see growth.
And so, you come back to them and you, uh, or they come to you and they talk to you again.
And this time, your response is totally different than the person with the gift of exhortation is encouraged because they see some growth.
They see this desire. They see this hunger.
Maybe the first time you talked, uh, you just said, You know what, not interested.
I wanna talk to you, but don’t give me any steps today.
Then the next time or 2 or 3 times later, they’ll say, you know, now, what was that step 1 you tried to give me?
They see it, they feel it, and the person who gave their exhortation, very encouraged.
And so, the church needs lots of exhorters because the truth is all of us need some.
I have a person who is my very, very dearest friend, and that is, um, he is 1,000 percent exhortation, 1,000%.
He happens to be trained in that area, but it just happens to be, by the grace of God, uh, that that’s his spiritual gift.
And it’s amazing how intuitive they can be.
For example, he will ask me a question once in a while and I’ll say to him, Why did you ask me that?
You know exactly what I’m gonna say. And he just laughs because the, it’s the truth.
And you see, everybody needs an exhorter in their life. I don’t care who you are.
If you think you’re above and beyond at all, then you got a mixed stake coming.
Everybody needs someone that you can talk to, you can listen to, you can share your heart with, and if that person happens to have the gift of exhortation, you have a jewel, You have a treasure because they’re gonna make themselves available.
They love to see you grow. This person is such an encourager to me.
And sometimes when I’m saying, here’s what I’ve been praying about and just asking God to show me about this.
Well, you know, also the exhorter, oftentimes when the 2 of you are close, God will lay upon that person’s heart what you’re praying about, and when you talk to them, you know what, they’ll already know it.
They’ll already know it, especially if they’re a praying person.
God delights in using exhorters to encourage us because that’s what an exhorter is ultimately.
They’re an encourager, not a condemner, not a judger, but a person who desires to encourage.
Now, if you’re living uptight and you’ve got this wall up and you’ve pulled the shade down, nobody’s gonna get to you.
All you’re doing is committing spiritual suicide because you know what?
God’s gonna break this out one way or the other.
He’s going to come at us one way or the other in love to help us to understand that when we humble ourselves before truth and we humble ourselves before one another, God is going to honor that.
And so, everybody needs an exhorter.
Now, what you’re not to do after this service is to run out and tell one of your friends, Well, I decided today that I’m an exhorter, so you better listen to me from now.
No, no, that won’t work. Because you see, if you’re walking in the Spirit, number 1, you’re not gonna do that.
The exaltor takes great delight, great delight in watching a person grow and desires to see that face to face.
Now, likewise, um, that person desires to gain spiritual insights themselves through experiences in their life.
And so, if you were to say to the um, exhorter, well now, what about you?
The exhorter knows that this is the way you learn spiritual principles.
The exhorter knows that this is the way you grow, by personal experience.
And the truth is, you think about this, when you go to someone or if you were going through some problem, some heartache, uh, would you, for example, go to someone who could only tell you what they read in the book?
No, you would not. You want to hear from somebody who’s been there, somebody who’s hurt like you’ve hurt, somebody who’s been through something that’s been trying and difficult and hardship in their lives.
And you wanna hear them be open, and the exhorter will be open because they wanna get involved in your life.
Not the, not the pry for being, uh, nosy, but they wanna get involved in your life to help you grow.
Remember, their whole motivation is to help you grow up, help you to grow.
And the truth is, every pastor really ought to, ought to be an exhorter, not necessarily happen to have that special gift.
But remember this, the truth is all of us have a unique gift, but all of us also have some qualities and some characteristics that are true of the other gift.
I certainly do wanna be an exhorter, and there are many things about this that are part of the way I think. I wanna see you grow up.
That’s what I’m doing week after week after week. I wanna see you grow up.
So, I’m there thinking and asking God to show me how to deal with this and so that, uh, I can show someone else how to deal with this.
And so, we’re all growing leap by, uh, just a little leap here and a big leap here and a just a inch or so here, depends on what people are going through.
Well, you think in your home, you need to be exhorting for those things that, uh, help each other grow up?
And so, God needs all of us to have some bit of that quality within our life.
And when I think about how that works and think about the fact that the person who is an exhorter is willing to go through difficulty, hardship, and trial, what does it do?
It equips us, and you know this.
Listen, the more you’ve been through, the more God has done in your life, the more He’s worked in your life.
And you may have been through some very, very tough times. You know what part of it is?
God’s equipping process. Equipping you, may not be your spiritual gift, but He’s equipping you to help somebody else in the body of Christ or somebody who’s unsaved.
That’s the way God, that’s, He says, all of these gifts, He says, employ it for the good of the whole body.
So, think about tough times you’ve been through. Think about disappointments you’ve had. Think about times of discouragement.
Think about times when you were rebellious toward God.
Think about times when He has forgiven you and you just thank God, how could You ever forgive me?
All of that has equipped you to do what? To pour your life into somebody else’s life.
And I think about people who live a very selfish and self centered and capsule life.
That’s what I think about it.
They go to work in the morning and they come home and they do their thing.
And then you get up next morning and they do the same thing 5 or 6 days a week.
On the weekend, they just all closed up whether it’s watching TV or whatever.
What about the rest of the world?
What about people out there who would need you, people who want to fellowship with you, people you need to fellowship, people you need to pray about, people you need to give yourself away to.
Selfishness doesn’t fit. Capsule Living doesn’t fit who we are as the children of God.
And so, the person with the gift of exhortation, giving themselves away, unselfish in every way.
And you see, the personal gift of exhortation’s very strong.
When they give us steps, these are the steps.
Now, if you follow these steps, here’s what you can expect. But if you don’t, here’s what you can expect.
Very important. And so the personal gift of exhortation is strong in that way for that reason.
Then, of course, uh, they desire to bring harmony, uh, between people and between groups.
A personal exhortation, they’re not divisive. And so, the way they operate, remember, is spiritual growth.
And they know that spiritual growth is best accomplished where there’s harmony, well, between you and the person you’re talking to, or bringing harmony in your family, or bringing harmony between you and somebody you work with.
And so, that’s very, very much a part of their thinking.
And that is the whole idea of bringing harmony to different people.
Then of course, with the gift of, uh, exhortation is the characteristic of what makes them the happiest.
What makes the person as the gift of exhortation the most joyous?
When they see you taking those precise steps and watching God work in your life and watching Him change you and watching how God is bringing about a change of attitude, therefore a change of action?
What’s happening in your family? What’s happening where you work?
In other words, one of the great characteristics of the exhorter is what makes them happy is very simple, watching us grow up in our walk with God.
Now, how are these exhorters misunderstood? And they are misunderstood. Well, let’s think about it for a moment.
First of all, the overemphasis, at least in their idea, there’s this overemphasis on steps of action that appear to be on oversimplification.
Now, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that if I take this step and this and this, that God’s gonna bring me through this?
Absolutely. So, to them, that’s oversimplification. In other words, it can’t be that simple.
For example, how many people have I talked to and probably you have, and you talk to them about being saved, and here’s what you say.
You say, this is how you get saved. This is how God brings about your salvation.
You acknowledge that the Word of God is true.
You acknowledge that Jesus Christ went to the cross, died on the cross for your sin, paid your sin debt in full, and then you accept Him by faith as your personal basis of what He’s done.
That’s the reason He’s forgiven you because He died for you.
You ask Him to come into your life and save you, and He does.
And how many times people say, Well, it can’t be that easy. That’s too easy.
And how many times people say, Well, it can’t be that easy. That’s too easy.
Now, the reason they respond that way is because they want to help God out.
They want to believe in Jesus, plus they want to do certain things because you know why they wanna do certain things?
Makes them feel good, makes them feel like they had a part in it.
It can’t be so simple that God does it all. And the bottom line is that it’s pride.
I want to do my share and get them saved. Now, their share is works.
But But then when you start asking them some questions, they get confused.
For example, you say, well now, uh, you want to sort of work? How long are you gonna work?
And they’ll say, well, I guess the rest of my life. Well, that’s not gonna work, you know.
In other words, if it’s gonna take you the rest of your life to get saved, suppose you die in an accident suddenly.
And so the truth is, it’s more than, in other words, it is simple in a way, but when you look at the whole complexity, the whole atoning plan of God, it’s a complex thing.
But my responsibility is simple. Am I willing to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sins?
Not on the basis that I’m gonna do this, that, and the other, but on the basis that He died from and He in other words, all the work was done at Calvary.
2000 years ago, He did all the work. He died in my place.
And now I’m to accept Him as my personal Savior and to believe in my heart my sins are forgiven.
Well, I’m sure that’s I talked to somebody this week, told me the first thing, Well, I yeah, I hear you, Pastor, I hear you.
Well, the truth is that’s the way it is.
But one of the ways the, one of the ways the exhort is misunderstood is too simple, too simple.
And now some steps are not very simple, but they want to say, well, that’s just too simple.
Then, of course, that is, um, urging a person to take these steps and, um, and to follow your leadership and your guidance, uh, seems to be overconfidence in your steps.
Oh, you mean, in other words, you seem to be very confident that if I do this, this will happen.
Well, that’s true. Well, now, why is the exhorter so confident? Because he’s been there or she’s been there.
They have watched this in other people’s lives.
They know the principles of scripture that say here’s what happens, cause and effect, the consequences of these things, and so therefore, it isn’t oversimplification.
And not only is it not oversimplification, but it’s not a matter that we are overconfident.
We just know that when a person takes wise steps in their life, whatever they’re facing, they’re gonna be tremendously, listen, tremendously victorious blessings that come as a result.
So, the person who balks at the exhorter needs to stop and think.
Well, how’s it worked in their life, worked in their life?
And this is why the exhorter oftentimes is very prone to point out, not some individual that you may know, but it could be, and how God has worked in other people’s lives because they want you to understand that these are principles and not just something that somebody Abraham’s life or Joseph’s life or David’s life or Peter or Paul or whatever.
Very, very important that we understand that. Then, of course, the desire to win non Christians.
The desire to win non Christians by saying, listen, it’s the life you live before them.
Well, how they misunderstand? Well, you’re not very evangelistic.
You’re just telling me that I can lead somebody to Christ by living a godly life.
That’s not the only way, but what the exhorter who is interested in growing you up and growing me up, what they’re interested in is, listen, our growth and what the exhorter’s simply saying is this, as you grow in your Christian life, people are gonna see how God is working in your life, and they’re gonna want the same Christ that you have.
When they get in a crisis, they’re coming to you and you have the wonderful privilege of explaining to them how God worked in your life.
So, it’s not a matter of just oversimplification. It isn’t a matter of them being unevangelistic.
They can be very evangelistic, but that’s the exhorter’s approach.
And so, somehow folks, some folks don’t get that. They say, Well, you know what?
You’re just, uh, you’re not very evangelistic.
Then on the other hand, that person may turn around and say, well, you know, I realize that, uh, maybe your approach is right, and that is, uh, you’ve gotta work on this whole thing of spiritual growth.
And so, because they do that, uh, they get misunderstood.
And then on the other hand, for example, when, uh, they desire to win people by a person’s life.
People don’t understand that. And so the truth is, the exhorter is just doing what his drive is.
For example, an evangelistic person. Let’s take, for example, like Billy Graham.
And he’s, listen, Billy Graham can preach a simple message, give an invitation, Spirit of God just falls all over the place, falls all over the place.
How many people come down the aisle, it’s not because it’s Him, it’s because God, He has the gift of an evangelist.
That’s His ministry. And so, if I got up and said the same thing He did, probably not much would happen.
You know why? Probably not much would happen, because that’s his ministry.
That’s what God called him to do. God didn’t call me to be an evangelist. I’m glad He didn’t.
He called me to, listen, to teach the truth of the Word of God, to teach it both to believers and to unbelievers.
Now, you can’t put one above the other.
All the gifts that God gave, they’re all equal in God’s eyes.
He just calls us all to do something different.
And so, one expects you to do something that God hasn’t called you to do, and sometimes people who do what God’s called them to do, they’re misunderstood because their motive is right, and some people can do it very wisely, very carefully, very successfully.
And when a person is trying to act out of their gift, or it’s not their gift, and that is not, in other words, you say, Well, shouldn’t everybody win people to Jesus?
Well, my answer is yes. The way God uses and works in your life to do it, and it won’t be the same in everybody’s life.
And so, the exhorter, of course, they desire that you and I become godly and walk godly in such a fashion that people would be attracted to Jesus’ buyers.
It doesn’t mean that they’re not evangelistic. It’s just their approach is not the same.
Then of course, sometimes they’re misunderstood because they’ll accuse us of using Scripture for personal application and to say, Well, you know what, that’s not what it says.
Now watch this carefully. In First Corinthians, for example, chapter 10 and, uh, verse 11, listen to what Paul says here because it’s, it’s so perfect about what we’re talking about.
Somebody says, Well, you know what, God didn’t say that to us. Now listen carefully.
Through the Holy Spirit, God had men pen the truth of what we call the Word of God, which is what it is.
Now, they wrote to the people of their day.
Now you say, well, if they wrote to the people of their day, it doesn’t apply to us.
Yes, it does. Now listen to Paul. Listen to what he says. He’s writing to the Corinthian church.
Now these things happened to them, he just gave a bunch of examples of what had happened to Israel.
These things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction. Now listen to Paul.
Paul said, God in the Old Testament worked in the lives of the nation of Israel and the things that are written in the Old Testament were, listen, were written to them but written for our instruction.
Well, so it is in the New Testaments as well as the Old Testament. Was it written to us?
No. It was written to them, but it was written also for us.
So therefore, you and I take scriptures and we apply them because they’re principles. Now watch this.
If it was some ceremonial act of sacrifice, God isn’t expecting us to perform sacrifices.
But here’s a principle, forgive even as your Father has forgiven you through Jesus Christ.
That’s a principle. I can’t change it? It’s the principle of God.
Well, just because Paul wrote that to the Ephesians, does that mean that I can’t apply it to my life?
No, he wrote it to them, never even thinking about the possibility of the 21st century.
He wrote it to them. But listen, what God had Paul write to the Ephesians and Colossians and Philippians and Corinthians and Galatians and all the rest, in other words, Romans, He also meant for it to be written for us so that a person says, well, you’re just taking scripture out of context.
No, we’re not, Not taking it out of context.
We’re taking the principles of the Word of God and applying them to our life.
And one of those principles happened to be forgiveness.
One of those principles, for example, has to do with prayer, and that is that verse after verse after verse about prayer has to do with faith.
You’ve got to link the 2 together.
Ask and it shall be given, you seek and you shall find is one of those verses, or one, or many.
But He says, for example, What things have you desired when you pray?
Believe that you have received them, and it will be granted to you.
This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, we know, uh, He’s gonna hear us.
And if we know that He hears us, we know that we’ll have the petition that we desired of Him.
It’s believing Him, trusting. Principle after principle after principle.
Well, the exhorter knows how absolutely essential it is that you and I apply Scripture.
For example, again, the 23rd Psalm, we all quote that.
And, uh, somebody says, well, that, that wasn’t written to us. No, it wasn’t. God gave it to David.
But, oh, how have we, we have applied it to our hearts when we’ve gone through difficulty and hardship in our life.
The person with the gift of exhortation sometimes is accused of taking, uh, Scripture out of context.
That’s not what they’re doing at all.
What they’re doing is saying, here’s a principle of Scripture, and if you will apply this through your life, here’s what will happen.
But sometimes that misunderstanding is evident.
Then of course, there’s the, um, emphasis on steps of action that may cause that person to feel like, well, I’m just a project.
You’re just, I’m just another one of your projects. No, they just happen to know that steps are essential.
And we’re not using you as a project, and nor are we giving you steps so that you think that we have to have fast results.
It’s a misunderstanding of the person who has that gift.
And so, when I think about that, I think about oftentimes, um, people have feelings, and, uh, they only want to talk to people who have this same kind of feeling they have, that is, the feeling that, um, will you understand me?
And instead of bringing any correction, they just want you to listen without changing.
But that’s not the way the exhorter’s gonna think. The exhorter’s gonna think this way. You know what?
I’m willing for you to hurt if necessary to grow you up.
Now, sometime that gets a little sticky. But here’s what you have to ask yourself.
Do I want their acceptance more than I want to see them grow up?
This is what gets parents in trouble. They can’t stand the kids’ rejection. So what do they do?
They agree with things they know are not right.
Let them do things they know are not right cause they can’t stand the rejection of their children.
So who suffers the most? The children they grow up doing, what, get in their way.
When the parent has got to be willing to suffer rejection, hardship, criticism, you name it, But they owe it to their children to tell the truth.
And one thing you’ll find in the exhorter, they’re gonna tell you the truth.
And you may even have to hurt, but they’re willing to let you hurt if necessary to help you to grow up.
Now, I’ve said that before and I’ll say it again because I feel very strongly that that’s something that needs to be etched into our thinking.
A person who loves you dearly, and every gift of exhortation, your feelings, while they understand your feelings are not going to result in them violating a principle so you’ll feel good or telling you something that’s not true so you won’t reject them.
They’re not concerned about the feeling. They’re concerned about growing us up.
And you see, the truth is that’s our protection.
Now, how does this person act when they’re in the spirit and how do they act when they’re in the flesh?
Well, all of these, uh, gifts have the same reaction.
That is, we all act a certain way, whether it’s a prophet, servant, teacher, giving, uh, mercy, administration and maintenance, what it is.
We act a certain way when we’re in the Spirit, that’s when we’re the most profitable.
That’s when we’re the most successful in whatever we do. We get in the flesh, listen to what happens.
Well, first of all, the exhorter, when the exhorter is in the spirit, they’re very wise.
Wisdom is one of their qualities. Very wise in what they suggest and what they do not suggest.
Knowing exactly where you are in your life, very wise. When they’re in the flesh, you know what?
They just operate on the basis of their natural inclinations.
And all of it, listen, all of us have what Paul calls in the King James carnality, or, uh, in other versions, the flesh.
And the truth is, it’s our naturalness. This is what we came in the world with.
This is how you naturally act apart from God.
And so what happens with the exhorter, when, you know, that person’s in the flesh, they’re just acting within their naturalness.
Then of course, uh, when they’re in the spirit, they have discernment.
They have the ability to penetrate into a person’s heart and understand and see what’s going on.
When they get in the flesh, they’re just judgmental. And, uh, being discerning is one thing.
Being judgmental is something else. And so, the discerning spirit is able to convey what the issues are in a loving way.
Judgmental says, you know, you get your act together.
The third is this, they operate in faith when they’re in the spirit, and otherwise, they’re just presumptuous.
It isn’t a matter of trusting God, they just presume.
And so in the flesh, we’re not very profitable in the work of the Lord.
Then likewise, discretion, being very discreet about what they say, what they don’t say, how they go about it.
And, uh, in the flesh, they’re just simple minded.
They say things that they should not say, go about in ways they should not go about it.
Likewise, when a gift of exhortation is walking in the Spirit, love is overwhelming to them.
They’re loving people, loving the person they’re talking with, which makes them sensitive to where this other person is.
And then, of course, when they’re not, when they’re not, um, loving in their spirit, they can just be as selfish as and indifferent as they can be.
Because you see, that’s what Satan does in a person’s life. When you get in the flesh, makes us what?
When you look at these, natural inclination, judgment, presumptuous, single-minded, uh, selfishness, and then of course, they can be very creative on the one hand, in the spirit, in the flesh, under achievement.
You know what? When you talk to somebody and the negative is there, you’re not gonna listen to them and certainly not gonna follow their directions.
And of course, enthusiasm. When a person has a gift of exhortation and they’re walking in the Spirit, they’re enthusiastic.
You know why? They’re watching people grow. They’re involved in this person’s life. They’re encouraging this person.
And then when they’re not in the spirit, walking their flesh, they’re just apathetic. They don’t even care.
Now, in every single gift is how you operate in the spirit, how you operate in the flesh.
All of us could say at some time that all these, all these fleshly things in every single gift, we could all be guilty of some of that.
If we’re walking in the Spirit, we will not. Now, you think about this.
The Apostle Paul was an exhorter. He gave himself to exhorting people to live a godly life.
Now remember this, the Bible says that He gave you that spiritual gift for one primary reason, not to make you happy, not to make you successful, not to make you accepted, but to give yourself away to someone else.
So I want to challenge you to do something. I want to challenge you to ask God.
You don’t happen to have, you may not have this particular gift, but ask God to make you very, very sensitive to the people you work around, people you live around, your friends, maybe the folks you go to school with.
Make you very sensitive to the people around you.
And if there’s somebody that He wants you to speak to, that He would give you the discernment to speak to that person, a word of encouragement in some fashion.
Now, here’s what He’ll do. He’ll take your word of encouragement to that person.
You may think it fell on deaf ears, but God will use that oftentimes, many times, most of the time in some way that will open the door for you to speak to them another word of encouragement.
Or it may be that He brings them back to you, And the next thing you know, you have become a vessel through whom God is speaking to a person who’s deep into something they should not be in, deeply divided in their mind, fragmented in their thinking, going through some trial and some big temptation in their life, And He’s using you to do what?
To help them understand there’s a better way.
And it may be that God is using you to prevent them from making a mistake that could destroy their life.
You see, too often, we are so single-minded and so focused on what we want, when we want it, and how we can get it, and that’s all that matters, that we miss out on why God gave us these gifts.
So whatever gift you have, I challenge you to watch how God will use you in a single person’s life if you will pray that prayer.
Amen? Amen. Father, how grateful we are that though You’ve given us all different gifts, You’ve also given us all wondrous opportunities to be a blessing in somebody’s life, to be the roadblock that keeps them from destroying their life, to be that signpost along the way that points them in a better direction, to be that voice above all over voices that they hear that catches their attention and causes them to stop and think and turn their life over to You.
I pray the Spirit of God will grant each person who hears this challenge the courage to live this week sensitive, open, available, ready.
It may be just ready to listen or to speak or simply to love them in some way is my prayer in Jesus’ name, amen.